Um, duh?

[fierojoe]

Hey guys, this mix I believe is pretty good on the music, but I can't bring the vox out. All I have left of this is the mix that I am trying to make the vox more distinct in. To re-mix it is would be a disaster. Anyone have any ideas?

Check out my other mix too, let me know what you think!

https://homerecording.com/bbs/showthread.php?s=&threadid=70400
(scroll to the bottom for the newest version...)

 

[Blue Bear Sound]

You've got a few problems here....

The bass is very unfocused and undefined -- deep low but no low-mid detail, which is a problem....

Specifically with the vocal - it sounds like you recorded it using a Shure Green Bullet mic - a telephony type sound to the vocal - you're missing low-freq mids to give it some depth....

The drums appear to also have been mixed a little too low...

Overall, the mix lacks punch and presence.....

I think you're not going to have a choice but to remix it.... it's not sitting well and there's nothing you can really do to the mixed version to fix the problems........

 

[fierojoe]

Blue Bear Sound,

The Green Bullt sound was actually the desired effect. I cut the lows and low mids. I think a lot of the problem is my monitors because things sounded much clearer at the house, but now that I listen to it here at work I can tell it's been colored too much. Frigging things...

 

[Shaky Tee]

I like the beginning with the scratchy record effects and how the guitar comes in.

The vocals are a little too low, and seems a bit dry...a little more reverb perhaps. Your vocal quality reminds me a little of David Gray.

I think this song is pretty cool. Keep working at it!

 

[Blue Bear Sound]

The Green Bullt sound was actually the desired effect.

That's fine, but you asked why the vocals aren't cutting through enough.... it's because there is almost no low-frequency material in the vocal track!

Either you've overdone the telephony effect, or you didn't leave the right sonic "hole" for the vocals to sit in when beldning the other tracks and they're being overshadowed.....!

 

[IanW-UK]

Sounds fine to me, but what do I know. The song sounds like a cross between Moby, U2 and David Gray I think the vox sound good a little back in the mix, maybe not quite so far but near enough. I like the smooth "undefined" bass too

I like it.

I don't think there's much you can do to the stereo file to bring the vox up without adversly affecting the rest. You could see if you could find one of those "vocal remover" things that chops the centre out of a song and see if there's one which lets u reverse it?? prolly talking crap but ahh well.

 

[groovejunkie]

I agree with Blue Bear Sound about the bass and I could hear it at the end that it's bad recorded, and sometimes is one muddy track enough to make the whole song muddy; further, the drums have partially too much reverb on the left side - I would make them generally cleaner, cos there's a lot af spacy atmosphere comming from the "cure" guitar.

I like the song a lot (it reminds me of a cure-song "wish" I guess), and I can imagine how this song will be(or it is ment to be), I love this kinda tune and I think tis has potential, but I'm afraid you have to record some tracks again!

cheers

 

[fierojoe]

Ok guys, I re-mixed

I bit the bullet and re-mixed the song... Tell me what you guys think of the new mix. It's almost a completely different mix than the one before. The original was mixed in Cakewalk Pro 9 (which I do NOT like), and this was a track-by-track export into Acid Pro 4. I used a 4 band EQ on many of the tracks, BBE Sonic Maximizer, Virtose Noise Tools, and obviously some compression.

The Old Mix:

(7 Meg - 192kBit)

The New Mix:

(9.7Meg - 256 kBit)

 

[chrisharris]

It's a cool song. I also like your voice a ton.

Both mixes have too much low lows. I'm talking about stuff below 80Hz. When you've got that much low end, it's gonna' be tough to get a lot of definition out of your vocal UNLESS you do what you've done here, which is hype the crap out of the mids. Still, I think you'd find that a lot of the mix would clear up if you rolled off a lot of the very low lows. You don't need it.

It's there in just about equal amounts on both mixes.

I know this won't make you feel great, but I actually liked the old mix better. In the new one, the LoFi effect seems too pronounced throughout the song. I'd kill it altogether when the bass comes in, and maybe bring it in at the end of the song. A sonic maximizer can be a cool tool, but a very little bit goes a VERY long way. To me, this sounds like you hyped both the lows and the highs on about 4 or 5. Sounds cool in the headphones, no doubt...but it translates to UN-EQ-ABLE tracks. If you haven't done this...play these tracks on your home or car stereo and turn them WAY up and boost the bass and the highs. You know, "smiley face" EQ. I'll bet you'll hear it as I'm now hearing it, which is kinda' muddy, except for the highs...which are coming across as loud pops from the crackle of the vinyl. Then try the same thing after you roll off a bunch of the lows below 100Hz.

