To Ramona

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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paulman
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To Ramona

Post by paulman »

This is a track I recorded a while ago of a classic Dylan breakup song (he's the best at those), but I just fixed some issues (minimized them, I should say) with a new plugin. I'm posting this to see, without me saying what the issue was, if it's still really noticeable.

This is a live tracking of acoustic and vocal, with an Avantone CV-12 for the vocal and a 57 for the acoustic. It's really hard to mix that, especially with the Avantone being as sensitive as it is.

My other question, aside from the mystery issue, is do you guys think this is too harsh? I'm always struggling with detail vs. warmth, and I usually err on the side of detail.



NEW MIX:
Last edited by paulman on Thu Aug 10, 2017 12:08 am, edited 1 time in total.
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miroslav
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Re: To Ramona

Post by miroslav »

I like the song...your vocal is solid...and the guitar is well played, though I hear some occasional tuning quirks with some of the chords.

Being that this is just vox and acoustic...I would do a wider stereo spread on the guitar, and leave plenty of room in the middle for the vocal.
I don't think I would do much more than that to it.
I've got a great plugin that would work perfectly...bx-stereomaker from Plugin Alliance:
https://www.plugin-alliance.com/en/prod ... maker.html

Being it's just a couple of tracks...if you don't have any kind of way to spread the acoustic...I'll be happy to do pass on your mix, just give me the two files...or even just the complete acoustic track, and I'll add the spread, and you can then try it out and see if it works for you.

That's the nice thing about spare mixes, you don't have a lot of shit going on, fighting with each other...so it's not as hard to get a nice sound without losing your mind.
7String
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Re: To Ramona

Post by 7String »

I'm not a Dylan fan but you did well on this. I think the guitar could be a bit louder with less high end to make it more full but since you recorded both at the same time you're kind of stuck with what you have unless the bleed is minimal.

Good job on this!
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rayc
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Re: To Ramona

Post by rayc »

Are they mini plosives, hand bumps, proximity or something else off to the side in the fist 30 secs? Song - good good, recording pretty good - if there was backing added the "issues" would disappear.
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paulman
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Re: To Ramona

Post by paulman »

rayc wrote: Tue Aug 08, 2017 8:17 pm Are they mini plosives, hand bumps, proximity or something else off to the side in the fist 30 secs? Song - good good, recording pretty good - if there was backing added the "issues" would disappear.
Bingo! The plosives in the beginning are my biggest issue with this. I just did another mix and master, and tamed those plosives even more. Still not gone, but I can only do so much I guess. I'll wait until tomorrow to post the new mix, as my ears and brain are shot and the new mix might be shit.
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paulman
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Re: To Ramona

Post by paulman »

7String wrote: Tue Aug 08, 2017 5:12 pm I'm not a Dylan fan but you did well on this. I think the guitar could be a bit louder with less high end to make it more full but since you recorded both at the same time you're kind of stuck with what you have unless the bleed is minimal.

Good job on this!
Thanks! In the new mix I just did, I did manage to make the guitar fuller. The guitar mic picked up very little vocal, so that track alone is pretty easy to deal with. It's the vocal track that complicates things, as that mic picks up the guitar loud and clear. It's a great mic, but not one I would use in this situation if I owned more than two mics. I made the whole mix fuller, but I'm afraid it may be too big and loud now, so I'm waiting until tomorrow to listen again and post if it doesn't suck.
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paulman
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Re: To Ramona

Post by paulman »

miroslav wrote: Mon Aug 07, 2017 11:12 pm I like the song...your vocal is solid...and the guitar is well played, though I hear some occasional tuning quirks with some of the chords.

Being that this is just vox and acoustic...I would do a wider stereo spread on the guitar, and leave plenty of room in the middle for the vocal.
I don't think I would do much more than that to it.
I've got a great plugin that would work perfectly...bx-stereomaker from Plugin Alliance:
https://www.plugin-alliance.com/en/prod ... maker.html

Being it's just a couple of tracks...if you don't have any kind of way to spread the acoustic...I'll be happy to do pass on your mix, just give me the two files...or even just the complete acoustic track, and I'll add the spread, and you can then try it out and see if it works for you.

That's the nice thing about spare mixes, you don't have a lot of shit going on, fighting with each other...so it's not as hard to get a nice sound without losing your mind.
Thanks man! In mixing this again tonight, I kept in mind what you said about the stereo spread, but I forgot about the plugin you suggested. I just used the stock stereo spread plugin in Logic. It definitely sounds better now in that respect, but I'm looking forward to seeing what you think when I post it tomorrow.
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paulman
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Re: To Ramona

Post by paulman »

Well, I ended up doing a completely new mix.

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rayc
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Re: To Ramona

Post by rayc »

Nice - though, listening with headphones, there's the odd movement of low end from your voice to one side. Would that be the stereo plug?
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paulman
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Re: To Ramona

Post by paulman »

rayc wrote: Thu Aug 10, 2017 8:15 am Nice - though, listening with headphones, there's the odd movement of low end from your voice to one side. Would that be the stereo plug?
Could be. Or it could be the vocal double track, which is a little more prominent in this mix. My usual method of doubling is to copy the track, do things to it I would never do to the main vocal track (pitch shifting, delay, maybe some overdrive or saturation of some type), and mix it very low and pan it somewhat to the side (or I'll do two copies and pan them hard left and right, but in this song the one double is panned right of center). That's probably what it is, as I only used the stereo spread on the guitar track (which didn't pick up much vocal).

