Bobbybovine - Clockwork Coulrophobia

[bobbybovine]

Alright, my ears are totally shot now. I hope I didn't kill it. Thanks LAzyE for the great song, it really was a lot of fun to work on. Definitely got my variaudio chops up another notch Thanks to Rob K for this thread http://forum.recordingreview.com/f12...utorial-44313/ it saved my ass. I would have been screwed without it. Hopefully the 40th version of this song is pleasing to your ears.

[Stan_Halen]

Hey Bob! Glad you got your mix in. It sounds like you really plugged away on this. I get a good consistent feel to the mix, and the pitch correction may be the best in the contest so far. The drum choices are interesting, the kick and snare took me aback a little at the beginning of the song (accentuated by lots of reverb), but seems to fit well with the song overall. The reverb on the drums and vocals is very strong, I think I'd roll that back some. It really stands out in the intro. The kick and bass work well together. The choruses are heavy on high-mids with the e-guitar and synth coming strong. I'd pull some of that out. The crash cymbals are a little loud and harsh, and could be tamed some. You did the clicky-clack ending well. Good job!

[bobbybovine]

Hey Bob! Glad you got your mix in. It sounds like you really plugged away on this.

Put in about 3 hours a night for the last 5 nights or so.

I get a good consistent feel to the mix, and the pitch correction may be the best in the contest so far.

Thanks, this was actually my first time using vari audio, I love it now that I know how to use it.

The drum choices are interesting, the kick and snare took me aback a little at the beginning of the song (accentuated by lots of reverb), but seems to fit well with the song overall. The reverb on the drums and vocals is very strong, I think I'd roll that back some. It really stands out in the intro.

I would agree with that, I have been listening to lots of Porqupine Tree and their stuff is soaked in verb, that probably had something to do with it.

The kick and bass work well together. The choruses are heavy on high-mids with the e-guitar and synth coming strong. I'd pull some of that out. The crash cymbals are a little loud and harsh, and could be tamed some. You did the clicky-clack ending well. Good job!

I really tried to get the cymbals as soft without killing them, I am surprised that you find they stick out that much. As far as the high mids, I was having some problems getting the vocals to sound intimate but not overpowering in the chorus, I don't know that I accomplished it and no matter what I did with eq on the guitar (I did pull out some mid on them) it just never fit right, what is there is a minimalist approach that sounded the best, I definitely will be working on vocal techniques more.

Thanks for the input.

[Jeronimo Mora]

Ha. Vari Audio is amazing ins't it ?

Solid ass mix man. I feel the vocals get lost in the choruses. GREAT ENERGY. But it seems there's a bit much too going on. I don't want to say it muddy, but a bit crowded. The sibilance is an issue everyone struggled with. I like the drums sounds, those were cool. I think the cymbals sound like they are a bit loud only because everything else is quiet in comparison, or missing freqs that make them stand out. Though the reverb could have been subdued in the intro and then introduced when all the other instruments come in as to make it more of a subtle effect. Hey, at least pitch wasn't a problem

Good mix man!

[fHumble fHingaz]

I love the roomy sounding drums on this - that kick is very cool. The contrasting reverb on the verses & choruses is a great device... It works very well.

... but, I think the reverb has contributed to the mix sounding rather "cluttered" in spots. This is a case where you really need to be scrupulous about eq'ing the reverb sends to maintain the clarity & punch in the mix while still getting lots of ambiance. Often, I find the ol' "sweep & destroy" method is great for finding those "bathroom-y" textures in reverb that tend to "cheapen" a mix somewhat. Solo-ing the reverb aux/bus & eq'ing it was a revelation for my mixing. Check out this episode of Pensado's place where he talks to Peter Mokran - he is really big on this technique.
- Pensado's Place - #51 - Peter Mokran - Mix Engineer, Producer - YouTube

Overall, the mix is well done, & I love the strong vision you have for the mix... I'm not a 90's reverb-hater by a long shot, & There's nothing to say you can't have a verb heavy mix that is not clear - but it does take some extra work too...but as it is, for me the clarity suffers a bit with all the verb happening... so I hope this helps...

