Whiter Shade of Pale Rotund Mix

[RotundParticipant]

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1cgJs3ifOgXw8zlRapdhQj0SS3lSmPYDr/view?usp=sharing

Putting it up there, lots of work to do tho I feel like I really farnarkled this one but hey, its worth a shot and a listen I guess..

I stumbled across Warren's version of whiter shade of pale, and thought i would fold those tracks into the mix aswell and see how that works out.

There was a fair bit of editing to do because of the tempo's and other reasons, so im pretty happy i managed to pull it all together.

Thanks to Russell Thomas, Fernando Ferraro for your help so far..

Taking comments into consideration, I used a mid pass filter on the monitoring chain to see if i could isolate and balance things out a bit  in that area.. this helped heaps..

Comments would be great because im feeling that i dont have direction at the moment.. Cheers.

[Russell Cameron ThomasParticipant]

Hi Rotund -- thanks for sharing your work-in-progress.  Since you are in the middle of this, I will focus on a few major themes rather than a bunch of details.

First a few positives -- I think your vocal and drums are solid.  They might need some adjustments as you get other elements in line, but for now they are fine.  Bass is also where it needs to be, roughly, though you might dial it back before you are finished.

I like your overall approach of automating the organ (and maybe other parts) during the verses.  The big challenge in this mix is all the competition in the mid-range -- vocal, organ, piano, guitars -- plus the fact that the singer is in the low end of her range, compared to the original Procol Harum where the male singer was in the upper part of his range.  I ended up using nearly every technique in the book -- volume automation, static EQ, EQ automation, and side-chain compression and EQ, and panning.

That said, I think you have gone too far in automating the organ.  It nearly disappears in the early part of each verse, but is huge in the intro.  I don't have a problem with that in principle, even to the point of muting instruments during certain sections or passages.  But the way you have it now feels unsteady.  I think you could bring down the organ during the intro and it would still stand out, and bring up the organ during the verse and there would still be room for the vocal.  Like you, I did "stair step" automation on the organ, making it progressively louder during the verses as the energy in the vocal builds and to bring out some nice lines of the organ.

Regarding the FX on the organ, I think you may have gone too far with the Leslie/tremelo/vibrato effect.   Maybe its just the fast rate and depth.  If you dialed them both back a bit I think you'll find the organ still has good movement but it would be less distracting.  (As you can hear from my mix, I re-amped the organ, added some overdrive during the solo sections, and also used a Leslie speaker emulator.)

Last suggestions are regarding the piano and acoustic guitar.  Are they both panned to the right?  I would suggest having one toward the right and the other left, for balance.  Also I think the acoustic guitar is a good candidate for volume automation so it only comes in when it adds value.  I chose to focus the acoustic guitar on the intro and the early part of each verses, and I cut it out completely during the solo sections.  I think the piano has more to contribute, especially harmonically during the verses.

The "wild card" is the electric guitar, which is recorded with a lot of FX (flanging and chorus, I recall) so it doesn't need any more.  It carries some nice counter melodies, but it's challenging to make it heard and also not crowd out other elements.

Hope this helps.

 

 

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