I really don't know much about stereo spread. I've used it before, but I just play around until it sounds good.
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rayc
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Re: To Ramona

Post by rayc »

Makes sense if it's a panned double. In that case no problems.
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TripleM
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Re: To Ramona

Post by TripleM »

I listened to the remix.

To me it's missing a little low end. There probably isn't much low end there on the vox, but the guitar could use more below 200hz.

I didn't care too much for the reverb, at least on the vocal. The vocal was a little boxy, and I think some of that came from the reverb. The long-ish predelay was a little distracting in spots.

I really liked the performance. It had a nice feel to it.
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paulman
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Re: To Ramona

Post by paulman »

TripleM wrote: Mon Aug 14, 2017 9:45 pm I listened to the remix.

To me it's missing a little low end. There probably isn't much low end there on the vox, but the guitar could use more below 200hz.

I didn't care too much for the reverb, at least on the vocal. The vocal was a little boxy, and I think some of that came from the reverb. The long-ish predelay was a little distracting in spots.

I really liked the performance. It had a nice feel to it.
Thank you. Frequency-specific comments are really helpful to me. I will take a look at that low end. Haven't listened to it in a few days now.
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Greg_L
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Re: To Ramona

Post by Greg_L »

I think the guitar sounds too "flat". It's lifeless and has no depth. It almost sounds like one of those terrible preamp DI acoutic guitars. I'm getting the impression that you have compression ducking the guitar whenever the vocals come in. That doesn't sound good to me. This is only vocals and a guitar. Get that guitar to sound fuller and richer and have it blend with the vocals instead of having the vocals stomping it down.
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miroslav
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Re: To Ramona

Post by miroslav »

Yeah...I agree...^^^...guitar needs more beef......and like I said previously, with it being just guitar and vocals, I would have the guitar in a nice wide stereo spread, and leave plenty of room for the vocal dead center...
...and not even bother with any doubled/panned vocal tracks.
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ido1957
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Re: To Ramona

Post by ido1957 »

The "mix" seemed narrow, kinda mono. Then I read your post a little more (lol) it was a live take so that makes sense.

It sounds like you've rolled off some of the bass on the acoustic. It's pretty clear sounding, I might add in some low end just to beef it up but hard to say. Not sure if it would just muddy everything up though. I've only recorded acoustic direct so micing is out of my scope. I wonder if two mics on the acoustic could be panned out a bit to widen things - again no experience, just talking off the top of my head.

The vocals are a little cloudy sounding to me, I would like to hear a bit more clarity. I can understand every word, that's a big plus, but some sparkle? maybe is what I'm trying to say.

Balance between acoustic and vocal is good - one not overpowering the other.

Performance is very good - other than maybe a little eq tweak it sounds good.
People want something for nothing, they want it right now. Either they can't tell quality or don't care but feel it is important that everyone agrees with them.
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paulman
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Re: To Ramona

Post by paulman »

Greg_L wrote: Fri Aug 18, 2017 8:54 am This is only vocals and a guitar. Get that guitar to sound fuller and richer and have it blend with the vocals instead of having the vocals stomping it down.
The guitar and vocals are intertwined on each track. It's not as simple as just getting a guitar sound. What I do to one I do to some extent to the other. So it's a delicate balance of trying to get what I want out of each track without ruining the other. But that's why I did it that way and posted it, as a challenge to record live and mix with the mics that I have. I'll keep working on it.
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paulman
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Re: To Ramona

Post by paulman »

ido1957 wrote: Sat Aug 19, 2017 12:28 pm The "mix" seemed narrow, kinda mono. Then I read your post a little more (lol) it was a live take so that makes sense.

It sounds like you've rolled off some of the bass on the acoustic. It's pretty clear sounding, I might add in some low end just to beef it up but hard to say. Not sure if it would just muddy everything up though. I've only recorded acoustic direct so micing is out of my scope. I wonder if two mics on the acoustic could be panned out a bit to widen things - again no experience, just talking off the top of my head.

The vocals are a little cloudy sounding to me, I would like to hear a bit more clarity. I can understand every word, that's a big plus, but some sparkle? maybe is what I'm trying to say.

Balance between acoustic and vocal is good - one not overpowering the other.

Performance is very good - other than maybe a little eq tweak it sounds good.
Thanks man. Sparkle (that is the word I use, and it's what I always go for with vocals) is the one thing I thought it had going for it, though. If anything I thought it might be too bright.
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Greg_L
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Re: To Ramona

Post by Greg_L »

paulman wrote: Fri Aug 25, 2017 1:43 am

The guitar and vocals are intertwined on each track. It's not as simple as just getting a guitar sound. What I do to one I do to some extent to the other. So it's a delicate balance of trying to get what I want out of each track without ruining the other. But that's why I did it that way and posted it, as a challenge to record live and mix with the mics that I have. I'll keep working on it.
I get that, but it is two tracks right? You said you had a vocal mic and a guitar mic. I know there's obviously bleed, but there's gotta be more you can do. :coolstorybro:
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