Nice job!

[Jeronimo Mora]

..."sweep & destroy"...

You just made my life. I'm stealing that hahahaha!

[Zakk Leifeste]

Nice mix man. I do like how you kinda pulled the vocals back and gave them a lo-fi but not lo-fi feel. I do think stuff got a little crazy in the middle of the song. It sounded like there was a little too much going on. Gotta say good job on the pitch correction for it being your first time with that. It's not always easy I think the only part that got ya was the "one thing that is trueeeee ooo ooooh". But, I think that got a lot of people... INCLUDING ME!!! haha it was tough!

[fHumble fHingaz]

You just made my life. I'm stealing that hahahaha!

I'm not claiming ownership just yet - It's far too clever to have originated with me... I bet I stole it from somebody... I read way too much!

[bobbybovine]

Ha. Vari Audio is amazing ins't it ?

I laughing like a giddy school girl when I did my first quantization of a group of notes. Blew my mind!

I feel the vocals get lost in the choruses.

I struggles with those vocals the most. I wanted the song to be like he was having a conversation with himself and I wanted the chorus to me much more intimate than the verses but I could never quite get it to where I really liked it. Part of the learning curve.

GREAT ENERGY. But it seems there's a bit much too going on. I don't want to say it muddy, but a bit crowded.

For some reason no amount of automation or panning or EQ really fixed that, and I heard the same on quite a few other mixes too. My heavy verb choice certainly added to that I am sure.

The sibilance is an issue everyone struggled with.

I found it really got bad as soon as you added effects to his vocal.

I like the drums sounds, those were cool. I think the cymbals sound like they are a bit loud only because everything else is quiet in comparison, or missing freqs that make them stand out.

You know the cymbals being loud are a by product of the compression and limiting on the 2 bus. It wasn't like that until I started to focus on getting the RMS level a bit louder. I am quite disappointed I missed that actually.

Though the reverb could have been subdued in the intro and then introduced when all the other instruments come in as to make it more of a subtle effect.

That's a cool idea, I actually threw a slight verb on the whole mix yesterday and in hind sight I shouldn't have, I already had plenty. When I first brought up a kit in SD2 it had a lot of room sound in it which I loved right away. That's what started me on the verb for the verse vocal.

Hey, at least pitch wasn't a problem

Oh it was. I spent hours and hours, but most of that was getting used to the program. Last night I really dug into the guitar track and fixed some notes. The vocals were much harder.

Good mix man![/QUOTE]

[bobbybovine]

I love the roomy sounding drums on this - that kick is very cool. The contrasting reverb on the verses & choruses is a great device... It works very well.

I didn't start out looking to do verb, it just happened and I liked it too.

... but, I think the reverb has contributed to the mix sounding rather "cluttered" in spots. This is a case where you really need to be scrupulous about eq'ing the reverb sends to maintain the clarity & punch in the mix while still getting lots of ambiance. Often, I find the ol' "sweep & destroy" method is great for finding those "bathroom-y" textures in reverb that tend to "cheapen" a mix somewhat. Solo-ing the reverb aux/bus & eq'ing it was a revelation for my mixing. Check out this episode of Pensado's place where he talks to Peter Mokran - he is really big on this technique.
- Pensado's Place - #51 - Peter Mokran - Mix Engineer, Producer - YouTube

Noted, that would no doubt have helped with some of the problems I was having getting the chorus vocals to sit properly.

Overall, the mix is well done, & I love the strong vision you have for the mix... I'm not a 90's reverb-hater by a long shot, & There's nothing to say you can't have a verb heavy mix that is not clear - but it does take some extra work too...but as it is, for me the clarity suffers a bit with all the verb happening... so I hope this helps...[/QUOTE]
Thanks for the input.

