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.
JD01 wrote: ↑Wed Oct 12, 2022 12:36 pm
OK - so here's the full mix. Again - re-built from the ground up.
Dust - Mix 6.mp3
And just like that...probably the best mix you've ever done so far. Mucho improvo.
So we can dig in and nitpick further now that the drums and bass aren't muckyfucking everything up. I'm missing something in what I'm calling the chorus. The "broken images"..."exercise my privilege" part. That I can pick those phrases out now is an improvement on it's own. It seems like there should probably be a ride cymbal in there maybe? I can faintly hear the cymbal crashes but there's no ping ping or tss tss from a ride cymbal or hi-hats. The hi hat comes through the rest of the time in other sections of the song, but there's nothing in those chorus sections. It's seemingly just kick and snare. So I'm thinking bring whatever goes there up individually, or bring the entire overhead track up a hair and drop the isolated hi-hats a hair.
OK, here's Mix 7. Don't normally get this many mixes done.
My ears are a bit fucked and full of sea gunk today. All I've done is adjust the level of the cymbals.
Think I'm there or thereabouts on the ride, might have gone too far with the crashes.
Dust - Mix 7.mp3
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JD01 wrote: ↑Fri Oct 14, 2022 7:15 am
OK, here's Mix 7. Don't normally get this many mixes done.
My ears are a bit fucked and full of sea gunk today. All I've done is adjust the level of the cymbals.
Think I'm there or thereabouts on the ride, might have gone too far with the crashes.
Dust - Mix 7.mp3
It's a little better but not there yet. To me the ride is still kind of weak and the crashes have become too much.
JD01 wrote: ↑Fri Oct 14, 2022 7:15 am
OK, here's Mix 7. Don't normally get this many mixes done.
My ears are a bit fucked and full of sea gunk today. All I've done is adjust the level of the cymbals.
Think I'm there or thereabouts on the ride, might have gone too far with the crashes.
Dust - Mix 7.mp3
It's a little better but not there yet. To me the ride is still kind of weak and the crashes have become too much.
Cheers, my ears are a little waterlogged today, but I might have one more go at it later. Maybe on my AKGs which I think have a little more detail in them - even though I couldn't work out the bottom end on them.
Weird how I've found my Sonys so beneficial for mixing - also helped me get the bottom end dialed in when listening on my monitors... but my ears aren't quite good enough for listening critically on monitors at the moment.
JD01 wrote: ↑Fri Oct 14, 2022 11:56 am
Cheers, my ears are a little waterlogged today, but I might have one more go at it later. Maybe on my AKGs which I think have a little more detail in them - even though I couldn't work out the bottom end on them.
Weird how I've found my Sonys so beneficial for mixing - also helped me get the bottom end dialed in when listening on my monitors... but my ears aren't quite good enough for listening critically on monitors at the moment.
It might be because you keep bouncing back and forth from various cans to monitors. Stick to one...preferably the monitors. I don't touch my headphones unless I'm really zeroing in on some kind of weirdness or edit or something. When you go from cans to speakers it takes a little brain recalibration.
JD01 wrote: ↑Fri Oct 14, 2022 11:56 am
Cheers, my ears are a little waterlogged today, but I might have one more go at it later. Maybe on my AKGs which I think have a little more detail in them - even though I couldn't work out the bottom end on them.
Weird how I've found my Sonys so beneficial for mixing - also helped me get the bottom end dialed in when listening on my monitors... but my ears aren't quite good enough for listening critically on monitors at the moment.
It might be because you keep bouncing back and forth from various cans to monitors. Stick to one...preferably the monitors. I don't touch my headphones unless I'm really zeroing in on some kind of weirdness or edit or something. When you go from cans to speakers it takes a little brain recalibration.
I don't have a choice unfortunately. My time when I can make a lot of noise in the house is pretty limited so its usually taken up by recording guitars or singing. My process is to get a mix in the ballpark and then wait until I have an hour to work on it on monitors.
Anyway - I've rendered off just the chorus as that's where the ride is.
Chorus Only.mp3
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JD01 wrote: ↑Fri Oct 14, 2022 12:22 pm
I don't have a choice unfortunately. My time when I can make a lot of noise in the house is pretty limited so its usually taken up by recording guitars or singing. My process is to get a mix in the ballpark and then wait until I have an hour to work on it on monitors.
Anyway - I've rendered off just the chorus as that's where the ride is.
Chorus Only.mp3
Yeah that's better...probably about where it should be. I'm not crazy about that ride sound but that's just my personal preference. I like a little more tone and ping from a ride cymbal. It can sound a little more "musical".
