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« Reply #75 on: March 28, 2011, 05:32:37 PM » |
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Eek. Just realised I've skipped your mix by mistake. Never fear, though -- I'll put it to the top of the list tomorrow. Sorry!  |
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« Reply #76 on: March 28, 2011, 05:36:44 PM » |
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An unusual choice of delay spin on the verse vocal, simply because its un-sync'ed nature risks undermining the rhythm. But on balance I think that you've pulled it off -- always good to hear someone living a bit dangerously and getting away with it! I'm not convinced by the specific reverb you've chosen for the toms in particular. It sounds a little too close to the 80s for most bands these days, and given that I don't think Young Griffo are casting any knowing glances back to that era I'd rethink that particular effect. If you need more blend, then try a more subtle and frequency-tailored ambience. If you want more 'boosh', then maybe try lifting the overheads or compressed room with automation -- or simply compress things harder! The 100-200Hz region feels a bit overcooked, particularly on the bass and toms. Maybe pull those back a bit and allow some more of the guitar low end through. The guitars seem too wiry at the moment, even though that does keep the overall mix fairly clear in the midrange. This becomes a particular issue during the middle-sections, of course, where my eardrums are getting lightly sand-papered currently! If you can give the bass more character above the 100-200Hz range, that would probably help you, as well as bringing the roots of the chords out more clearly on small speakers. The 2-5kHz region also seems to be emphasised a little too much, which is making the middle sections feel rather hollowed out and buzzy. There's a lot of good stuff in the drums department here, with some efforts clearly being taken to bring out that snare in the high frequencies. While this does have some success, I think that drum still needs some real midrange power too, so that it can push against a buss compressor and surreptitiously ride the whole mix. I particularly like the way the cymbals and room are coming across -- the whispery sustain of the ride and hat in particular. Another very well-judged kick-drum too, which fits both the verse and the chorus quite well to my ears. As in Mattski's mix, the vocals feel as if they've been pulled too high in the mix, and it's unsettling the overall balance as well as the long-term dynamics. As I've mentioned once before, I reckon that you'd gain a lot from listening to your mix balance without the drums (and maybe the bass too) to get a really good handle on the internal balance with fewer distractions. It's amazing how effective this dodge is. (Besides, if it's good enough for Geoff Emerick and Alan Parsons, then it's good enough for me!) |
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Mattski
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« Reply #77 on: March 28, 2011, 05:41:36 PM » |
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Eek. Just realised I've skipped your mix by mistake. Never fear, though -- I'll put it to the top of the list tomorrow. Sorry! And mine too... LOL... |
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« Reply #78 on: March 28, 2011, 05:41:49 PM » |
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Another very different interpretation here -- although not in quite as distant an orbit as Broman! The soft fluffy bass tone is a strong opening statement, as it overturns the driving rhythmic element within that part, and makes things feel more in suspended animation. Despite my instinctive apprehensions about losing this rhythmic element, in practice I'm pleasantly surprised how well you've made it work out. The chorus texture is equally inventive, although here I'm not as easily won over. Probably the biggest stumbling block for me is the hyper-clicky drum tone, which weaves in a rather incongrous speed-metal thread, while the snare is very rattling and garagy -- it's got plenty of HF density to cut through the guitars, but at the cost of a rather disconcerting unnaturalness to the overall kit sound. The overheads appear to have been used primarily as cymbal mics, rather than allowing them to blend the rest of the kit much, and the toms are way in the distance. On the plus side, though, I like the way you've brought out more of the character of the second chorus guitar line -- most people have majored on the main line, rather to the detriment of the secondary one, which I think's a bit of a shame. In fact, I wonder if there might be some arrangement variation available in this song from highighting the secondary part for a moment here and there. The vocal tone sounds a bit like it's been over-EQ'd with narrow-band boosts, which makes it feel a bit scratchy. Also -- Help! Police! Someone's stolen the singer's dentures!  