The finished product.

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sonusman

sonusman

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Well, here it is, for better or worse.

This mix was a collaboration between me and the studio owner who is also the lead guitar player in the band. He contributed a lot of killer ideas concerning effects and enhancements to the instruments (sorry, these are "secret" at this time until I can play with them a bit more....;)).

I don't think we will be doing much in mastering. Maybe a dB of boost and some low mids added. MAYBE!!! My ears are very tired from working on this mix for about 8 hours today, and 7 hours yesterday. Even with great tools and automation, mixes just take a long time to do well.



Please feel free to comment good and bad. I am not happy about everything in this mix, but it is pretty solid.

Enjoy.

Ed
 
one word, two sylabbles and a couple more

HECK YEAH!!!

The push mixes sounded very good. This sounds way better.
The vocals are upfront where they sound cool.

The snare at the beginning was a little bit loud on these sonys, but it was nice in the mix

THe harmony was the right level.

THe guitar solo in the middle sounded a little bit hollow. the kick sounded a little beat weak

All in all, this is a great song mix by you that I won't mind using as reference.

I really dig the space you put the instruments in.Can you please tell me what kind of reverb u used and what settings, epecially on the vocals and the synth

thanks
 
Mastering, smastering...just run it thru a Behringer Sonic Maximizer....thats what the big boys do....

Guitar tones rock......vocals were clean and clear....everything seemed to be in just the right place.....

Well done...
 
mix itself is very nice, but the song is way overproduced. It sounds phony in a way. But, the mix, which is all that matters, is tasty. It's probably just me, but I would like a little more bass drum. Maybe not more volume, but maybe more definition. Other than that, I be diggin.
 
sonusman,
cool song man, everything sounds awsome to me,intersting guitar effects in the begining,nice work,
-Andrew
 
is this a "cover" or an "orignal" song, i could almost swear i've heard this song before...
 
It is a Roxette cover tune the band was doing to fill out their set, as they have only been together for 3 months and don't have quite enough original material to satisfy promoters for a club gig. A local DJ wanted this on tape to put on the air.

I don't like this mix at all! It is the coldest, harshest, thinest sounding thing I have ever posted. It is also the first full digital recording I have ever done (mixed through a Yamaha O2R, via the ADAT XT 20's).

One of the very first problems: We used a POD on the drums to try to get them to crack a bit more. The problem is that the cymbal bleed on the tracks goes to the POD too, and with all that open hi-hat work, the cymbals are just cranking all over the place in that 3-8KHz region.


Also, we used a little ditty of an effect on the Eventide Harmonizer that is a dual pitch shift, stereo widener thingy. Too much of it. It managed to thin things out too much, which we wanted a bit of on the beginning keyboard stuff, but the other engineer started running EVERYTHING through it. My first instinct was that the mix started getting really cold, but not being totally used to his room, I trusted that he would know when it got out of hand. I should have trusted my ears. It would seem that the control monitors translate very well indeed because I was not surprised at all that the whole recording took on a thin, sort of harsh sound after these two effects were applied.

I am going back this week to remix it again. Should only take about 4 hours to fix everything.

One thing I noticed about digital mixing though in general. The more channels you use, the colder sounding it gets. Too much stuff to dither!

An analog console tends to start getting more "round" sounding with more channels used. The exact opposite of a digital mixer!

When we mix the bands CD later this summer, it WILL NOT be through a cheap ass digital mixer like the O2R! I will install my Ghost in his studio if need be to assure that I have great eq's and can use analog dynamic processing (another limitation of the O2R!).

This mix is just too much digital!

But thanks for the feedback guys. And by the way mikemoritz, I totally agree. Again, I am trying to get used to this studios system, and am still a bit tentative about getting big low end. The kick definately needs a more "rounded" sound to it.

Ed
 
While I was listening, I was wondering why the sound didn't have more muscle, cuz you love doing that in a mix - I thought that although everything fitted together really, really well, that it was really bright overall. I was thinking if this song was porn, it would be one of those shots with all the bright lights on, and I was going to say something like 'that's cool, but a bit of shadow and innuendo is really erotic sometimes too.' (I really like the way they do this tune, by the way - three months together only and tight as tight can be - impressive.) Interesting what you said about the difference mixing digitally instead of analogue. How about this - mixing analogue is like an oyster making a pearl.

"I've never heard a three- or four-day mix that sounded any good." -Mitchell Froom, quoted in Behind the Glass by Howard Massey. How come you took two days to mix it? Because you were trying new stuff out?
 