Or, maybe I'm full of shit. Your call there. One thing I think would help is some volume enveloping on the vocal. It sits okay during the verses, then MUCH BETTER during the first part of the chorus..."THERE ISN'T A DAY"...that's great...But then "I'll never forget the waiting game," where you've gone back to a telephone vocal, that's too quiet.

On the sonic maximizer...I'm learning that if you do the Hi or Lo countour more than about 2, you're screwing up.

Just my opinion. Man, this is a very cool song...I hope you get a version you're happy with. If you're happy with this one, then more power to you.

 

[fierojoe]

chrisharris,

Thats a lot on info! As for the bass, I think I'm still being cursed by my monitors. I really need to find a good pair somewhere, sell my car for them or something, you know how it goes. On my system at home and my setup here at work the bass sounds good, but they are 2 completely different sounds, neither very accurate. I believe on the BBE, I went to 3 on the lows and 4 on the highs, again, probably over-compensating for my monitors. I also did a mid boost on mastering, the envelope starts at 320@0db, peaks at 640@+3db and finished off at 2.5k@0. What I usually do is listen to something un-eq'd that has about the sound that I am going for and try to tune my ear to it, then mix. Sometimes it works good, sometimes it doesn't...

Thank you very much for the compliments/critiques, they are greatly appreciated.

And I don't believe I will ever be happy with one... I'm too much of a perfectionist...

 

[chrisharris]

chrisharris,

Thats a lot on info! As for the bass, I think I'm still being cursed by my monitors.

Just to clarify...I really don't think the actual bass sounds bad at all. At lower volumes, it sounds damned decent. It's supporting without distracting, which is what I like a bass to do...But it's grabbing so much of the mix real estate WAY low that it's screwing up the rest of the mix. And I'm not talking about stuff that humans can even hear...it's that shat that you FEEL. That's why I think obnoxiously loud volume (whether you're listening on monitors or on Stereo speaks) is a must with a tune like this.

But I can also see a problem you might run into if when you roll a bunch of the lows off of this mix. The vocal has almost no lows in it, so if you do a complete rolloff of the entire mix, it's probably gonna' sound a lot more middy than you want. If it were me, I'd take that bass track individually and gut it below 80Hz... Then listen to it in the mix and throw some lows back into the vocal to taste.

By the way, I don't write this much on every tune I listen to...LOL. This is just a very very cool song.

Shutting up now

 

[fierojoe]

chrisharris,

This one is for you. I did an 80Hz rolloff on the bass guitar track at 12db/octave, I left the verse vox alone, but I brought out a little butt in the chorus vox and brought up "I'll never forget the waiting game" by 2db.

I really appreciate your input, and thank you for your compliments on the song. It really helps to hear that people enjoy my music, but by how much you like it, I'm betting you know exactly what I meant with the song... Possibly from experience?

 

[chrisharris]

but by how much you like it, I'm betting you know exactly what I meant with the song... Possibly from experience?

There are some women you just never WILL get out of your system. The heart wants what it wants, right. Years and other complicating factors don't seem to change that. Yeah, it's a cool song.

Unfortunately, I can't crank it right now on the monitors, but listen to it on a few systems again...if it doesn't have the ass that it needs, you can always throw in some lows above 150 to warm it up.

The only major beef I've got now is that with each mix, that vinyl effect has gotten progressively louder, and it's really damned loud and abrasive on the tweets at this point...like it got compressed and amplified somehow.

Man, I sincerely hope some smarter people listen to this and offer some tips. I'm at the point where I'm really just digging the song and not really listening for mix problems...so that says something.

CUT THE VINYL DOWN!!! LOL.

 

[fierojoe]

There are some women you just never WILL get out of your system. The heart wants what it wants, right. Years and other complicating factors don't seem to change that.

VERY true... Very true... You know where I'm coming from.

CUT THE VINYL DOWN!!! LOL.

On my system I can't really hear too much highs on the vinyl, I'll check that one out. I already have a HF Roll Off on both channels of the vinyl though, starting at 3.2k rolled off at 12db/octave. I did boost it by 3db@1.1k, and again 5db@484 to try to warm it up some, maybe I need to get rid of the 1.1k boost.