Seriously, though, there's some pretty severe lisping on 'you see a devil in me', and there's no need for that with any modern de-essing tool. The severity of the processing makes me suspicious that it might be part of some kind of 'rock vocal' channel preset or something, rather than something intentional. (Presets for frequency-selective processing in particular are a complete non-starter for almost all mixing purposes, because these effects are so dependent on a sound's unique context at mixdown.) The lip noise is overbearing in the second verse too. Glad to see another serious stab at pitch-correction, though! (There appears to be some kind of glitch between 'coming around' and 'I am a failure indeed'. I figure this probably isn't desirable, so you might want to do some troubleshooting to ascertain the cause.) You've got a fair bit of width to the mix, which gives an impressive spread in stereo, but it suffers some balance upsets in mono -- the BVs and guitars in particular take a pretty big level dive on a single speaker. The guitars also lose out from the mid-scooped overall mix tonality -- the two-octave range centred on 500Hz seems roughly 6dB down compared to the references mentioned. This mix seems to make much more sense once that's tackled with a bit of buss EQ, so I'm suspicious that monitoring problems may be holding you back. Irrespective, I'm impressed by the boldness and creativity being demonstrated here, both of which characteristics are usually present in all the best mixes. Thanks for letting us hear what you've done! |
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« Reply #79 on: March 28, 2011, 05:43:31 PM » |
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Eek. Just realised I've skipped your mix by mistake. Never fear, though -- I'll put it to the top of the list tomorrow. Sorry! And mine too... LOL... Isn't it post number 74? |
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« Reply #80 on: March 28, 2011, 05:48:22 PM » |
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The low end feels a bit funny in this mix. For a start, the low frequencies of the bass guitar are rather inconsistent, and this won't be helped by the phase mismatches between the left and right channels (a side-effect of bass widening again, I imagine). However, I also think that it's got something to do with the bass tone in this mix relying a lot on its fundamental, something that puts it into direct conflict with the kick drum. As a result, the pulse ends up feeling slightly blurred, and seems to lose a definite punch somewhere along the line. (Fret squeaks are overprominent too.) I like the snare sound, and there's no danger of it getting lost in the texture, which is great. Although some of this is undoubtedly down to the guitar EQ, the snare pops through fine even in the much more present middle sections. This is just the kind of thing I'd had in mind for the snare, although I do still wonder if it's a touch lightweight -- as indeed is the mix tonality as a whole -- in the octave around 400Hz or so. The blend also isn't as good as I'd hope, and I wonder whether you need to lean a bit more heavily on the overheads, the room mic, and the tom-mic spill. Speaking of the toms, they suffer from a problem we've had once before already -- they're hyper-wide, and that feels very odd within the context of a not-particularly-wide overheads image. Vocals seem pretty well balanced, but I wonder again whether the low midrange power of the choruses would be better coming from the guitars than the vocals, nice though it makes the vocals sound in their own right. The thickening effects on the chorus are well-designed, I think, and thicken things in a really good way. Despite the niggles, I find myself warming to this mix a lot, which means that long-term dynamics issues become more of an issue relatively speaking. I find myself wishing that the choruses filled out a bit more, that the second mid-section was rebalanced to smooth out the tone a little, and that the final chorus had some trick up its sleeve to avoid the otherwise almost inevitable arrangement letdown. I think compression/reverb and overhead/room rides are the order of the day here. (Here's a leftfield thought for anyone feeling adventuresome, though: what about doubling the final chorus, and making the first one a drop-chorus? That would negate the need for the final chorus entry to sound bigger than mid-section 2, and would allow the second final chorus to arrive with a bigger subjective bang, even if it included no extra parts...  ) Anyway, thanks for putting this one together Minorhead -- it's a really strong submission, not least because it's upped the ante on that snare sound. |
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« Reply #81 on: March 28, 2011, 05:53:27 PM » |
