I designed all the early reflections myself using delay sends
https://soundcloud.com/ryanjhollenbeck/ryan-hollenbeck-shine-bright
Creative, but kinda taking the long way around, isn't it?
For my ear, there's not enough bass guitar, especially in the chorus, and the snare could pop a lot better, this groove kinda demands a solid backbeat. I didn't hear any of the earlier versions, and don't know anything about the acquisition history.
There seems to be sort of a 1-2KHz "wall of sound" thing happening when it gets loud, too. I think it's the density of the background vocals and the fact that they sound so similar to the lead (it being the same person); but you can do things to differentiate it. If it were me, I'd be doing the following:
1) Cut back on the early reflections by about 20%, and I'd dry it out in general just a little. It's a lovely sounding reverb, but there's a disconnect between the lead vox and the rest of the band in terms of patina.
2) Bump the bass guitar up in the mix (at least during the chorus, maybe some automation like a volume envelope to make that happen), and add some 4Khz to give it some more definition.
3) Nudge the snare up in the mix too, 1.5-2dB at least, and fatten it up a little (125Hz)
4) Cut some of the midrange (500Hz-2KHz) out of the backup vocals, leaving their edge in so they still cut and make themselves present, but so that they don't quite take over the sound field so thoroughly.
5) The backup vocals in the 2nd verse are too big, they jump out in front of the lead too much.
6) There's a tiny little B3 sound happening in the final fade that I didn't even know was in the song till then; let that organ be heard somewhere!
7) The heavy midrange stuff I mentioned is mostly on the right side, and it makes the whole mix lean to the right a tad.
Things I like:
1) The imaging, especially the drums
2) The kick drum is solid, clean, just the right decay and a nice thump.
3) The slide resonator guitar dancing in and out
4) The solid performances all around.
A lot of this is subjective/taste related. The mix is mostly clean.
)
The ER thing (making it on my own) was taught to me by Kevin Doyle and I can't argue with a man who mixes Yo Yo Ma, Andrea Bocelli, Kiss, and Van Morrison
You can bet that Mr. Doyle probably doesn't use that trick on everything he does. only the stuff that needs it.
Creative, but kinda taking the long way around, isn't it?
For my ear, there's not enough bass guitar, especially in the chorus, and the snare could pop a lot better, this groove kinda demands a solid backbeat. I didn't hear any of the earlier versions, and don't know anything about the acquisition history.
There seems to be sort of a 1-2KHz "wall of sound" thing happening when it gets loud, too. I think it's the density of the background vocals and the fact that they sound so similar to the lead (it being the same person); but you can do things to differentiate it. If it were me, I'd be doing the following:
1) Cut back on the early reflections by about 20%, and I'd dry it out in general just a little. It's a lovely sounding reverb, but there's a disconnect between the lead vox and the rest of the band in terms of patina.
2) Bump the bass guitar up in the mix (at least during the chorus, maybe some automation like a volume envelope to make that happen), and add some 4Khz to give it some more definition.
3) Nudge the snare up in the mix too, 1.5-2dB at least, and fatten it up a little (125Hz)
4) Cut some of the midrange (500Hz-2KHz) out of the backup vocals, leaving their edge in so they still cut and make themselves present, but so that they don't quite take over the sound field so thoroughly.
5) The backup vocals in the 2nd verse are too big, they jump out in front of the lead too much.
6) There's a tiny little B3 sound happening in the final fade that I didn't even know was in the song till then; let that organ be heard somewhere!
7) The heavy midrange stuff I mentioned is mostly on the right side, and it makes the whole mix lean to the right a tad.
Things I like:
1) The imaging, especially the drums
2) The kick drum is solid, clean, just the right decay and a nice thump.
3) The slide resonator guitar dancing in and out
4) The solid performances all around.
A lot of this is subjective/taste related. The mix is mostly clean.
@Llarion; I just thought you were some noob when you first came here. I was wrong! lol.
A very detailed critique of the issues in this mix. I agree with most everything you outlined.
Very cool.
I took about a 3 year hiatus, because I didn't have any new material to offer, and at the time I stopped, things had gotten a little bit generally hostile in here. I'm not about hostile; I'd rather give someone feeback that will actually help them. But, I'm back; there are lots of new tunes to hear, some old friends are still around too! I've been playing for about 40 years, recording for about 30... You'll find that I will always be accentuating the positives, and focusing critiques on things that can actually be changed in the mix. And since this forum is about the mix, you'll rarely find me critiquing performance or songwriting, unless the performance is in some way detrimental to the production. I don't do this for a living (if wishing made it true); but I'm fairly experienced, and if you listen to my material, you'll see that I try very hard to practice what I preach. Just because something is cool, and you CAN do it, doesn't always mean you SHOULD do it. Everything is about context...
Surprisingly enough he swears by it. He just chooses to make his own early reflections instead of using plug in early reflections and it's really not to difficult. You make an aux for the reverb obviously but you send the vocal to a delay aux first and then send from the delay buss (pre fade) to the reverb aux. It has to be a stereo delay (to represent reflections off two walls) and the delays have to fall between 15-100ms with both sides having at least 15ms difference or you'll get a weird phasy, flangy thing going on. Sounds really freaking good on most things but he doesn't do it on vocals for the most part.
I think the idea behind this trick is to give you another level of control over your reverb tones, everything else he just does in the plug other than the ER. Give it a whirl!
I hope you don't mind if I bug ya with more mixes because you certainly know your stuff my friend
Of course, I'm happy to help that's what this forum is about. Are you going to drop the new mix in here for us to hear too?I made the changes you suggested and the mix is sounding much better
