Two Mixes I am working on.

dogooder

dogooder

Well-known member
Original tunes. I had the drum tracks and base lines done by other band members. We stopped the project about six years ago I guess, and I have tracks on the hard drive we never worked on.
These two were scratch tracks, one an instrumental, that just had drums, bass, scratch rhythm guitar and a scratch vocal. I am working on fleshing them out. I am not a keyboard player but I had to fill in. I played everything but the drums and bass. The vocal in the one track was the scratch vocal and it has to be replaced. I don't have a good set of reference monitors or equipment to work them up with. I am using a Kenwood Amp, not integrated, no volume or eq on it, just straight out amp, with two OHM speakers hooked up. Probably not the best monitor system but that is what I have for the time being.. More ears better than mine would be a good thing.
 

Attachments

  • AMJAM.mp3
    8.7 MB
  • PIE.mp3
    8.4 MB
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Pie sounds good. It's got some nice nice melodic progressions. I like the vocals, although they're a little muffled. The whole productions sounds kinda lo-fi on my little office speakers but everything seems quite well balanced.
 
Bulls Hit said:
Pie sounds good. It's got some nice nice melodic progressions. I like the vocals, although they're a little muffled. The whole productions sounds kinda lo-fi on my little office speakers but everything seems quite well balanced.
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I have about the same problem with monitoring. I need more ears but I am not getting any.
 
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dogooder , I liked the feel and groove on AM JAM but the mix was thin and Way narrow. If that was what you were going for as the title suggests , you hit it. Pie mix was nice deep and wide but the ending cut off too abruptly. The sudden stop would not a problem if the FX tails had time to continue and dissolve naturally. I Really like your vocals , I do think a little EQ work would make them better. Maybe a slight dip in low mids and a little presence in the highs. All in all a Very Cool song performance and mix. Enjoyed them both . mark
 
mark skinner said:
dogooder , I liked the feel and groove on AM JAM but the mix was thin and Way narrow. If that was what you were going for as the title suggests , you hit it. Pie mix was nice deep and wide but the ending cut off too abruptly. The sudden stop would not a problem if the FX tails had time to continue and dissolve naturally. I Really like your vocals , I do think a little EQ work would make them better. Maybe a slight dip in low mids and a little presence in the highs. All in all a Very Cool song performance and mix. Enjoyed them both . mark
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Thanx for the input. What do you mean by narrow? I am 70, played on stage most of my life and worked in machine shops my whole career. I am surprised I can hear anything. I can't hear highs worth a damn and have a tendency to go heavy on the treble. Yea, I know about the ending, that will be addressed. This copy was mostly so I could send something to the bass player and drummer for them to listen to, I just cut it too soon. They are about 800 miles away now. I am still working on them. I haven't ran eq by everything yet. I will see about beefing up the bass in AM JAM (its an A minor jam). I could add organ? That has a ways to go, we just put down the basic skeleton to work with. What I have for bass and drums is what I have to work with. I can't redo those tracks. I probably had more FX(echo or verb) on some of the drums in Pie and not in AM JAM. I will check that.
 
dogooder , As far as narrow , I felt the instruments (besides the bass and drums) could have been panned further away from the center. I know this is a pretty minimal mix as far as how many instruments are playing at any given time but , if you only have 1 track panned to the right , take some reverb or other FX from it and "send" it to the left. It was better when L/R instruments came in together but they were still not wide enough. Bring the first song closer to the second and I believe you'll have a winner. There's always a problem if you post 2 songs at once that aren't in the same ball park. Hope I wasn't too confusing mark
 
I totally dig the tunes man!

I get a sense that the guitars and pretty much everything seems really distant on the first track.

Pie sounds better, but then there the drums don't seem to be up front.

I'm not exactly sure what it is you are going for here, so I guess I can't give more than my opinion.

It's some good shit tho! (y)
 
mark skinner said:
dogooder , As far as narrow , I felt the instruments (besides the bass and drums) could have been panned further away from the center. I know this is a pretty minimal mix as far as how many instruments are playing at any given time but , if you only have 1 track panned to the right , take some reverb or other FX from it and "send" it to the left. It was better when L/R instruments came in together but they were still not wide enough. Bring the first song closer to the second and I believe you'll have a winner. There's always a problem if you post 2 songs at once that aren't in the same ball park. Hope I wasn't too confusing mark
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Thank you. I hadn't given that any thought to that in this tune. I have in other tunes but not this one. I noticed panning one guitar left, one right, etc could make a big difference. I am using a Yamaha 02R board which uses scene memories. This one was set basically for no eq or fx when recorded. I went back in eqed, added some FX here and there. I will go back in and do some panning see what gives. When I get done I will repost.
 
jimmys69 said:
I'm not exactly sure what it is you are going for here, so I guess I can't give more than my opinion.
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I don't have a good set of monitors and my ears are shot and I really have never done any mixing. The gent who did all the previous mixing
for me is now 800 miles away. The simple suggestion of the panning issue by Mr. Skinner, could have gone overlooked, I may have gotten to
it? It is usually the last thing on my mind after eq, FX, dynamics, faders etc, all that other groovy stuff. I have a tendency to mix heavy on the
treble due to old age and hearing loss from 100 watt guitar amps and machine shops. I need all the help I can get. I don't care if the tune is
any good, or if my playing is subject, or if anyone likes any of it or not although it is nice to get compliments on my writhing. I am just interested in
if the mix is any good. I am working with older equipment, I may not be able to get the quality you guys are getting with the DAWs. The fact that I never mixed before is going to lead to rookie mistakes.I am actually working on about half a dozen mixes at the moment. When I get bored with one I go to another.
You can only stand to listen to the same old tune for so long lol. You begin to wonder how the Stones do it?
I never really listened to mixes until lately, I figured I better! I listened to songs, if I like them I listened, if not, I didn't. I didn't listen to the mix. I
started doing that lately and the results have been quite surprising. One of my favorite bands for fifty years mixes sound like shit!
 