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I can see that we're in no risk of running out of new ideas for this mix. What a menacing intro sound this is -- I like it! What I would say, though, is that I feel the drums could be much more menacing in response. At the moment they come across with fairly straightforward heavy rock aggression, but what if you shaved the top of the kick and slightly lo-fi'ed the cymbals instead, say? That bass entry has such character, I kind of feel I want to hear more of it. You could even give it a bit more presence at the expense of the lead guitar, because you sacrifice a lot of the bass line's internal rhythmic drive the way it currently is. The verse vocal tone and effects are already right on the button for a menacing kind of vibe too, and I think you'd get more atmosphere out of the opening that way, allowing you to leave extra aggression in reserve for the chorus. Even when we get to the chorus, I think such spiky kick and snare sounds are perhaps counterproductive (even though the snare sustain seems to be heading along the right lines), because they concentrate a lot of energy into the 3-5kHz zone. By the time we get to Chorus 2, the guitars and the distorted vocals are all also cramming that region full of energy, with the result that the overall mix tone gets uncomfortably grating on my ear, and I find myself turning down the volume. (Kind of the opposite of what you'd want, really!) It's not that you don't want energy in that region; it's just that you don't want to pile everything in there at once, or else you lose all definition. This kind of situation is most likely to crop up if you make your EQ judgements with the track soloed, rather than within the context of the mix -- everyone instinctively has their favourite frequencies, and those that they aren't as fond of, so that will tend to translate into frequency peaks/troughs in your overall mix tonality. Everything can't sound great in every frequency region, so give your favourite frequencies to the most important instruments and then make sure the rest of the instruments make enough space for them to shine. In addition to the 3-5kHz bunch-up, the low-midrange is quite recessed, presumably for similar reasons, but even if I adjusted with master EQ, it doesn't feel like the bass is nearly audible enough in the mix, especially in the light of the kick-drum's rock-solid low-end thud. The bass could contribute additional useful warmth and power, as well as driving the arrangement along with its nice melodic riffs and fills. The stereo picture feels a little narrow to me, yet the mono-compatibility feels less good than I'd expect from this. I'd guess that this probably comes down to your panning the drum and guitar multimics for width purposes without first confirming a decent phase-match for them in mono, although it's possible that some of the less hi-fi effects might also harbour hidden mono-compatibility problems -- you've got to be quite careful with freeware reverbs on that count, for example. Long-term dynamics are so-so at the moment, but I reckon a little rebalancing and some rides could make a big difference there. It's a shame to hear so little of the chorus BVs, for a start. Altogether, then, my main message is to reasssess your EQ methodology and remember to check mono-compatibility. These issues aside, however, there's a lot to recommend this mix, and I reckon you could bring about big subjective improvements here without too much extra work. Thanks for letting us hear your ideas! |
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Mattski
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« Reply #82 on: March 28, 2011, 05:55:23 PM » |
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The low end feels a bit funny in this mix. For a start, the low frequencies of the bass guitar are rather inconsistent, and this won't be helped by the phase mismatches between the left and right channels (a side-effect of bass widening again, I imagine). However, I also think that it's got something to do with the bass tone in this mix relying a lot on its fundamental, something that puts it into direct conflict with the kick drum. As a result, the pulse ends up feeling slightly blurred, and seems to lose a definite punch somewhere along the line. (Fret squeaks are overprominent too.) I like the snare sound, and there's no danger of it getting lost in the texture, which is great. Although some of this is undoubtedly down to the guitar EQ, the snare pops through fine even in the much more present middle sections. This is just the kind of thing I'd had in mind for the snare, although I do still wonder if it's a touch lightweight -- as indeed is the mix tonality as a whole -- in the octave around 400Hz or so. The blend also isn't as good as I'd hope, and I wonder whether you need to lean a bit more heavily on the overheads, the room mic, and the tom-mic spill. Speaking of the toms, they suffer from a problem we've had once before already -- they're hyper-wide, and that feels very odd within the context of a not-particularly-wide overheads image. Vocals seem pretty well balanced, but I wonder again whether the low midrange power of the choruses would be better coming from the guitars than the vocals, nice though it makes the vocals sound in their own right. The thickening effects on the chorus are well-designed, I think, and thicken things in a really good way. Despite the niggles, I find myself warming to this mix a lot, which means that long-term dynamics issues become more of an issue relatively speaking. I find myself wishing that the choruses filled out a bit more, that the second mid-section was rebalanced to smooth out the tone a little, and that the final chorus had some trick up its sleeve to avoid the otherwise almost inevitable arrangement letdown. I think compression/reverb and overhead/room rides are the order of the day here. (Here's a leftfield thought for anyone feeling adventuresome, though: what about doubling the final chorus, and making the first one a drop-chorus? That would negate the need for the final chorus entry to sound bigger than mid-section 2, and would allow the second final chorus to arrive with a bigger subjective bang, even if it included no extra parts... ) Anyway, thanks for putting this one together Minorhead -- it's a really strong submission, not least because it's upped the ante on that snare sound. It's reply #51 |
