For once, I'm not embarrased by my singing on this one...

Your Mom loves your mixes, but are they really up to scratch? Post your tracks here and get the community's feedback to help with the spit and polish. Impress us! We don't bite.
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SweetDan
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Re: For once, I'm not embarrased by my singing on this one...

Post by SweetDan »

Bubba wrote: ↑Wed May 10, 2017 8:57 am ...The drums are the soul of a track, everything else is just gravy. :D
Hopefully the tweaks I made to the drums in this latest mix (better, less robotic drum programming; eq/comp; parallel processing) make the gravy tastier:


Of course, improving the drums upset the balance of the mix (to my ears at least)*. This set of changes made the drums better overall, but now I really can hear the weakness in the vocal. Baby steps though; maybe for the next round I'll re-track the vocal. (I still haven't touched the bass nor the guitars since the first mix at the start of this thread, either.)

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* On the topic of the balance of the whole mix, can any of you recommend any "professional" tunes with a similar style and feel to this one? I'd like to have a reference to compare to.
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Re: For once, I'm not embarrased by my singing on this one...

Post by Bubba »

The drums are much, much better in level, now. I agree that the new mix has shown up some weaknesses in the vocal but you shouldn't make mixes with a view to hiding stuff. Maximise the good bits as you have done, then bring up the quality of the parts that aren't as good by practice, re-tracking and and careful processing. That way you'll end up with a mix that is as good as it can possibly be.

I think you can afford a little more guitar in the verse parts to bolster the vocal and make it feel a little less unsupported- I would track at least one acoustic for those parts, probably two, and blend them in. Or a couple of very clean electric guitars would do the same thing. Keep the overall level of the guitars the same or slightly louder and bring up the vocal a little once you've retracked it satisfactorily.

How many goes at singing this did you have? The reason I ask is that the weakest part of the whole vocal performance is the first verse, then you actually seem to get into it more and it gets a whole lot better. I think you need to practise this; sing it over and over again. By the way, I thought the vocal was too dry, reverb-wise. It's a common thing for home recordists to drench vocals in reverb when they are ashamed of them, but you seem to have gone the other way. A reverb with a bit of life to it like a plate or a short hall would help this, I think.

All in all, this now sounds like a proper mix, you just have to work on the vocals.

Regarding a "Pro" mix that has the same feel, have you heard "The St. Francis Dam Disaster" by Frank Black and the Catholics? That could be the perfect reference mix for you.
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SweetDan
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Re: For once, I'm not embarrased by my singing on this one...

Post by SweetDan »

Bubba wrote: ↑Mon May 15, 2017 5:46 am ...you shouldn't make mixes with a view to hiding stuff. Maximise the good bits as you have done, then bring up the quality of the parts that aren't as good by practice, re-tracking and and careful processing. That way you'll end up with a mix that is as good as it can possibly be.
Agreed.
Bubba wrote: ↑Mon May 15, 2017 5:46 am How many goes at singing this did you have?
This is the "3rd" take from the day I tracked, but I actually sang each take in phrases (verse 1/chorus, then verse 2/chorus, etc.) I'm no singer; I agree it needs practice (and I need vocal lessons!).
Bubba wrote: ↑Mon May 15, 2017 5:46 am I thought the vocal was too dry, reverb-wise. It's a common thing for home recordists to drench vocals in reverb when they are ashamed of them, but you seem to have gone the other way. A reverb with a bit of life to it like a plate or a short hall would help this, I think.
There is no reverb anywhere in the mix yet; any reflections you may hear are strictly from the room (on the live tracks) or present in the sampled sounds (the programmed parts of the drums). I've been using the strategy promoted by the guy who does the recordingrevolution videos on youtube of "sweeting" the mix with delay/verb later in the mix, and I'm taking this tune one piece at a time and am not to that step yet. I think verb would help too, but I want to get everything else "right" first. ;-)

Thanks, by the way, for the recommendation to listen to that Frank Black tune; something like that is just what I was hoping for. I dug up the full album on youtube, and there are bits and pieces of the other tracks that could be good reference material too. For example, I really like the sound of the bass on the track "Llano del Rio".
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Re: For once, I'm not embarrased by my singing on this one...