[bobbybovine]

Nice mix man. I do like how you kinda pulled the vocals back and gave them a lo-fi but not lo-fi feel. I do think stuff got a little crazy in the middle of the song. It sounded like there was a little too much going on. Gotta say good job on the pitch correction for it being your first time with that. It's not always easy I think the only part that got ya was the "one thing that is trueeeee ooo ooooh". But, I think that got a lot of people... INCLUDING ME!!! haha it was tough!

Thanks Zakk, this song definitely required you to use a lot of different tools to whip it into shape, my problem is know what tools and when.

[Minianimal]

Really nice mix!
The vocals sounds great. I spent 2 1/2 hours tuning them last night, myself. It has taught me alot about my pitch corrections software.
I like what you did with the acoustic guitar in the verses. It remindes me of a pendulum going back and forth on a clock.
The reverb on the drums is a bit too much for my taste. Also, I was just reading up on reverb automation and found a really useful trick for altering reverb on vocals.
It involves putting a compressor after your vocal verb and sid-chaining it to the vocals. It ducks the verb while the vocals are playing but leaves the tails relatively intact. It may help with eliminating some of the "wash" that heavy reverb tends to put on the top of a song.

Good work and Happy Friday!

[bobbybovine]

Really nice mix!
The vocals sounds great. I spent 2 1/2 hours tuning them last night, myself. It has taught me alot about my pitch corrections software.
I like what you did with the acoustic guitar in the verses. It remindes me of a pendulum going back and forth on a clock.
The reverb on the drums is a bit too much for my taste. Also, I was just reading up on reverb automation and found a really useful trick for altering reverb on vocals.
It involves putting a compressor after your vocal verb and sid-chaining it to the vocals. It ducks the verb while the vocals are playing but leaves the tails relatively intact. It may help with eliminating some of the "wash" that heavy reverb tends to put on the top of a song.

Thanks, that is something I never would have thought to try, I will have to give it a shot. So many ways to skin a cat.

[JoshERTW]

Sick mix Bob - I especially enjoy that "sweeping" acoustic guitar thing - It blew my mind - though I wonder how it would translate in mono? Acoustic guitar tone is also quite nice. As far as overall tone, I never found anything too harsh which seems to be a common problem.

Really like the drums, snare sound cuts through nicely in the choruses which is the issue I"m currently struggling with. Did you use the audio drum files or sample replace/use MIDI? I can't get my cymbals to not have that trash-can lid thing going on, but yours sound quite nice. Bass seems well balanced as well, but the electric guitar is a little less prominent than I thought it should be for the song. Kind of works for the vibe you are going for though.

Vocals sound great, but seem to be struggling to cut through a bit in the choruses, might be a result of the reverb. It's perfect in the verses though. There seems to be some balance issues in the bridge part too though - again I'd guess its a bit of oversaturation reverb wise (for lack of a better term).

The ending is really cool too.

Sounds like your pitch correction work paid off - I didn't find the vocal pitch correction to be too big of a thing - Variaudio in Cubase 6 made it significantly easier than it could have been. That said I still spent about 2 hours on just that processing. Bass took me less time but I found there were some parts that couldn't be tamed via pitch correct so I just did some comping on the parts that were clearly errors.

[87xjco]

Here's my amateur review - I didn't read an other comments so I may be rehashing what's been said

I think you made a artistic choice to pan the acoustic back and forth to the beat of the snare, maybe to sound like a pendulum? Cool idea, but I thought it was too much and very distracting, especially in the cans.

I felt the vocals were a little buried in the mix, but then I tend to always have them too loud. I liked the hi hat sound and the kick, but felt the snare sounded like the mid tones were a little high. And my choice would have been a snare with more spring sound to it.

I keep hearing what I think are pitch problems in a lot of the mixes. At 2:25, 3:20, 3:30 and 3:42. But maybe it's supposed to sound like that, a little weird or twisted, and I want to keep it straight when I hear it?

Liked the E. Guitar tone, the tone of the vocals and the effects on just about everything, and the ending was unique and cool!