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« Reply #83 on: March 28, 2011, 05:57:30 PM » |
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Eek. Just realised I've skipped your mix by mistake. Never fear, though -- I'll put it to the top of the list tomorrow. Sorry! And mine too... LOL... errr... and mine too! Sorry -- maybe I wasn't being clear. I'm still trying to attend to the mixes in order of submission, and I've not got through to yours yet. The problem with vvv is that I should have critiqued him before Fishmed, whereas he'll now have to wait until tomorrow. Don't panic, folks -- I'm doing my best not to be a doofus! (I'm sure you're all very reassured by that...  ) |
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« Reply #84 on: March 28, 2011, 06:00:53 PM » |
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It's reply #51
No, what I meant was, isn't my critique of your mix post #74? Here's a direct link to it. |
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ExpressMix
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« Reply #85 on: March 28, 2011, 06:06:17 PM » |
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I appreciate your detailed feedback and yeah, I went too far trying to de-ess that vocal... I could never quite get a good handle on it, the tone I wanted for it, and I did "steal the singers lips" didn't I? That one made me laugh mostly because it was so damn true. Great feedback, very much appreciated. |
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MortenDK
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« Reply #86 on: March 28, 2011, 06:22:48 PM » |
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Thx Mike for reveiwing my mix!. Lots of good input to take with me and improving on. Im not gonna submit another mix as I want to take the lessons learned to the next mix rather than trying to make this "perfect" as to me its done. So I will let your critic sink in with a few more reads Thx for for doing this! it hopefully will help this site get off to a running start aswell  |
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vvv
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I often mix with jes' a cuppla drops of vermouth.
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« Reply #88 on: March 28, 2011, 06:55:20 PM » |
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Eek. Just realised I've skipped your mix by mistake. Never fear, though -- I'll put it to the top of the list tomorrow. Sorry! I want my money back! Kidding, of course; thanks for all yer hard work; I'm learning tons from this thread alone, not to mention the whole freaking site and the practice in other people's work I'm getting, ... ... for free. |
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Fishmed
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« Reply #89 on: March 28, 2011, 08:58:23 PM » |
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Thank you Mike for taking the time to review my mix, especially on the bass guitar as I was never pleased with what I had... as much as I tried. I appologize for the 80's thing ... bad habits die hard, and bad music dies harder. |
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« Last Edit: March 28, 2011, 09:44:28 PM by Fishmed »
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RobRokken
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« Reply #90 on: March 28, 2011, 09:26:44 PM » |
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Wait, shouldn't the WORST mix win the book? Kinda makes sense lol... ~Rob. |
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deejsirois
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« Reply #91 on: March 28, 2011, 10:11:00 PM » |
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Wait, shouldn't the WORST mix win the book? Kinda makes sense lol... ~Rob. Complete sense. I was thinking the same thing. Then I thought maybe both the best AND the worst should get it....the best because they worked hard and deserve a "cookie" for their efforts and skill, the worst, well, because they need some help and know that we still love them lol. |
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Loon
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« Reply #92 on: March 28, 2011, 11:41:10 PM » |
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Great song and great band. Anyone know what was used to track the bass? Anyway, here's mine. http://dl.dropbox.com/u/22087900/Griffomix1.mp3 |
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« Last Edit: March 28, 2011, 11:49:34 PM by Loon »
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Maton
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« Reply #93 on: March 29, 2011, 12:00:21 AM » |
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Great song and great band. Anyone know what was used to track the bass?
