New Mix

[Martin Naef]

Guess I'll have to give away a couple of well-known mix secrets. Ok, 
here it goes:

SoS Mix Rescue - Today we have M@, a talented multi-instrumentalist who 
sent us a track (Note to editor: Can we post the track without loosing 
our corporate advertisers?).

The issues discussed here include a clash between the vocal recording 
and the guitar tracks. Both occupied pretty much the same spectrum with 
lots of energy in the higher mids. An additional issue was the bass 
sound getting in the way of the leads.

First, let's have a look at the bass. It has been recorded / amped 
relatively bright. While it didn't directly clash with the rhythm 
guitar, it added to the overall brightness of the track. So drastic 
measures were taken: The bass was sent through an analog filter box: 
First a 6db HP stage with resonance to clean up the sub end while 
reinforcing the lows. That section was overdriven as well. Section two 
then is a 12db LP to get rid of the bright parts. The result is a rather 
thick bass that can be mixed a high level without getting in the way of 
the vocals or guitars. (This is an artistic choice and open to debate)

Vocals: They are the essence of the song, and therefore need to be 
prominent and up-front. A lot of compression did the trick, and a bit of 
EQ to reinforce the "body" and some "air". I actually compress the vocal 
bus, not the individual voices. So a lot of the original balance may be 
shifted and need careful realignment. Not quite sure if that was a wise 
choice.

Guitars. Yes, they are the difficult part, because they compete with the 
vocals for exactly the same frequency spectrum. There's not much lower 
mid in the track that would have allowed me to place them below the 
vocals (there's a strong EQ boost there, but I can't boost what's not 
there). So I had to dip the frequencies around 1-2k, but more 
importantly duck the guitars whenever the vocals are present. 
Experimenting with amp settings to get a bit more weight in the rhythm 
guitar might help. Your mix was a lot more aggressive because you had 
the guitars a lot more prominent, but at the cost of the vocals - and 
for this particular song, my vote goes in favor of the text.

So here we are - and I'm certainly looking forward to giving it another 
go with fresh ears in a week.

Martin
(Jet-lagged and hungry now...)

Matt Picone wrote:
> Getting there-- I had to listen on lots of different systems - DAW, 
> living room, car, iPod, boombox, computer, PA-- to really nail what's 
> going on.
> 
> The main issue is that the rhythm guitars seem to have somehow lost 
> their power. Perhaps the amp settings were wrong and there's nothing in 
> my tracks but frequencies which needed to be removed for vocal conflict? 
> Or maybe the bass is perceptually overpowering them in its newly focused 
> home in the spectrum. LOTS of power there which was missing in mine 
> (though at the cost of it's amp-y edge, you noted.) Maybe I should send 
> you the un-amped tracks? Do you own Guitar Rig? If not, I could send you 
> my serial for version 2 and FTP you the installer. I'm on v3 now, which 
> came with Komplete, so I think this is technically a legal handoff.
> 
> A minor issue is the the vocals in the 2nd verse (this didn't strike me 
> until now) have gone too far towards the low-- the concept is that the 
> guitar player and bass player are supposed to be singing a duet, rather 
> than lead and backup, throughout the song. I believe there are some 
> problems INSIDE my clips that cause lots of fluctuations here. Maybe you 
> can adjust.
> 
> Last thing is that the AM radio effect isn't what I had in mind. I will 
> send you a clip-- which needs to, I think, be done on a real radio, with 
> the whistling and bizarre interference that happens here where stations 
> are so packed onto the band that they compete for reception. Kind of 
> stuck here and might come back for input.
> 
> Would love to get some feedback from other 'barians on this.
> 
> -m@
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