Pensado's Place mixing competition - Nov 2016

[Jeff MacdonaldModerator]

I like your mix Chris. Everything is extremely well balanced and sounding great. Let me know when you submit and I'll make sure I vote for your track.

[Jeff MacdonaldModerator]

Hey guys,

Here's my working copy for right now. Any feedback would be highly appreciated. I can discuss any specifics needed, but would like to keep them off the table before first impressions ;).

https://soundcloud.com/beautifulnoisesm/always-with-me_limiter_first-print

Also, I updated my account to get rid of the jbmacdo3 (user name I was assigned by my University too many years ago) in exchange for my actual name, incase you are wondering who it is.

Cheers,

J

[TobiKeymaster]

Hey Jeff,

Like the drums. Vocal tone is sounding good.

Brass seems to clash with the vocals a touch when it comes in.

Left channel seems a little lower or sat back than right channel.... just let me check my setup... setup seems ok.
Stereo seems a bit weird to me... but I've checked in mono and everything seems to be there.

Could just be tired ears... had a bizarre experience last night, where after far too many hours of mixing the stereo image kinda collapsed in on me and I felt really not good.... passed quickly enough, but... uhh.. not nice.

The tone of each of the individual instruments sounds good. There is a lot of low mids rolling around... makes the track feel nice and warm, kinda grungy - reminds me a little of Mazzy Star tracks that were always gloriously awashed in low mids.

Drums are quite sat back - which I like... the vocal doesn't seem quite connected to them - like it's floating a touch. The depth of the various instruments feels unsure of itself. The violin is really working where it is... but the brass feels too on top.

I like the direction you're taking. I think it suits the song well. It'll be difficult to pull off with so much going on in the mix. Needs a bit of refinement - particularly in how much reverb and where everything is placed in the mix.

Maybe a touch more EQ on the low mids could help... or a multiband envelope shaper can be really helpful for reigning in some of the sustain in the lows... without sacrificing the instrument tone.

Maybe try sitting a reverb 'ghost or halo' around the vocals? ...send the vocals to a channel that is routed nowhere, and only goes to the reverb. Then place an EQ on the channel to cut some of the low mids (higher than you would usually on a vocal). Creates a kind of ghosting or halo FX around the vocals. Helps them to stand out in busy mixes...

.....don't know the proper term for the technique - I just call it a halo, if I EQ the reverb bright and a ghost if I EQ it dark. ...there is method in my madness. ...followed by a deeper layer of madness. 😉

Good stuff! Coming along nicely...

[TobiKeymaster]

Hey Chris! I'll give your mix a listen... but my ears are too tired at the moment... lost down the rabbit hole reworking my Warrior Mix....

Warren ask for more bottom and top on the chorus... and I'm thinking, 'With my setup? Okay... but I'm gonna be using the force' 😉

[Jeff MacdonaldModerator]

Thanks a lot Toby. I will take this all to heart and see what I can do to clean it up a bit. I wanted to create a really warm/Indie sort of vibe which resulted in not as much filtering in those low-mids as normally perscribed. I'll see what I can do to get that vocal seated a bit nicer, I noticed that too once I took the mix out of the normal listening environment.

I will take a another look at the panning assignments as well to ensure that it doesn't end up as lop sided, that floor-tom is taking up a lot of real-estate.

Thanks so much for taking the time to listen and critique.

Cheers,

Jeff

[Jeff MacdonaldModerator]

On further inspection it seems the bass guitar was very poorly eq'd. I pulled the horns back into the track a little bit, and messed with the automation a bit more to help ride them into the track. I did some additional eq to the vocal reverb send to halo-fy it. I like the result, thanks for that tip! I also added a bit more of that return to help the vocals sit a bit more and push the actual vocals quite a bit back into the track. I also played a bit with the instrumental tracks to get a slightly better mix, especially with ethereal guitars, I completely redid my automation there. I think that worked, but maybe I am bias as I made the adjustment. I also found a piano track that I had neglected, I made that considerably more audible and backed some of the low mids out of the horns and organs, I had some un-needed boosts there. Finally I re-did the bass tone a bit as it was driving me nuts.

Hopefully version 2 is sounding a bit more complete.

https://soundcloud.com/beautifulnoisesm/always-with-me_rev-1

Cheers,

[Andrew MckenzieParticipant]

Nice work guys....I finally got around to this one myself and have submitted an entry on IndabaMusic. Good luck to our fellow PLAPAs.
https://soundcloud.com/amacca-938159740/jesus-on-the-mainline-always-with-me-amacca-mix

[Jeff MacdonaldModerator]

Great mix! I'll find you on indaba and vote for you. Cheers J

[TobiKeymaster]

Uh oh... Version 1...deleted - not a good translation to soundcloud

• This reply was modified 7 years ago by Tobi.
• This reply was modified 7 years ago by Tobi.

[TobiKeymaster]

...hmm... may have gone too subtle with this one... doesn't translate well on soundcloud... may have worked too hard to get everything to 'sit down'... ...it's like it's laid down and gone to sleep 😉

[Chris SweetParticipant]

Where are the gang vocals? Don't hear the kick really either. Also...is this in mono? Sounds really small and smashed together.

[Chris SweetParticipant]

So I think this is my final...last call for critiques...
https://soundcloud.com/csweet08-1/always-with-me-mix-8

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