Suck It In - 1st Mix

[JD01]

OK, messing about with all them compressors and vocal EQs that Greg pointed me in the direction of got me in the mood for doing a mix.

In the kind of downtime when RecReview was on its last legs and before we joined this place I joined Kompoz.com - its like an online musical collaboration network, wouldn't be much use to most of you, but people like me and probably Ray would find it handy.

I posted up one of my instrumentals, an American guy donated a lyric file and a Swedish bloke (with a much better voice than I'll ever have) sung it.

So, this is the first time I've mixed a decent vocal track when the mixing process is about making it sound good as opposed to my usual of making it sound like its not too bad!

1st Mix


2nd Mix


Most of you will have heard this before but not with any vocals - I like the melody, so if I can get a performance 1/2 as good as Staffan has managed on this for his scratch take I'll re-post it with my lyrics.

[Bubba]

That's really good, Dude! Both of your collaborators appear to have delivered the goods and your mix works really well. No obvious nits from me - good performances well recorded more-or less mix themselves, I find.

Ok - I have one nit that I have with every damn thing you post. Edit your starts and ends to sound tidy, ferchrissakes! This one cuts off like you ran out of tape, otherwise it sounds mighty fine!

[JD01]

That's really good, Dude! Both of your collaborators appear to have delivered the goods and your mix works really well. No obvious nits from me - good performances well recorded more-or less mix themselves, I find.

Yeah - everything else I've tried to get involved with on that site has died on its arse. I've put up another thread about the pros and cons of online collaboration with random strangers though.

Ok - I have one nit that I have with every damn thing you post. Edit your starts and ends to sound tidy, ferchrissakes! This one cuts off like you ran out of tape, otherwise it sounds mighty fine!

I haven't worked out how to do that yet - it seemed pretty trivial in the grand scheme of things.

[Bubba]

] haven't worked out how to do that yet - it seemed pretty trivial in the grand scheme of things.

Well I think if you get used to taking care of the little things like that, your pieces of work start to sound completely professional. I always let everything die out naturally for at least a few seconds after playing the last note/chord. Then I adjust the decay by pulling a fade envelope from the end of each track so that everything fades naturally and neatly. I think it's well worth the trouble.

[JD01]

] haven't worked out how to do that yet - it seemed pretty trivial in the grand scheme of things.

Well I think if you get used to taking care of the little things like that, your pieces of work start to sound completely professional. I always let everything die out naturally for at tleast a few seconds after playing the last note/chord. Then I adjust the decay by pulling a fade envelope from the end of each track so that everything fades naturally and neatly. I think it's well worth the trouble.

Cool, will look into it.

[Greg_L]

You need to work on the drums. Levels and balance. This is clearly a guitarist's mix. The kick is little more than a light thump under the wash of everything else. The snare gets buried at times. The drums need to be driving the fuck out of a song like this. The most important part of guitar rock is the drums! The bass is there but not very exciting. It's just a boring low end tone that does it's job but not much else. The guitars sound pretty good, albeit loud. Your guitar performance is good too. Sometimes I think you sound a little stiff and mechanical. This, though, has good energy to it.

Whoever did the vocals did a nice job. A little overdone IMO, but that's just personal taste. You mixed them in pretty well. I'm not a fan of the reverb you used. I think you need to work with some pre-delay. That will give the vocals space but maintain their clarity. Pre-delay is the difference between a sound in the back of a big room and the sound in the front of that same big room.

[rammer24]

I agree with Greg. Even though, as always happens when I read someone's comments before listening, it's not as bad as I expected it to be. In fact, it's pretty good. I think you just need to select every guitar track, and then globally turn them down 2 db. You'll hate it at first, but come back tomorrow and it will make sense. It's a good, driving song. Actually, forget the comma. It's a good driving song. As in, I'd play this in the car.

Not too much wrong with this. Love the guitar parts. Just turn them down a bit to allow the drums to power the song.

And, like Bubba said, I always do a fade at the end of my songs, even for dead stops.

[paulman]

I think it sounds really good overall. Great guitar sound, first and foremost. Need more drums! Anything I have to critique would be pretty much what Greg said but with less detail.

[ocnor]

I concur with Greg and Rami about the drums and vocal.

[JD01]

Cheers, guys. I'll have another fiddle with this tomorrow. I might post up a couple more mixes of this throughout tomorrow evening as I'd like to take the time to really learn something from this one.

