Mix advice needed!

Branshen

https://soundcloud.com/brandon-shen-shi-han/best-part-marjo-mixdown-1782019-4/s-fCSJP
I've been working on this for a couple of weeks and am getting very bad ear fatigue.

What do you guys reckon regarding:
1. instrument separation, particularly at the chorus at 2:05?
2. I guess this might be a personal taste thing, but how are my reverb levels on the lead vocals? Are they blending well with the rest of the track?

The volumes a tad low as I'm leaving headroom for mastering (though I might have too much of it with 18dB of headroom) (Edit: reuploaded with a 6dB boost on the master so people can actually hear the song)

spark240

Hi...the volume is very low for me....just on iPad at the moment but had to go full volume just to hear it at all.

Did you write the song or just mix it ?

Its sounds really smooth, the finger snaps are getting my attention a little too much on the first half...personally I’d pull this back slightly.

Reverb seems good to me , I’ll listen again on monitors later.

Branshen

spark240 said:

Hi...the volume is very low for me....just on iPad at the moment but had to go full volume just to hear it at all.

Did you write the song or just mix it ?

Its sounds really smooth, the finger snaps are getting my attention a little too much on the first half...personally I’d pull this back slightly.

Reverb seems good to me , I’ll listen again on monitors later.

It's a Daniel Caeser cover. I'd be rich if I wrote this. hah. Noted regarding the snaps. Thanks for the feedback. 

Stuckfast

The mix as a whole sounds quite soft to me. I think it could do with a broad boost somewhere in the 1k - 1.5k region, and the low end is quite pillow-y -- might be an idea to listen to it on a few different systems and check that you haven't overcooked it. I have no problem with the finger snaps. The vocal reverb is fine in terms of underpinning the voice without getting in the way. You *could* take a slightly showier and more dramatic approach to mixing that vocal, though, it's obviously the centrepiece of the song.

Branshen

Stuckfast said:

The mix as a whole sounds quite soft to me. I think it could do with a broad boost somewhere in the 1k - 1.5k region, and the low end is quite pillow-y -- might be an idea to listen to it on a few different systems and check that you haven't overcooked it. I have no problem with the finger snaps. The vocal reverb is fine in terms of underpinning the voice without getting in the way. You *could* take a slightly showier and more dramatic approach to mixing that vocal, though, it's obviously the centrepiece of the song.

Thanks for the tips Sam.

I do agree about the pillowy low end. It's got no punch.. But what do you mean by overcooked the low end? Compressed it too hard?

I've always been very safe with my mixes and try to get things sounding as natural as I can. I've no idea what having a dramatic and showy lead vocal entails. Perhaps something like a bigger longer reverb? 

Stuckfast

By overcooking the low end I just mean that there might be frequencies that are booming a bit too strongly and need reining in -- I'm listening on headphones and it's not easy to tell hence why you should try to audition it on a few different systems. If you're concerned about lack of punch then yes that could definitely be down to over-compression.

What I'm talking about re the lead vocal is that if you listen to modern pop records you won't just hear a vocal track that's the same all the way through. The mix engineer will bring in spot effects like delays just on the odd word, or they'll use different reverbs for different sections of the song, maybe some artificial stereo widening to make it sound bigger -- that sort of thing.

The vocal as it is is quite understated and natural -- which is fine if that's what you're going for, but it's possibly not how most people would do it these days.

Branshen

Stuckfast said:

By overcooking the low end I just mean that there might be frequencies that are booming a bit too strongly and need reining in -- I'm listening on headphones and it's not easy to tell hence why you should try to audition it on a few different systems. If you're concerned about lack of punch then yes that could definitely be down to over-compression.

What I'm talking about re the lead vocal is that if you listen to modern pop records you won't just hear a vocal track that's the same all the way through. The mix engineer will bring in spot effects like delays just on the odd word, or they'll use different reverbs for different sections of the song, maybe some artificial stereo widening to make it sound bigger -- that sort of thing.

The vocal as it is is quite understated and natural -- which is fine if that's what you're going for, but it's possibly not how most people would do it these days.

