USe Me

I think the vocal performance is pretty good, mix wise the vocal goes through the ceiling near the end and the peaks break up. Tonally the keyboard sounds could become a little wearing although the playing style of letting the notes hang just long enough to decay at a point where they are about to be discordant is musically effective. There are a couple of areas where at the mid frequencies it sounds a little overloaded. The bottom end lacks some authority which means the keyboard background sound which has a bit a lardy kind of bottom end starts to dominate. I appreciate that you might be working with a completely electronic kind of sound but I do think the track overall would benefit from the main keyboard melody being backed off a measure or two and then mirrored by a more organic sound to take some of the almost contrived edge off the almost totally synthetic feel that the arrangement currently has. I suspect that the vocal parts which are breaking up are ok on the actual recorded track as I don't think it would slip by unnoticed considering the sensible mixing beyond it, my suspicion is that maybe increasing the overall track volume has caused the issue and that some compression of the vocal could be employed to keep those peaks in check. Thanks for the listen.

Tim
 
What an excellent review. I recorded all and then mixed on headphones, cause it was getting late, and I miss the clipping you mention a lot as the headphone volume creeps up. I quickly tried a bass guitar type track, didn't like it so left my drone type pad sound to do the job. I can now see the low end needs some work.
Yeah...the vocals shouldn't be recorded clipped, and I just slapped a limiter across my 2 bus.
Thru speakers and fresh ears, I think I can fix what you are talking about. The song doesn't have much musically going as far as chord changes, and I was struggling also to keep things interesting, rather than so repetative for 4 minutes. Switching sounds like you suggest should help... also write a bridge...
thx again Tim.
 
Phrasemaker said:
I appreciate that you might be working with a completely electronic kind of sound but I do think the track overall would benefit from the main keyboard melody being backed off a measure or two and then mirrored by a more organic sound to take some of the almost contrived edge off the almost totally synthetic feel that the arrangement currently has.

Tim
Click to expand...

I don't understand what you mean here. Can you explain it? What do you mean by 'backed off'? And by 'a more organic sound', you mean something that's been miked?
 
Originally Posted by Phrasemaker
I appreciate that you might be working with a completely electronic kind of sound but I do think the track overall would benefit from the main keyboard melody being backed off a measure or two and then mirrored by a more organic sound to take some of the almost contrived edge off the almost totally synthetic feel that the arrangement currently has.

Tim

dobro

I don't understand what you mean here. Can you explain it? What do you mean by 'backed off'? And by 'a more organic sound', you mean something that's been miked?
Click to expand...


No I mean a sound that's most likely at the disposal of most keyboard owners that has a more tangible acoustic instrument sound. I assume that as I have a hundred plus voices on what's basically my piano, that would apply to the average synth/keyboard. I have certainly heard keyboard sounds which don't directly mimic a specific instrument, but they do have similar sound characteristics to acoustic instruments. As for backing off, turning down one track to accommodate another sound as described above to be playing the same notes to add the texture I mentioned and enable some interesting panning and reverb variables between the two.

Tim
 
phrasemaker...I u/l a newer version and tried to incorporate your ideas. Man... heard the clippng first thing with fresh ears, this morning. My ears are already fatigued, even with a lot of breaks today... I have a short span ;-/ ..even at 85dB.

thx again for the listen and spot on ideas.
 
It's coming along nicely, a rather catchy tune which is uplifting. The main issues for my ears are: The vocal would probably come over better with a small decrease at around 4.5k, the tonality and sincerity of the vocal are beautiful, hence worth getting as good as possible in the mix. The drum rolls, perhaps EQ up at around 1.5K and take a little off the synths at around 3k to loose a little of the tubbiness in their attack. The vocal and synths need lowering by a db or two. The effect that these small adjustments are aimed for, is to make the arrangement of the instruments more tapered rather than sounding slightly tiered in places and a touch isolated. Obviously this is based on my ears through my totally flat and unforgiving monitors, so additional ears would be useful, I appreciate the fatigue aspect of working on a track, I've done it to the point of thinking vocals were near non existent until they chewed my ear off in the cold light of a new morning.

all the best

Tim
 
I'll see what that EQing does. I'm using my ancient JBL 4311, Auratones when my ears are tired, and my downfall is using my Sony MDR 7506 cans for the bulk of the listening, so I don't drive my wife crazy with repeated playings. My Jack Russels could lay at my feet and listen all day.

I think I'm going to need the fresh ears with the monitors before I screw with the EQ.

Tim, your ideas have been some of the best constructive crits I've received in the clinic in a looong time.. and you can see I joined back in 2000. thx again.

Lastly, my compressors are turned off at this point. Only mild limiting on the 2 buss. I suppose a little bit of that will help too, but purposely trying to keep dynamics over average volume increase.
 
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