[bobbybovine]

Sick mix Bob - I especially enjoy that "sweeping" acoustic guitar thing - It blew my mind - though I wonder how it would translate in mono? Acoustic guitar tone is also quite nice. As far as overall tone, I never found anything too harsh which seems to be a common problem.

I don't know what made me throw an autopan on the acoustic guitar but when I did it really opened up the space for the real verby vocals in the verse. Mono smono!!!

Really like the drums, snare sound cuts through nicely in the choruses which is the issue I"m currently struggling with. Did you use the audio drum files or sample replace/use MIDI? I can't get my cymbals to not have that trash-can lid thing going on, but yours sound quite nice.

I used Superior Drummer 2 and it was a Metal foundry kit with heavily smashed room mic. I pulled the hats and overheads way down and EQ'd them to make them a bit more subtle. Unfortunately my 2b limiting made them harsher again

Bass seems well balanced as well, but the electric guitar is a little less prominent than I thought it should be for the song. Kind of works for the vibe you are going for though.

Another thing that wasn't there prior to 2bus compression. I need more practice with that for sure.

Vocals sound great, but seem to be struggling to cut through a bit in the choruses, might be a result of the reverb. It's perfect in the verses though. There seems to be some balance issues in the bridge part too though - again I'd guess its a bit of oversaturation reverb wise (for lack of a better term).

Agreed, I definitely need to work on my verb processing. Thankfully I have some suggestions to try.

Sounds like your pitch correction work paid off - I didn't find the vocal pitch correction to be too big of a thing - Variaudio in Cubase 6 made it significantly easier than it could have been. That said I still spent about 2 hours on just that processing. Bass took me less time but I found there were some parts that couldn't be tamed via pitch correct so I just did some comping on the parts that were clearly errors.

I pitch corrected the vocals obviously, but also the guitar and the bass as well. Variaudio is the bomb!! I also doubled the vocal tracks and detuned them a bit with the Cubase pitch correction plug, that also helped to disguise some of those bum notes.

Thanks for you comments.

[bobbybovine]

Here's my amateur review - I didn't read an other comments so I may be rehashing what's been said

I think you made a artistic choice to pan the acoustic back and forth to the beat of the snare, maybe to sound like a pendulum? Cool idea, but I thought it was too much and very distracting, especially in the cans.

That's ok because no one listens on ear buds these days anyway I wanted to do something different to add some interest. Since I muted the e guitar in the verses.

I felt the vocals were a little buried in the mix, but then I tend to always have them too loud.

Chorus vocals were tricky for me here and I really never nailed what I wanted to achieve.

I keep hearing what I think are pitch problems in a lot of the mixes. At 2:25, 3:20, 3:30 and 3:42. But maybe it's supposed to sound like that, a little weird or twisted, and I want to keep it straight when I hear it?

Clowns are weird and twisted anyway

Liked the E. Guitar tone, the tone of the vocals and the effects on just about everything, and the ending was unique and cool!

Thanks for the comments.

[BillyBoBBizWorth]

The panning effect sounds good,but having it through out the whole track doesn't appeal to me.
I think there's to much effect added to the vocals and probably the whole track in general.
The mix seems nice and balanced,but just to much and too many effects are added.
The loudness sticks out in a bad more than it does in a good way.
The snare sound you've got sounds good but sounds abit too sticky/woody and really stands out,i would of lowered the volume on it abit.

[bobbybovine]

The panning effect sounds good,but having it through out the whole track doesn't appeal to me.

It is actually only during the verses, I tried to match up the strumming of the acoustic guitar with the e guitar on the beats to accentuate the rhythm part but that was tricky too

I think there's to much effect added to the vocals and probably the whole track in general.
The mix seems nice and balanced,but just to much and too many effects are added.

Agreed

The loudness sticks out in a bad more than it does in a good way.

In hind sight I should have not pushed the loudness as far as I did.

Thanks for the comments

[killingpingu]

Alas, my ears are also shot... so take what I say with a pinch of salt...