Good point about the bass. I was probably abit too enthusiastic with my EQing. I boosted the fundamental of the bass by at least a couple dB after a very sharp high pass cause I wanted more booom. 

Some interesting ideas there regarding the lead vox. I'll try them out!

I did have a delay track which delays a couple of odd lines in the verse in my project and forgot to render it for the mix down. Gotta remember to get it in. 

Stuckfast

Not sure why you'd apply a high-pass filter to the bass -- surely that's the one instrument along with the kick drum and maybe the floor tom that you actually want to contain low frequencies? The only reason I'd do that is if it was an acoustic bass and the mic had picked up a lot of subsonic thumps and rumbles that weren't part of the actual signal.

Branshen

Stuckfast said:

Not sure why you'd apply a high-pass filter to the bass -- surely that's the one instrument along with the kick drum and maybe the floor tom that you actually want to contain low frequencies? The only reason I'd do that is if it was an acoustic bass and the mic had picked up a lot of subsonic thumps and rumbles that weren't part of the actual signal.

I high-passed it to remove the sub-bass rumble to clean up the recording. It's high passed at around 50Hz, need to check. The idea is that I don't want it to compete with the kick drum, but I haven't actually checked with the spectrum to see which space they're each occupying. I'll have a listen and check to see if that high pass helped or hurt the mix. 

I tried a sidechain but did not like the effect so removed it..

Stuckfast

It's easy to over-think this stuff. I think the whole 'problem' of 'masking' is often exaggerated, and where it happens, it's usually an arrangement issue not a mix issue. In my experience it's actually not that common for kick drums and bass instruments to cause problems when combined unless there's a long ring on the kick drum, in which case gating might be more effective than EQ.

Branshen

Stuckfast said:

It's easy to over-think this stuff. I think the whole 'problem' of 'masking' is often exaggerated, and where it happens, it's usually an arrangement issue not a mix issue. In my experience it's actually not that common for kick drums and bass instruments to cause problems when combined unless there's a long ring on the kick drum, in which case gating might be more effective than EQ.

To be honest, it is a move that I made "blind" as my monitors and headphones do not give a good accurate representation of that range anyway. I'll have a listen and maybe remove it. 

octatonic

Good job thus far, apologies if this sounds brutal.
Singer is really nice.
I think this was mixed in a room with a few bass issues.

Sidestick needs to come up- drums sound very far back in the mix.
Personally I'd make the kick a bit less peaky, more 100hz and below, less 3-4k, cut 500hz by 2-3db.
Bass guitar is far too loud and obscures other instruments, I'd also rerecord the part with more staccato playing, fewer long held notes, or at least drop the bass.
If you can't hear this in your room then you have a problem with the bass and need some trapping.

Tom fills linking sections are too quiet- they are basically lost entirely, and I'd include one more around 2:05 to lead into the chorus.
Ride needs to come up too.

Did you intend to mix the drums from the drum seat perspective, rather than the audience facing a drummer perspective?

I'd record more harmony vocals and blend them, I'd probably looks at a counterpoint vocal melody.

Branshen

@octatonic the more brutal, the better. Great input. Thanks. Will work through each of the issues.

I know it's not recommended but I had no choice but to mix this completely in my in-ear headphones Sony XBA-A1AP (monitors are being serviced at the moment, but I hope I can get them back soon, but even then, they're wee ilouds).

Regarding drummer mix, yes I've always preferred the drum seat perspective. It's easy to visualise being behind a kit. And when you're in front of the kit as an audience, it never sounds as panned as in recordings since they mostly sound like they're coming from ahead (unless u were seated right in front of the kit, which never happens), so that's unrealistic to me. 

And unfortunately, I won't be able to record with the singer within the foreseeable future so I'll just have to make do with what I have. 

octatonic

Branshen said:

@octatonic the more brutal, the better. Great input. Thanks. Will work through each of the issues.

I know it's not recommended but I had no choice but to mix this completely in my in-ear headphones Sony XBA-A1AP (monitors are being serviced at the moment, but I hope I can get them back soon, but even then, they're wee ilouds).