JD01 wrote: ↑Fri Oct 14, 2022 12:22 pm
I don't have a choice unfortunately. My time when I can make a lot of noise in the house is pretty limited so its usually taken up by recording guitars or singing. My process is to get a mix in the ballpark and then wait until I have an hour to work on it on monitors.
Anyway - I've rendered off just the chorus as that's where the ride is.
Chorus Only.mp3
Yeah that's better...probably about where it should be. I'm not crazy about that ride sound but that's just my personal preference. I like a little more tone and ping from a ride cymbal. It can sound a little more "musical".
Great, cheers for your help with this.
I actually think I quite like a "jazzy" ride sound. I'm not overly keen on the bell sound on this one, but the one where I really liked the bell sound I really hated the ride sound.
Anyway - I'm gonna see how these changes translate to a few other mixes.
JD01 wrote: ↑Fri Oct 14, 2022 12:47 pm
Great, cheers for your help with this.
I actually think I quite like a "jazzy" ride sound. I'm not overly keen on the bell sound on this one, but the one where I really liked the bell sound I really hated the ride sound.
Anyway - I'm gonna see how these changes translate to a few other mixes.
Nice work on this one @JD01. I think I listened way back to the original mix and today caught the final Wasteland mix.
I certainly don't have any nits at this late stage. Your hard work really paid off on this one, it came a long way and sounds really good to my ears. I like the dark overall tone of the song (and I mean that in regards to the lyrics and chord progressions, not the mix). It's a little gothic and moody, perfect for an October jam.
I've been playing with this monitoring/metering thingy lately for an upcoming review and according to it, the loudness was pretty much spot-on, coming in just a tad louder than -14 LUFS over the whole song. It was showing some overs in the ride cymbal chorus part, but I haven't calibrated this thing well enough yet to know if that's accurate (it showed a true peak at 1.9dB). If your master bus is showing peaks over 0dB then maybe a final brick wall limiter on the master would catch those, otherwise it's just me not having this doohickey set correctly
Only one thing I'd say. I like the definition/attack you put on the cymbal in the pre-chorus (the "exercise my privilege" section). You might have gone just a little far? Maybe? Whatever you did, maybe back off it just a fraction. It grabs a bit too much attention.
Tadpui wrote: ↑Sun Oct 16, 2022 2:47 pm
Nice work on this one @JD01. I think I listened way back to the original mix and today caught the final Wasteland mix.
I certainly don't have any nits at this late stage. Your hard work really paid off on this one, it came a long way and sounds really good to my ears. I like the dark overall tone of the song (and I mean that in regards to the lyrics and chord progressions, not the mix). It's a little gothic and moody, perfect for an October jam.
I've been playing with this monitoring/metering thingy lately for an upcoming review and according to it, the loudness was pretty much spot-on, coming in just a tad louder than -14 LUFS over the whole song. It was showing some overs in the ride cymbal chorus part, but I haven't calibrated this thing well enough yet to know if that's accurate (it showed a true peak at 1.9dB). If your master bus is showing peaks over 0dB then maybe a final brick wall limiter on the master would catch those, otherwise it's just me not having this doohickey set correctly
Yeah, I have a free loudness meter on the master bus. And I've adjusted until I get it to consistently average at -14.
TripleM wrote: ↑Sun Oct 16, 2022 3:39 pm
Listening to mix #7.
It sounds great.
Only one thing I'd say. I like the definition/attack you put on the cymbal in the pre-chorus (the "exercise my privilege" section). You might have gone just a little far? Maybe? Whatever you did, maybe back off it just a fraction. It grabs a bit too much attention.
Guitars sound so cool.
Cheers, I'm undecided as yet. If I back them off it'll only be slightly.
rayc wrote: ↑Sun Oct 16, 2022 8:42 pm
New Name mix...it does sound complete.
The leads sound a little nasal but I assume that's the tone you're going for.
Nice one James.
I know what you mean but when I play lead on single coil guitars I like that really upper middy sound. I think its just a tubescreamer. Also, with that kind of sound I can have the guitar quite low in the mix but still have it really cut through.
@JD01 this was quite the thread ot read thru. I started following along in the hospital but i was too high to give any kind of valuable words.
Sitting here now doing an A/B between the first and last mix and it's come a very long way. Cleaned up very nicely!!!
I am on my good cans and i find the overheads during the solo at 1:50ish. a bit to dominant. The sounds i think are fine they just might be a bit too loud. they kind of wash everything else out.
I am sure you are done with this one and entirely over it but i figured I'd chime in.
Vocals are sitting in the mix quite nicely too good job man. All the effort was worth it.