Thanks Loon! Heres the bass gear used, also included guitar as well for anyone interested: Bass - Custom Lowend Jazz Hollowbody Bass plugged into an Orange Tiny Terror 500 head and a Glockenklang Double 12 cab. Effects used: Dave Hall VT1 EQ Bass Preamp and a Dave Hall VT1 Mk3 Bass Overdrive. Guitar - Maton MS2000 Deluxe plugged into an Orange RV50 and an Orange PPC212 cab. Effects used: Eventide Timefactor, Xotic RC Booster, Barber Trifecta Fuzz. The fuzz was only used in the outro (w/ clean channel), rest of the song used the Dirty channel. The bridge was over dubbed with a Vox AC15. I assumed you meant the bass gear and now thinking you might have meant mics. If thats the case, let me know and I will try to remember As a side note, we are all really enjoying listening to all the mixes and reading Mike's in depth critiques. There is a lot of great hard work in these mixes and some very creative ideas as well. Keep 'em coming! Cheers, Paul Young Griffo |
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Loon
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« Reply #94 on: March 29, 2011, 12:16:57 AM » |
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Would you know specifically what bass was used? Including pickups? I personally thought even the DI tone was great.
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« Last Edit: March 29, 2011, 12:21:27 AM by Loon »
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Maton
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« Reply #96 on: March 29, 2011, 02:18:41 AM » |
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Would you know specifically what bass was used? Including pickups? I personally thought even the DI tone was great.
Here is a link to specs, images and review by our own, Mat Gilroy. http://www.thelowend.net/gallery/viewtopic.php?t=4191The pick ups are single coils made by Lowend Cheers, Paul Young Griffo |
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« Reply #97 on: March 29, 2011, 04:47:24 AM » |
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I was just adding some comments to a new monthly blog I'm doing in conjunction with Sound On Sound, and it occurred to me that it might be of interest to people reading this thread. The blog's called 'The Mix Review', and you can find it on-line in a dedicated SOS Sub-forum. It involves me doing similar mix/production critiques as I'm doing on this thread, but based on commercial chart releases. (It's also appearing as a monthly column in the print magazine, but there's more info and discussion via the forum of course.) |
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« Reply #98 on: March 29, 2011, 05:59:25 AM » |
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Again, apologies for the delay.  There's something very odd about the timing at the outset of this mix -- the guitar line sounds like it's slipped out of line. If this was intentional, then I'd be interested in knowing the thinking behind it. It does make it a bit trippier, I suppose, but it doesn't really work for me as it stands. Your dramatic reinvention of the bass sound makes for a nice swirly atmosphere in the verses, and also makes the contrast with the aggression of the chorus great. The downside, of course, is that it does also inevitably lose most of the rhythmic momentum of the verse part, and there are also phase mismatch issues at the low end on account of the deep stereo chorusing. Before being able to judge anything else in the mix, I first had to adjust for the overall mix tonality, which is unfortunately very boxy, with a low-midrange emphasis and recessed frequency extremes -- a long way away from the references. Turning the playback volume up makes much more sense of the balance, though, which makes me think that you're monitoring too loud. Once I'd adjusted this frequency imbalance with some broad-brush master EQ, the mix was a lot easier to deal with. The kick sound and general drum tone suits the verses pretty well, especially given the softer bass timbre. However, when the chorus hits, the overall drum sound feels very muffled. Although you do have to compromise some drum brilliance if you want to deliver clear-sounding guitars without harshness in a mix like this, it's gone a bit too far here, I think, and you could afford to be more sparing with your high cuts. The dull-sounding kick tone of the verse also gets mostly lost on smaller speakers during the choruses. Despite these things, I think there's actually a really good drum sound waiting to get out here, because if I mentally try to compensate for the drums' spectral tilt, the balance seems very respectable, and the snare's got exactly the kind of density, weight, and width that I'd hope for in this arrangement. The toms feel like they're maybe a bit too wide and not well enough blended, and the cymbals may be over-present in the outro particularly, but those are pretty small niggles, to be honest. (Did you trigger a snare sample in there, by the way?) The overall balance is also pretty well-judged once the mix tonality is taken out of the equation. I think you could balance the main guitar during the verses a little lower compared with the vocal, because it feels like it's stealing a shade too much of the limelight. I like the sound of the guitar, though, because it's a nice contrast to the bass and drums, ringing out nice and clearly. The overall stereo width of the mix is also rather well-judged, although it's difficult to ascertain how the mono-compatibility holds up given the mix tonality issues. You've introduced some interesting production touches here as well, although I think they could probably still do with