I liked the ping pong panning to start with but it soon got a little much for me and made me feel like I was drunk and on an over night ferry. I'd tone it down a little or only use it in certain places for effect.

I also like the reverb and telephone typish EQ on the drums when they came in... there was a nice distance to them. But when the rest of the band came in it felt as if the drummer was still in the back room.... uninvited. I think the mix would have benifited from having the drummer step into the same room as the rest of the band on hitting the first chorus.

Vocals also seem a little quiet. It was my other half that pointed out to me today that I'd burried the vocals in my own mix.... and it's about the same level as in your mix. I told her it was because I felt that the singing was quite timid and so I wanted it to be quiet in the mix... yadda yadda.... at the end of the day I had to conceed the point... she's the average listener and she's right (don't tell her), and the average listener wants to hear the vocals more than anything.

[bobbybovine]

I liked the ping pong panning to start with but it soon got a little much for me and made me feel like I was drunk and on an over night ferry. I'd tone it down a little or only use it in certain places for effect.

As I mentioned above I only used that in the verses, but maybe only the first verse and the ending verse would be better. Good point.

I also like the reverb and telephone typish EQ on the drums when they came in... there was a nice distance to them. But when the rest of the band came in it felt as if the drummer was still in the back room.... uninvited. I think the mix would have benifited from having the drummer step into the same room as the rest of the band on hitting the first chorus.

Another good idea, I may implement that upon further mixing.

Vocals also seem a little quiet. It was my other half that pointed out to me today that I'd burried the vocals in my own mix.... and it's about the same level as in your mix. I told her it was because I felt that the singing was quite timid and so I wanted it to be quiet in the mix... yadda yadda.... at the end of the day I had to conceed the point... she's the average listener and she's right (don't tell her), and the average listener wants to hear the vocals more than anything.

That's what I get for messing with vocal automation at 1:30am after 3 hours of tweaking. I was getting impatient and wanted it done, I won't let my impatience get the better of me next time.

Thanks man, great suggestions.

[m24p]

This is yet another, interesting, good take!

Unfortunately a lot of good advice has already been given. Here's something I did with the vox that I think helped. Some of the notes "I'm not SUCH a lonely clown" and "there is ONE thing that is true" were not up to snuff. I had the vocals up loud and up front enough, dropping the volume for that note and tuning it helped it sound much better, especally "such". That note needs to be quieter than the stuff around it, not louder. At least that's what I found.

Sometimes really reverb heavy mixes sound good. For example, I like this: Endless Summer by Still Corners on Creatures of an Hour - Free Music Streaming, Online Music, Videos - Grooveshark It has an exaggerated, overdone reverb that gives everything a dreamy feel to it.

Your mix had exaggerated reverb on the vox and drums only. I don't think that worked at all. The synths ended up sounding really awkward compared to the drums and vocals. I've found that if I want a few things to be reverb heavy, I'd better put a significant amount of reverb on pretty much everything. Varying the pre-delay and EQ on the reverb sends can help keep the mix from being lost in the smear of reverb while still making it cartoonishly wet.

All that to say that I think you can get away with lots of reverb on a mix if you want to, but I don't think it was handled well in this mix. I think a bit more care with the vocal volume was needed as well. It got buried sometimes but was plenty loud other times. I'm not sure what FX you did on the vocals besides reverb - some sort of flanger?? but I think it was a bit over done as well.

The autopanning thing on the guitar was awesome and the tremolo on the e guitar worked well. Nice mix, I think it just suffered from the same thing mine did: lost perspective made you miss a few things that didn't quite work.