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You may have heard this before?
Here is one recorded on the same equipment by the bass player who is now 800 mile away.
He is also the best guitar player I ever stood next to. Smokes my butt. He is a good bass
player "By The Way" lol.
One funny thing about this tune is the short lead section between the first two verses after the first chorus is in the wrong key.
It should be Dm and I am playing in Am. When we got done with the take I said we are going to have to
do this over again. Jimmy said, lets listen first, it stayed.
I would be perfectly happy if I could get a mix this good.
I am used to listening to it on CD on a kick ass stereo.
 
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This should be the new mix with some changes as suggested. I think the lead guitar is a bit loud? There are three guitar tracks. I took two of them and panned them 90 deg right and left. There are basically two grouped drum tracks that I panned 45 deg right and left. I left one track of snare and cymbals down the middle and picked it up a bit. I beefed up the kick, fleshed out the guitars with some eq. Added a bit of verb to the drums. The lead, kick, toms and keys are still down the middle. I could separate the two tom with panning? I didn't want to bring the keys up anymore because of the poor performance. There are about 10 drum tracks on this, two of which are premixed. I can't hear much of a difference on these laptop speakers, but I could downstairs.
 

Attachments

  • AMJAM2.mp3
    8.9 MB
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Hey , I think the panning is a Lot better. I Don't feel the lead guitar is too loud. I did feel that the far left guitar was a little too far out to the left. Now you need some more lows and the volume brought up. But a Very good start ! If you Really want to continue this musical journey you should consider working in a DAW environment. The editing is So much easier and there are tools to help with "any" hearing losses. I've used quite a few DAWS but now Only use Cakewalk by Bandlab and it's Free! You actually reminded me that I'll turn 69 in December and that I spent 30 years in a Very loud GM parts plant factory in heavy machining depts. I used to enjoy going to the machine shop to get "out of the noise". I ruptured an eardrum 3 years ago and couldn't trust any of my EQ decisions. (I'm healed up pretty well now) That's when I got "Ozone Elements" It helps with EQ suggestions and does a Great job with bringing levels up to streaming level. I use it on Every song during the mastering phase. There is a learning curve for everything , but it's pretty painless for someone our age especially with help from a good forum.. mark
 
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mark skinner said:
Hey , I think the panning is a Lot better. I Don't feel the lead guitar is too loud. I did feel that the far left guitar was a little too far out to the left. Now you need some more lows and the volume brought up. But a Very good start ! If you Really want to continue this musical journey you should consider working in a DAW environment. The editing is So much easier and there are tools to help with "any" hearing losses. I've used quite a few DAWS but now Only use Cakewalk by Bandlab and it's Free! You actually reminded me that I'll turn 69 in December and that I spent 30 years in a Very loud GM parts plant factory in heavy machining depts. I used to enjoy going to the machine shop to get "out of the noise". I ruptured an eardrum 3 years ago and couldn't trust any of my EQ decisions. (I'm healed up pretty well now) That's when I got "Ozone Elements" It helps with EQ suggestions and does a Great job with bringing levels up to streaming level. I use it on Every song during the mastering phase. There is a learning curve for everything , but it's pretty painless for someone our age especially with help from a good forum.. mark
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I have an old pro tools set up with all the interfaces and a Mac G4 beefed up for music, it was being used in a studio and fell in my lap. I have been working little by little with it to get it up and going. I know next to nothing about it. I never saw it set up. I was able to record tracks off the HD24 into protools using the digidesign adat bridge. I have yet to transfer files. There is an ethernet port on both the G4 and the HD24, my next step was to try and transfer the files via the ethernet. Since it is an apple OS, and I haven't worked with a Mac since 1999, I have to research what software to use etc. From what I read in my manuals it says you can use a browser? Anyway, that is for the future for now.
I have worked with some software but it was ages ago. Cakewalk was one of them but I only did midi with my keys and that was in 2000. I know how much quicker and precise the editing is. I am retired and I have more time than I have money or I would just buy a brand new setup with software. Since it is what it is, I have to deal with it for now. I have been getting some help with the protools from here and there.
I have probably over ten tunes to flesh out like these and I am not the worlds greatest musician and that has been eating all my time. Especially when I am playing instruments that I never put much time in on like keys and pedal steel guitar. Many of the tunes were done quickly and I had never played any lead to them so it is taking me some time to get the "feel" of each tune and come up with something that makes sense. The editing on the 02R is not that slow and it is all stored. I would like to work with a DAW but that seems down the road a bit. I haven't even worked with a Windows OS in over six years now, I have never even seen 11.
I don't even know what Mastering is or the what the process involves? I have been meaning to look into that.
When these are done I will make videos and post them on my youtube channel. I don't bother trying to promote them, they are there basically for posterity and
anyone who might be slightly interested, i.e., more for my legacy than any other reason. My first stab at this was back in 99 and 2000 with a mackie VL1604 and an
ADAT tape machine. You want to talk about some bad mixes, I was kind of embarrassed to put some on my youtube channel, but it is part of the legacy after all.
 
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dogooder said:
Remixed "Piece of the Pie"
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There is pedal steel in the intro but just a couple of notes in the mix. I am going to add pedal steel in when the Intro comes back around before the outro. Do some more tweaking, get the pedal steel parts in the mix, and probably call it a day.
 
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