Post by SweetDan »

Bubba wrote: ↑Mon May 15, 2017 5:46 am I think you can afford a little more guitar in the verse parts to bolster the vocal and make it feel a little less unsupported- I would track at least one acoustic for those parts, probably two, and blend them in. Or a couple of very clean electric guitars would do the same thing. Keep the overall level of the guitars the same or slightly louder and bring up the vocal a little once you've retracked it satisfactorily
Done. Added 2 clean electric guitar parts throughout the whole song, one panned just left of center, the other just right. They both are pretty quiet compared to the acoustic and original, dirtier electric guitar. You can really hear the effect of their presence, though, given all the chorusing sound they make, especially noticeable in verses 1 & 2.

Along with EQ tweaks to parts and to the mix as a whole, eq/compression on the bass, touch of reverb on all components of the mix, and a touch of compression on the whole mix. Most of the EQ was guided by listening to the reference track you suggested. I needed to cut some low-mid mud out of the drum bus and out of the rhythm guitars, and finally put high shelving on the drum bus and the rhythm guitars and the whole mix. Put a bit of EQ - low shelf or cut, I don't remember which - on the background vocal. Then I turned up the level of the vocals overall.



Listening now, an hour or so after the latest set of changes, I'm wondering if I've made the highs too harsh, especially the cymbals.
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Re: For once, I'm not embarrased by my singing on this one...

Post by Bubba »

Hi, Dan. The addition of the guitars has made a good difference, but the overall level of the guitars has crept up again and the good level you had on the drums is being drowned out I think 2dB off the supporting guitars at least is needed That might mean the vocal will need to come down a touch, too. Get that driving rhythm of the drumkit back again, then I think you'll be good..
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Re: For once, I'm not embarrased by my singing on this one...

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Yep, now that you've pointed it out, I can hear that the bass drum has disappeared and that the drum kit as a whole doesn't have the same presence it had in mix 2. (Am I the only one who can't hear the flaws until somebody else points them out? :-) Thank you all for your ears.)

I wonder, though, if some of what's masking the drum sound is also the electric bass? It's DI, and I've added compression to chop off the peaks and parallel compression make it more solid, and then EQ'd to scoop out some mids and boost the highs (few as they are for the bass). I've never been able (in a couple years of trying this homerecording stuff out) to get a bass sound that's "solid" but still "clear", and I certainly don't have it here yet.
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Re: For once, I'm not embarrased by my singing on this one...

Post by JD01 »

Yeah, the guitars are way too loud on this now. Drums have disappeared. Bass sounds alright, no need to worry about that yet. The guitars, particularly the acoustics are way too loud.

There's also kind of a weird, almost "white noise" type sound across the whole thing? Can you work out where that's coming from? Might be something to do with your drums, but I don't think so. It sounds really far forward in the mix, likes its just a noise coming from somewhere.
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Re: For once, I'm not embarrased by my singing on this one...

Post by Bubba »

SweetDan wrote: ↑Wed May 17, 2017 10:18 am I've never been able (in a couple years of trying this homerecording stuff out) to get a bass sound that's "solid" but still "clear", and I certainly don't have it here yet.
In my experience there is no need to boost any frequencies on the bass guitar much above 2 or 3kHz, even if you want a textured, picky sound. Above that you're just accentuating hiss and other HF noise from the bass itself and the amp (if you use one) - particularly if you compress after you've EQd. Compression brings up the parts that are quiet (eg, noise, ambience) and pushes down the bits that are loud (eg peaks and twangs). If you bring up HF noise with EQ then compress it, then you give yourself a double whammy of noise. I would low pass at 5k then bring the frequency down until it begins to have an adverse effect on the upper end of your bass. Then I would give your bass a little lift at 1-2 kHz and see where you stand.

Same with the Electric guitars. They don't really need anything above 5 kHz or even lower. After that you're just boosting shrill noise. If you want to sharpen up the guitars, a litlle presence lift around 3-4 kHz will do it.
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Re: For once, I'm not embarrased by my singing on this one...

