Let the Bashing begin

[strake]

This song sounds different on all 4 of my systems. Sadly none of my systems include any real monitors. Also when I mix it down to stereo and convert it to wma, it seems some of the vol's change a little. Some instruments get louder and some get lower. I take it this means the mix itself is out of whack? I can provide mp3's if needed.

http://www.communisat.com/music3/shad2_123006.wma

[richiebee]

Wow, the second stylistic surprise of my day on this forum. Another theatre reference for me... Jesus Christ Superstar. Which I happen to love.

It sounds good on my system. Perhaps a little high endy, but balance sounds good.

I'm not a fan of putting the first instrument (the acoustic guitar) in such a one sided pan position. It would be okay, but it goes on for so long that it really makes the whole mix very one sided. Actually, when that returns later in the song, I get the same kind of impression. I would bring them in closer to centre position or perhaps balance the sound out with some kind of delay or something in the opposite side just to balance things up.

I thought this song was really good. Well performed and sounding good.

[brandondrury]

I haven't red Richiebee's post yet. I like to hear with a clear perspective. With hearing just one side (I refuse to buy a new computer stereo rig), the drums sound super compressed. I can really hear it in the hihat @ 5:00 or so.

I'm not big on this type of snare sound, but that may be just personal taste. Again, it may be over compressed or compressed with too fast of an attack. How hard are you hitting the drums with compressions? What kind attack and release times? Are you compressing the entire bus or individual drums.

You can really hear this compression @ 6:18.

Overall, everything sounds pretty damn solid overall. The mix is good.

Yes, the mix will change in every stereo. This is how it is. Listen to your favorite cd in your best friend's car and you'll notice the same thing. It's just a result of the frequency response differences. If you have too much 3Kh, the guitars get louder. If you have too much 150Hz the bass gets way louder. If your mixes are drastically out of wack, you have some fixing to do.

Brandon

[strake]

Thanks guys for the listen and comments.

First, Richiebee, your not the first to mention the panning. One listener told me it sounded like 4 guys doing their own thing like it was disconnected. I really didn't know what to make of that until I read your post. I think he was trying to allude to what you speaking of. Maybe the acoustic is too discrete in its positioning. Could be I have several tracks too discretely placed. He suggested for the overall mix something similar to what you sugested for the guitar in the way of delay or reverb to widen it some. I orginally had the opening guitar panned in the center and it slid over when the rest of the instruments came in. This bugged the rest of the guys in the band so I parked it at one spot I really want to try the delay idea you had to send it's tail into the other channel. This brought up question in my mind that maybe you guys could comment on.....As a rule I have not been applying any reverb or delay to any single track (unless delay was needed for a lead or something) and then to apply reverb to the mix as a whole. Maybe I should be applying some reverb to individual instruments to make them blend more or does the overall reverb on a mix make it blend better?

Brandon, hehehe you sent me scurrying back to my project to check some settings. One of my problems with the drums is it is a stereo mix of the drums track as provided by the drummer. While we asked for dry tracks, I found some of the guys would invariably put something on their track. It is possible he compressed it and then I compressed it again. My project shows my compreesor was turned off, but it is quite possible it was on during the mixdown. Being new to this part of the business, I couldn't really picture (or hear) wht overcompression would sound like. So having your timing marks really helped in id'ing the sound. I soloed the drum track turning my track compression on and off. It really seemed to effect the tails of things. As far as the settings, I was attempting to bring up the drums and lower the cymbols by using an autogate compressor set for the lower freqs. Imagine a 6 yr old tearing into a brand new engine to replace the piston rings with no prior experience...this is what I feel like when I start messing with some insert effects like compression

So I will definetly make sure the compressor I had set on the drums is off!

Thanks again guys, I have 10 songs I am trying to get ready to go to mastering for our cd. Having someone other than band members listen is a great help!

ps - sorry for the book

[brandondrury]

ps - sorry for the book

I'm known to write books on nearly every post. No problem.

Yes, the compression will definitely effect tails. Because I only listen with one speaker, I can often hear stuff like this with more detail. It's up to you to determine if you like the effects of the compression or not. Typically, I like a snare that has been hit pretty hard. The only problem with this is the hihat will react in a strange way. I'm talking about the hi-hat bleed in the snare and how it reacts to your hihat mic or overheads.

Generally speaking, I'd say the less you know, the simpler you should keep everything. Actually, you should keep things simple anyway. Assuming you had all the tracks, you COULD get the snare to knock the bleed down some and then compress it too. This would theoretically give you the sound of the compressed snare but keep the bleed in check. With this method, I would only knock a few dB down with the gate. Some gates do the "all or nothing" kind of thing which I hate. You start getting unnatural with that. However, if you can just knock down 5-10dB you can do a lot of good without causing much problems.

However, go back to this, if you are gating and compression, you are probably doing too much and would be better off just leaving it alone.

Since you have limited control here, I'd leave it as it is. I can't remember a time where a mix got better by complicating it. If I do, the rough mix with nothing on it almost always sounds better.

I wish I could hear the panning thing, but my computer speaker system is junk.

Brandon

[Smidgelton]

I know you're looking for input on the mix, but I just have to tell you I was blown away by the musicianship in this song. It was top notch and I really enjoyed every part of it.

[strake]

Why thank you Smidgelton! I will pass that on to the guys. Always nice to get a word of appreciation I will pm you our website if you like that kind of music. These I am working on now are for our second cd. The first cd was released a couple of years ago. It's been a long slow journey!

Thanks again!

[Smidgelton]

Yes sir. Send that link my way!