Thoughts on my latest mix?

So, you know those times when you're mixing, and everything just magically falls into place and everybody is immediately in love? Yeah, this hasn't been one of those.

Given, this is a recording from self-isolation where everybody is recording with only the limited gear on hand, but man the last one we did came together a whole lot easier.

Any general thoughts on this mix are welcome, though go easy on the musicianship and parts - we are what we are.

 

Thanks, I wasn't joking that I was banging my head on my desk with this one - it was a challenge, This is my second time mixing a song myself, and it was much more difficult than my first one (this one is also a video). Maybe where I left off last night was in a better spot than I thought though... I'm still not sure if I might need to bring down the more delayed guitar part at the very beginning... any thoughts on that front?

Thanks again! I use Reaper! Everybody recorded their parts at home and sent them to me. As you can see, a little bit of editing was needed. Happy to answer any other questions though - I got by with using nothing but the stock Reaper plugins.

Appreciate that. If you heard the vocal parts solo'd, you might be surprised to hear how much reverb is actually included on them already! But given that some of the other parts have that stereo delay applied, it tends to mesh together. Truth be told, I did experiment with even more (and less) reverb and delay, and for my style at least, I liked where I landed. Maybe I'll give it another shot per your note just for fun though.

Now if I could just get all of the levels exactly where I want them...

 

And as for this specifically, thank you - if it were up to me, I'd say go for it, but I'd have to check with the band first. At the very least, we haven't officially released the song yet!

 

First off, I think that recording sounds great! I can hear all of the parts clearly, and it's certainly a pleasant sounding mix!

I can help with that, it's super easy. Have you played around with FX much? In that screenshot above, most of the tracks have a green little "FX" button next or above them indicating that a plugin is turned on for them. If you click that button for one of your tracks, it'll give you a bunch of options. ReaTune is the Reaper Autotune effect, and it's decent. Add it to your track, select the automatic option and play with the attack time (millisecond) value until it's dialed in. Longer times will delay autune kicking in for longer periods of time to allow for more expression, and shorter ones like "2" will give you straight up T-Pain. You can also chop out specific problem areas and tune single notes using the manual selection as well - something I had to do once in the track above (when a note is so off pitch that autotune nudges it in the wrong direction)!

 

Find a section with subtle pitch expression that you want to keep. Any pitch bends or anything? Select that section, set it play the section on repeat, and then fire up ReaTune. While it's playing, try a low ms value like 40 and see if it is clonking or removing the expression. Then try it with 50, 60, 70 - when it gets to the point where it is fixing the problem, but without negative artifacts that's your setting.

You then need to decide if you want to use the effect for the entire track, or carve out a specific section to use it on. I typically don't go lower than 75ms for vocals, and 150 would be a more subtle setting just as a range, but it all depends on the part.

Edit: also, make sure you have the "automatic" or whatever tick box checked!

 

Agreed, I did this since.

Agreed. I did this too, and I brought up the guitars a little for good measure.

This is for a video, and so there is actually a good bit of panning going on, acoustic and rhythm guitar are 20% left and right respectively, the intro bass is 30% left, with primary bass center, lead guitar 30% right, backing vocals are 20% to each side, and primary vocals are at 5% right. Drums are all over. I also have a bit of a stereo delay going on here for the intro that pings the signal back and forth, listen with headphones if you get a chance!

Thanks!!

 

@MonetBass what the hell, I might as well post the latest. What do you think, vocals still need to come up more?

 

Hard to beat a Precision with flats.

 

My two primary vocalists keep telling me that. I keep telling them to shut up (not really..... kinda), but if another bassist thinks they need to come up more, well that changes things.

 

You know what, I went back and revisited the amount of reverb I had on the vocals, and you were absolutely right. I played around with it and ended up landing in a spot with the room size increased by about 15%. Given how the mix evolved they definitely needed a significant shove in that direction.