Post by SweetDan »

OK, one more try:



It's getting to the point, though, that I'm driving myself crazy, wondering if the little tweaks here and there 1) have the effect I want them to, and 2) are even making a difference. :frown:

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Bubba wrote: ↑Wed May 17, 2017 3:42 am the overall level of the guitars has crept up again and the good level you had on the drums is being drowned out I think 2dB off the supporting guitars at least is needed That might mean the vocal will need to come down a touch, too. Get that driving rhythm of the drumkit back again, then I think you'll be good..
The changes I attempted to make in this mix were exactly what you suggested. I dropped the rhythm guitar bus down by about 2.5db. I lowered the vocals a touch too. Then I made a bunch of tiny eq moves here and there. (See below)
JD01 wrote: ↑Wed May 17, 2017 11:37 am There's also kind of a weird, almost "white noise" type sound across the whole thing? Can you work out where that's coming from? Might be something to do with your drums, but I don't think so. It sounds really far forward in the mix, likes its just a noise coming from somewhere.
It may have been too high a boost in the 7K+ range I had added across the entire mix, as well as a similar boost in the same range for the rhythm guitars bus (including the acoustic). That's gone now, having been replaced with more careful EQ tweaks to individual guitars and just the slightest hint of "air"-frequencies boost to the entire mix. One of the new rhythm guitar tracks in particular had a lot of fizz, which I lessened with a high-cut around 6k IIRC on that guitar.

I lowered the electric bass a smidge too, less than 1dB. I had already notched out around 55hz, where the meters said the most prominent frequency of the bass drum sat; I deepened that notch a little more as well, to give the bass drum more effect there.

There were other small EQ changes too - slightly deepening the cut in the lead vocal in the nasal-y area, give the drums a dB-or-so of "air" (7k+) to make up for not having so much air on the master volume track, etc. One other perhaps significant thing was to send a few dB less of the drum kit to the group reverb; my thinking that having too much of the kit affected by verb could also have made them sound less present.

---

(EDIT) So, with all that, I think I got the bass drum back. But like I said, it's getting to the "crazy" time where I'm not sure...diminishing returns and all that. :confused:
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Re: For once, I'm not embarrased by my singing on this one...

Post by Bubba »

Well, I think the levels in this mix are the best so far. It's a solid, balanced mix now.

If you're feeling that it's driving you crazy it's probably a good idea to leave it for a week, work on something else then go back to it. But I think this is a reasonable job.
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Re: For once, I'm not embarrased by my singing on this one...

Post by JD01 »

This is definitely better than the last one, mate. I still think the guitars are a little bit loud, when they all come in the drums do drop in to the background.

Your vocal performance gets better throughout the song, sounds like you're getting into it more, voice getting warmed up maybe? and you're giving it more effort. When I track a song, I often end up going back and re-singing the first verse afterwards 'cos I find it sounds so weak compared with the later verses. Seems my voice warms up after a couple of choruses.

I think you need to work on your drum programming or get a better drum program though - getting the drums to the right sort of level in any mix is key, but they do still sound very basic and programmed, with little variation in the intensity of the hits.

Maybe just have one more stab at this mix for now, then try a few other things and come back to this one. I always find that I have things I thought were "finished" then I go back to them a few months later, decide I can do much better and re-track them!
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Re: For once, I'm not embarrased by my singing on this one...

Post by JD01 »

Bubba wrote: ↑Thu May 18, 2017 4:12 am Well, I think the levels in this mix are the best so far. It's a solid, balanced mix now.

If you're feeling that it's driving you crazy it's probably a good idea to leave it for a week, work on something else then go back to it. But I think this is a reasonable job.
Ah, what Bob said!
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Re: For once, I'm not embarrased by my singing on this one...

Post by ido1957 »

Finally got a chance to listen.....

Rhythms, bass are good for me.

Drums seem "cloudy" or something, and a bit back. Yes a different beat would be nice - this one sounds a little stiff, like the timing of the bass/guitars/vocals are cool but the drummer is off somehow. Not sure how to describe it...

Lead is a hair louder than the rest of the band, the twang jumps out when it comes out as everything else is more mellow... Reverb on guitar is cool...
Suggestion - if you play the lead stuff that comes in with the singing (i.e. at the end for example) twice, and pan it slightly LR it will get out of the way of the singing and sound nice and wide. Solos are cool in the center though imho...

Vocals are fine, not looking for Freddy Mercury just good pitch which I think you have here. And the vocal melody/harmonies are cool....

The interlude works well to let the listener breath...
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