Actually dobro, it was only a 1 day mix over two days. I usually just work straight through on a mix for up to 14-16 hours if need be. But I could have finished this mix in 8 hours had I been familiar with the console a bit more, and had some pre production to work on effects. So yes, it took that many hours because I was trying out many new approaches. Some of them work, some don't, thus, the time spent was a tremendous learning experience, and this whole song falls under "pre-production" for the bands up coming CD recording this summer. I will probably spend a lot more time on this song, and a couple off their last CD to continue to learn the studio better. I am thinking also of just bringing in the singer to play with vocals a lot more. He tracked so fast that I didn't get a feel for how well he can work a mic, and have versatile he can be.

I would be careful of general comments that named producer/engineers make that suggest NOT going after what you want. I think what he may have meant in that comment is that it is easy to loose perspective and kill a mix with too much time spent. But certainly, there are sonic masterpieces that have took several days to mix.

I have yet to post any songs off the bands last CD yet, but I think when I do, you will hear the talent in these guys. The singer is a very solid songwriter. With some of the connections this band has, a label deal is a good possibility. I suspect that although my work may not be used of a big label release if they get signed, it will be HEARD, and I want to make sure that I get it done well.....:)

Ed
 
"I would be careful of general comments that named producer/engineers make that suggest NOT going after what you want. I think what he may have meant in that comment is that it is easy to loose perspective and kill a mix with too much time spent. But certainly, there are sonic masterpieces that have took several days to mix."

Yeah, I was sparking ideas. That Howard Massey book is great, btw. And good luck with that band - they sound like they're on a rise.
 
Okay, lemme flesh this idea out a bit. Here's Al Schmitt, from the same book: "I mix fast, so I can usually do a couple of mixes a day; I've done as many as four five in a day on jazz albums." And Arif Mardin: "Usually I spend two or three days on a bsic track, then maybe a day for vocal overdubs, then a day and a half for a mix. I usually mix two songs in three days."

Here's what I read into all this... They know what sound they want, and they have lots of experience in knowing how to get that sound, so they can work fast.

Here's something I'm guessing about... It's legitimate to spend more time than that on a mix if you don't know what you're doing (if you're experimenting, for example), but it increases the chances of screwing it up. It's like cooking - cooking things too long ruins them.

Here's what reminded me of all this in your experience: you spent two days on this mix, and you didn't like the result so much. Maybe that was because you were still learning techniques that take time to master, or maybe that was just because you started spending too much time on it, and didn't hear what was happening with all that digital mixing going on. I'm not taking shots; I'm trying to learn from what you're learning.

The lesson I'd draw from all this - dobro, don't spend that much time on a mix - get in, get out, quit screwing about.
 
Sorry, just not so dobro.

In the old Echo Star rig, I could mix fast! I KNEW what that room sounded like, and I KNEW what the equipment was capable of. And please, QUIT putting "facts" into your posts in response. I DID NOT spend two days mixing this. I spent a day over two days. There IS a difference. Total time on this mix? 14 hours. 4 hours shy of the most time I have spent on a mix. Figure 6 of those hours just trying different things with a console that I am not very familiar with, and which doesn't tend to "compliment" sound very well, and you really have a 8 hour mix.

But above is being defensive isn't it? :) The band is VERY happy with this mix. A producer that I have worked with a lot thought it was killer!

I may just be moving above that level in my dissatisfaction with the mix. Who knows. The mix just bugs me.

More time on a mix is not such a bad thing always. Possibly the two finest sounding products I ever mixed were The Heavy Brothers, and Sky Blue Mind (the Secret Heart mp3 that many really dug). On both of those CD's, I spent between 8 and 16 hours mixing per song.

As far as "mastering techniques", I don't think that is quite the case. Mixing a big production is like taming a big pool of jello! It wiggles. It falls apart. It squishes between your fingers. But once it starts to set up, you can make it do what you want it to do.

Spend as much time as you need to get the sound you want, IF it is possible with the tracks you recorded. Yes, experience will shorten the process. But when a big time engineer must spend a day and a half mixing a song, I don't feel so bad....:) Jazz mixes are relatively easy in comparison to industrial pop rock. I could turn out 3 or 4 mixes a day of Jazz. The Porterhouse stuff averaged about 5 hours per mix. One of the songs was mixed in about 3 hours! The nature of the music didn't demand as much control over the mix as this song does.

I can mix this song better. I may need a different mixer and dynamic processing, but I think I can do better on the O2R even.

Ed
 
The only thing in this song that keeps buggin' me is dude's voice. Not necessarily his VOICE, but his timing. He jumps before the beat, after the beat, on the beat... especially shananana (feels rushed), and the verses, where each syllable sounds too long or short for him to "fit" in there. Anybody else hear that?

Other than that, cool. Was the pulsing keyboard at the beginning programmed (original from keyboard), or did you run a pulse (either voice or added pulse) with a sweeping EQ? Jus' wonderin, it sounds really good.
 
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