[JD01]

Right, I actually got up this morning and did a new mix, based on what you guys said.

I brought the guitars down a couple of db, brought the kick and snare up a couple of db and added a bit of pre-reverb to Staffan.



Can't do a lot about the bass guitar, its all I can do on that thing to hold a note down with the action as high as it is

[rayc]

JD,
Most recent mix is really quite good.
There's a bit of growl in the bass, the kick seems a little louder and the guitars really rock.
I can't remember who I thought the singer sounded a bit like - the thought still hangs - he does sound like X but also has a little bit of Euro in the pronunciation and dramatics.Oh, that's right David Surkamp (Pavlov's Dog), without the vibrato on every note.
I managed to find a vocalist for 2 songs in the last week. A woman from Sydney for an older one & Paulman is giving thought to a possibility for another, newer, track.
Collaborations are important for me due to my lack of ability in a few areas. I usually find the collaborators cover for me pretty well. Yours have done a fine job and the mix is

[JD01]

JD,
Most recent mix is really quite good.
There's a bit of growl in the bass, the kick seems a little louder and the guitars really rock.
I can't remember who I thought the singer sounded a bit like - the thought still hangs - he does sound like X but also has a little bit of Euro in the pronunciation and dramatics.Oh, that's right David Surkamp (Pavlov's Dog), without the vibrato on every note.
I managed to find a vocalist for 2 songs in the last week. A woman from Sydney for an older one & Paulman is giving thought to a possibility for another, newer, track.
Collaborations are important for me due to my lack of ability in a few areas. I usually find the collaborators cover for me pretty well. Yours have done a fine job and the mix is

Cool, look forward to hearing them when you get them sorted. I think going forward I'll post up tracks with my guide vocal and lyrics all ready included.
I quite like the Swedish twang on the vocal to this track though...

I think a few of us might be requesting Paulman's services!

[ido1957]

At the office so I have to catch up on this tonight.....

[Greg_L]

Right, I actually got up this morning and did a new mix, based on what you guys said.

I brought the guitars down a couple of db, brought the kick and snare up a couple of db and added a bit of pre-reverb to Staffan.



Can't do a lot about the bass guitar, its all I can do on that thing to hold a note down with the action as high as it is

The music parts are better. The drums are more present now. Bass is a little better.

The vocal reverb seems backwards. You don't want pre-reverb, you want pre-delay. Pre-reverb puts the reverb before the actual signal. It's like backwards reverb. That's a cool effect sometimes, but not for the whole thing. Pre-delay puts a hint of delay between the dry signal and the reverb effect. This gives the vocals clarity but still with a sense of space.

[JD01]

Right, I actually got up this morning and did a new mix, based on what you guys said.

I brought the guitars down a couple of db, brought the kick and snare up a couple of db and added a bit of pre-reverb to Staffan.



Can't do a lot about the bass guitar, its all I can do on that thing to hold a note down with the action as high as it is

The music parts are better. The drums are more present now. Bass is a little better.

The vocal reverb seems backwards. You don't want pre-reverb, you want pre-delay. Pre-reverb puts the reverb before the actual signal. It's like backwards reverb. That's a cool effect sometimes, but not for the whole thing. Pre-delay puts a hint of delay between the dry signal and the reverb effect. This gives the vocals clarity but still with a sense of space.

haha, I got mixed up with pre-reverb and pre-delay. I'll iron that out this afternoon.

[Greg_L]

haha, I got mixed up with pre-reverb and pre-delay. I'll iron that out this afternoon.

If you're using reaverb, I don't think it has a pre-delay parameter. Maybe it does, I haven't checked. I use delay for that. A vocal delay and appropriate reverb impulse does the trick.

[JD01]

haha, I got mixed up with pre-reverb and pre-delay. I'll iron that out this afternoon.

If you're using reaverb, I don't think it has a pre-delay parameter. Maybe it does, I haven't checked. I use delay for that. A vocal delay and appropriate reverb impulse does the trick.

I use a "vocal thickener" preset for Reaper's delay and a reverb impulse in Reaverb. There must be a pre-delay setting in there somewhere, I'm sure I'll find it.

[JD01]

Nope, can't find a bloody pre-delay anywhere. What one do you use?

[rammer24]

Nope, can't find a bloody pre-delay anywhere. What one do you use?

What reverb do you use, JD? The pre-dealy should be one of the parameters.