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Mix help?

paparoof

paparoof

Apr 27, 2011
1,296
691
Minneapolis
www.paparoof.com
Disclosures
fEARful koolaid drinker
#1
Did a little Warren Zevon cover tonight, I would really appreciate some brutally honest input about the recording and/or the mix.

The drums are Steven Slate VST, but everything else is played and sung by me.

What improvements are needed? What would you do differently?

Edit: made some changes today and uploaded a new version - lesson learned: don't record and mix on the same day. Ears were WAY too tired last night.
 

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#2
Nicely done!

I like and appreciate what you've accomplished! You wear many hats to be "talent," recording engineer, mix engineer, and Producer!

Honestly, nothing is really needed. Everything seems well represented. From here, it's season to taste.

Just for fun, try severely limiting or compressing duplicates of the drum tracks, to distort them a bit. Lower the levels of the original drum tracks a wee bit, then bring up the distorted tracks to just beneath the originals.

Universal Audio has a great little limiter that adds a great crunch to guitars, bass and drums. This is what I'm thinking your drum tracks need, if anything. I'd probably treat my bass the same way, although your bass level and sound is already good and tight.

Sound is difficult to describe... But, in my humble opinion, the drum tracks sound too clean, to my ears. So, treating them to a little compression artifacts and distortion will change their impact.
 
#5
ScottTunes said:
Nicely done!

I like and appreciate what you've accomplished! You wear many hats to be "talent," recording engineer, mix engineer, and Producer!

Honestly, nothing is really needed. Everything seems well represented. From here, it's season to taste.

Just for fun, try severely limiting or compressing duplicates of the drum tracks, to distort them a bit. Lower the levels of the original drum tracks a wee bit, then bring up the distorted tracks to just beneath the originals.

Universal Audio has a great little limiter that adds a great crunch to guitars, bass and drums. This is what I'm thinking your drum tracks need, if anything. I'd probably treat my bass the same way, although your bass level and sound is already good and tight.

Sound is difficult to describe... But, in my humble opinion, the drum tracks sound too clean, to my ears. So, treating them to a little compression artifacts and distortion will change their impact.
Click to expand...

What you're describing is a process called "parallel compession" or occasionally "NYC compression." There are plenty of tutorials for this process online. To clarify, there's no need to create duplicate tracks to do it. Just use an aux send on those tracks that goes to a dedicated parallel compression buss.

I've used this on drums, vocals, and even in an unlikely way on an acoustic guitar once. It's a cool technique, but also one that can go "too far" in a hurry if you start increasing the level of the buss where all of that info lives too much.
 
#7
ddnidd1 said:
Sounds good but maybe a bit dry. You might try at least adding some reverb to the drums. Also IF there's a hi hat in there I can't hear it.
Click to expand...

Ok... I was going to leave this aspect alone... However, now that it has been brought up...

I would have suggested LESS reverb... It is VERY difficult to utilize reverb for the whole "band" if you process each instrument separately! In fact, reverb is THE most over-used, and abused sound effect!! Followed closely by compression...

Again, it's worth saying: the 2 most problematic areas of recording/mixing are over use of compression, and over use of reverb.

As a side note: reverb is the most "obvious" effect you can use.

Best advice is to use just enough reverb so that it's noticeable, but not obvious, unless you have a "surf" band!! Haha!!

Compression is a whole "nuther" ball game!!! Best use of compression is "a lil goin' in, and a lil in the mix." Meaning, it's a great effect, but best use is typically as subtly as possible. Unless you want the comp/lim FX (i.e. drum FX as I previously suggested), it's best to use it VERY sparingly.

That said, this is sound we're speaking of. And sound is always subjective and dependent upon the listener!

THE mot important aspect to take away from this discussion is to HAVE FUN!! It's your "baby," and NO ONE can tell you how it should "be!"
 
#10
An effective way to check reverb levels is by using the speaker on something like an iPhone, laptop, or something fancy like an Avantone Mixcube. Those types of mono, lo-fi, poor low end response playback systems really highlight deficiencies in reverb amount, placement, EQ, etc. If you can clearly hear the reverb on one of those devices, it will likely overwhelm a "good" playback system.
 

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