[LazyE]

i reall y like that panning effect youve gt going on , sounds cool.
the vocals sound awsome, but i cant help feeling maybe just a little less reverb sorry its prob just personal taste and not really a bad point abut the mix.
the drums sound great!
i too first used pitch correction for the first time ever mixing this it was good to get into, but i agree a pain in the arse lol.

when all the instruments are in on the louder parts the vocal sound slike its crampng ever so slightly thru either compression or fighting for space,
but overall this is an amazing mix!

really impressed,
cheers dude!
:-)
best o luck.


lovin the ending! real nice touch

[bobbybovine]

Unfortunately a lot of good advice has already been given. Here's something I did with the vox that I think helped. Some of the notes "I'm not SUCH a lonely clown" and "there is ONE thing that is true" were not up to snuff. I had the vocals up loud and up front enough, dropping the volume for that note and tuning it helped it sound much better, especally "such". That note needs to be quieter than the stuff around it, not louder. At least that's what I found.

Cool, I was really picky about f's and s's and automated alot of those down, but I did miss a few words for sure. To be honest I was spending most of my time at the end on the chorus vocal, clearly struggled there.

Sometimes really reverb heavy mixes sound good. For example, I like this: Endless Summer by Still Corners on Creatures of an Hour - Free Music Streaming, Online Music, Videos - Grooveshark It has an exaggerated, overdone reverb that gives everything a dreamy feel to it.

Yeah that is pretty cool. I will definitely be researching more reverb techniques. I also think my bus compression brought the verb out more than I initially mixed. I did have a verb on the whole mix as well on top of the drum verb and the verse vocal verb. It is pretty clear that it is too much.

Your mix had exaggerated reverb on the vox and drums only. I don't think that worked at all. The synths ended up sounding really awkward compared to the drums and vocals. I've found that if I want a few things to be reverb heavy, I'd better put a significant amount of reverb on pretty much everything. Varying the pre-delay and EQ on the reverb sends can help keep the mix from being lost in the smear of reverb while still making it cartoonishly wet.

I didn't really eq the reverb at all, I messed with the eq within the reverb plug but not with an eq plug. I am going to mess with that as soon as I get a chance again.

All that to say that I think you can get away with lots of reverb on a mix if you want to, but I don't think it was handled well in this mix. I think a bit more care with the vocal volume was needed as well. It got buried sometimes but was plenty loud other times. I'm not sure what FX you did on the vocals besides reverb - some sort of flanger?? but I think it was a bit over done as well

.
The Verse effect was 3 layered vocal tracks, 1 center, 2 panned left and right slightly pitch shifted hi and low sent to a fx bus with chorus and the wet verb. When I first did it I just really liked it. Still do The chorus vocals I don't even know what I did without lookin at the track in Cubase but I don't really like it either, I actually threw in the towel on that one after a couple of hours of not getting anywhere. Any tips on getting vox to sound up close and intimate in a busy section? Probably clearing the middle of other instruments would help the most.

The autopanning thing on the guitar was awesome and the tremolo on the e guitar worked well. Nice mix, I think it just suffered from the same thing mine did: lost perspective made you miss a few things that didn't quite work.

Thanks man I respect your opinion and will be taking quite a few recommendations to heart on this from you and the others that commented. Thanks for the input Bro.

[bobbybovine]

i reall y like that panning effect youve gt going on , sounds cool.

Me too, I found it gave the track some much needed movement in that section without touching the vocal.

the vocals sound awsome, but i cant help feeling maybe just a little less reverb sorry its prob just personal taste and not really a bad point abut the mix.

I totally agree, I over cooked it there for sure. I am no pro at verb that is for sure, I learned a lot about its use and ways to limit the negatives of it from this. So win win for me!!

the drums sound great!

Thanks again. That is where I started. Me being a drummer I have no excuse for lack luster drums. I felt they fit the mood of the song quite well IMO.

i too first used pitch correction for the first time ever mixing this it was good to get into, but i agree a pain in the arse lol.

I love doing that actually, not a pain at all. I just thought it was so cool to get the notes fixed. You could really change chord progressions if you wanted to. Neat stuff.

when all the instruments are in on the louder parts the vocal sound slike its crampng ever so slightly thru either compression or fighting for space,

Totally, I am going to try and fix this.

Thanks for the comments. And you didn't seem to mind me muting some of the guitar parts.