some polishing as far as execution is concerned. I liked the delay overlap into the second chorus, for instance, especially because the chorus vocal melody doesn't start until the middle of the first bar of the chorus. However, the delay's timing feels a bit out of sync with the chorus, subjectively speaking, and that bugs me a bit. The alternating panning was also cool in the first mid-section, but the editing needs to be cleaner for this to really work properly, I think -- especially bar six, which rather stumbles over itself as a result. The reverb features on the drums in the second verse are also nice, but I reckon there's a danger of dating the whole production unless you differentiate these a bit more from the overall drum/production sound. Finally, is the lump in the final cymbal tail meant to be a production feature, or is it a dodgy edit? On the whole I think you've explored lots of interesting new angles here, and you've clearly got a good ear for balance and blend already, so just paying a little more attention to your monitoring/referencing technique should hopefully improve things no end. |
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« Reply #99 on: March 29, 2011, 07:01:03 AM » |
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The first problem with this mix hits me straight away: the stereo image is very wide indeed. While there's an understandable tendency to think that 'more is more' in this respect when working on stereo systems, you put yourself at the mercy of serious balance side-effects on mono systems. Your bass guitar in this case suffers tremendously in mono, for example. It's not that surprising that you say you're working on headphones, as cans won't provide nearly the same giveaway 'beyond the speakers' stereo-imaging clue about potential mono-incompatibility, plus you're already used to hearing much wider images on headphones simply by nature of the lack of L/R crossfeed between your ears. My advice would be to get yourself a good stereo vectorscope plug-in to give yourself a bit more visual information to go on while mixing -- there are some suggestions under the 'Affordable Middle & Sides (M&S) Plug-ins' heading here, as well as lots of other examples/resources on that page relating to stereo-enhancement tricks. Having reduced the stereo Sides signal by 6dB for auditioning purposes, I was able to concentrate more on other aspects of the mix. The top of my list of tweaks would be to bring the bass and drums up in the balance, because they're currently not very representative of the reference tracks. In my experience listening volume is much more critical when trying to mix on headphones, and you can often end up with low drum levels just like this if the listening volume is turned up too high -- it's natural to avoid sharp transients when the headphone drivers are only a fraction of an inch from your ears. You might expect bass to be overcooked and/or uncontrolled on headphones normally, but in my experience it's usually the other way around, for any number of potential reasons: mass-market headphones often incorporate an enormous bass boost to give them a flattering sound, and often distort the LF too; overloud monitoring is especially easy on headphones, leading to a natural low-end tip-up in your hearing system; and the anticipation of bass lightness by headphone users often leads them to over-egg the low end in an attempt to compensate. Your best tool here (other than a set of decent full-range monitors ) is a decent spectrum analyser. Again, you can find some affordable suggestions here. Having said that, there are other balance issues too (the lead vocals are ducking and diving into the balance, and the backing vocals are all but buried in the choruses), so I'd very much recommend you start checking your mixes in single-point mono as a matter of course to evaluate this aspect of the production more easily. You can find some little speakers I personally recommend for this here. Despite the moderate use of different reverb/delay effects in your mix, the blend could be improved further, I think. It sounds to me like you're currently running different reverb effects for every part, which won't help. Try setting up a couple of global effects and then use your mixer's send controls to share them between a number of different tracks. That should help pull things together a bit more without washing everything out. (Having said that, the drums seem to blend with themselves pretty well already, albeit at the expense of a sound which feels a bit wet/distant most of the time.) The vocal ambience patch you've applied in the verses feels too prominent, and too audible as an artificial effect. This makes me think that you're trying to use it to achieve an enhancement which it's not good at providing. I'm guessing that you need to add some longer reverb/delay to give a sense of size and/or sustain, and then pull back the ambience into a more subtle blending role -- this might require EQ in addition to fader adjustment on the reverb's return channel. All in all I think your choice of monitoring is currently holding you back in your quest for the perfect mix. While it's actually possible to create effective mixes when working primarily on headphones, you do need to be familiar with all the various workarounds to avoid various inherent stereo, EQ, and balance traps. As far as the low end is concerned, you might want to have a look at Chapter 3 of my book (which is one of the two free sample chapters I've put on my site), as that goes into a lot more detail about this than I have space to do here. Hope this helps! |
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