Regarding drummer mix, yes I've always preferred the drum seat perspective. It's easy to visualise being behind a kit. And when you're in front of the kit as an audience, it never sounds as panned as in recordings since they mostly sound like they're coming from ahead (unless u were seated right in front of the kit, which never happens), so that's unrealistic to me. 

And unfortunately, I won't be able to record with the singer within the foreseeable future so I'll just have to make do with what I have. 

No worries.
You can still build up harmonies with the existing material.
Chop out notes, put them into a sampler, sequence the notes as you would a synth.
If you have access to Melodyne you can repitch the notes too.

Branshen

@octatonic now that is a creative idea that I've not thought of. I use ableton so I have pretty good repitching algorithms. which sections were you thinking could use more harmonies? maybe chorus or prechorus?

octatonic

Branshen said:

@octatonic now that is a creative idea that I've not thought of. I use ableton so I have pretty good repitching algorithms. which sections were you thinking could use more harmonies? maybe chorus or prechorus?

It is hard to say without hearing things in isolation.
One of my most useful boxes I have attached to my DAW is a strobe tuner attached to an output (output 36).
When doing anything like this I call up output 36 on an aux and send that track to the tuner to see how the pitching is, which gives me an idea of how it might blend when yanked around in the arrangement and chopped up.
I'd flesh it all out in the Edit window (for Pro Tools, or the equivalent in another DAW).

I'd look for something that makes harmonic and tone colour enhancements.

WiresDreamDisasters

Kick sounds very metal. Often there are flams between the sidestick and the other percussion elements, finger snaps and hand claps I think they are. It's a bit over the top to me. Pick one of them as the dominant, and put the others quite far behind it.

Bass is too subby to me. I don't think it's a level issue so much as a too-much-low-end issue.

To me it's all sounding quite central. Not enough stereo-spread. That could be the bass dominating or it could be you've not been brutal enough with where you're placing each instrument in the stereo-field.

Branshen

WiresDreamDisasters said:

Kick sounds very metal. Often there are flams between the sidestick and the other percussion elements, finger snaps and hand claps I think they are. It's a bit over the top to me. Pick one of them as the dominant, and put the others quite far behind it.

Bass is too subby to me. I don't think it's a level issue so much as a too-much-low-end issue.

To me it's all sounding quite central. Not enough stereo-spread. That could be the bass dominating or it could be you've not been brutal enough with where you're placing each instrument in the stereo-field.

Thanks Drew. Will do a proper sit down and work through each of these..

Branshen

 Got my monitors back and took up all advice given.
https://soundcloud.com/brandon-shen-shi-han/best-part-marjo-mixdown-1782019-tfb-feedback-4/s-Km79S

Main changes are as follows:

Drums:
- added Drew's suggestion for some flam to snare and snap
- raised volume of Hi-hat and Ride and Tom fills
- added tom fill before chorus
- EQ-ed kick following Octatonic's advice

Lead Vocals:
- Added some stereo widener to make lead vox less stark
- boosted reverb a smidge
- slight compression to smoothen it out
- added delayed vocal track (as suggested by stuckfast)
- added abit of automation between sections to match the levels of the instrumentation

Harmony Vocals
- Slight compression to smoothen levels and bring up the level abit
- Removed reverb which was directly inserted on Harmony Vox bus to reduce smear

Bass
- lowered level by 2dB
- removed high pass

Keys & Synths
- Lowered Rhodes by 1.5dB for balance
- raised synth in post-chorus by 0.7 dB
- stereorized synth in post-chorus because the section was sounding very noticeably mono

Misc
- increased stereo separation by increasing the panning (realised that I was very conservative with this as I originally mixed on headphones)
- boosted gain in master channel to raise level of mix

octatonic

Good job, getting there.
Kick sounds much better.

For me the bass is still too loud and the guitar part isn't coming through.
Keep going!

Branshen

octatonic said:

Good job, getting there.
Kick sounds much better.

For me the bass is still too loud and the guitar part isn't coming through.
Keep going!

noted about the kick. by "guitar part" I guess you mean the little lead guitar fills in the prechorus.