hAted lOve - fHumbemIx

[fHumble fHingaz]

Well, here it is... ta da! It's tough to be original in these crazy, topsy-turvy times, but hopefully I've still got a few tricks up my sleeve...

... oh, & BTW, no acoustic guitars were harmed during this mix.

[dymrip]

Killer mix man! I really dig what you did with this song. The dynamics you created by cutting out certain instruments when each section began really made this mix enjoyable (if that makes sense). The middle, bridge part (literally and structurally speaking) and beginning of the choruses are examples of what I'm talking about. About the only thing I could point out that could have been differently was a bit more volume from the right-side guitar at the beginning, but that is all personal preference.

[irawan gani]

Love it.

Great energy in the mix. The arrangement has gotten some of the emotional elements in the song to the forefront. And yes I am full of hate and love after listening to it. I had looked into the song for a bit just now and I'd agree with your approach of Big Reverb drums. It has turned the most 'static' instrument in the mix into a hook.

I don't really care for which frequency is cluttered or muddy. This mix has coaxed the emotion the song attempts to capture.

[Magnolius]

Nice! A lovely mix with lots of great details. Love the drums and the vocals are also spot on. Everything sounds a little more professional and expensive, a major label sound from demo material. Top job!

The only thing I would have commented on if it was my band that received this mix would be that the snare buildup before the final chorus is slightly out of sync the first couple of hits. That's all, superb job!

[willj]

[maschneid]

Yeah what Will said

I was waiting for this hehehe. Did not let us down as per normal operations fHfH Great Job!!!

[wireman957]

Wow. Just WOW! I'd say the rest of us should just go ahead and quit now, but first I have too many questions...How did you do the acoustic guitars? Was that some sort of amp sim or did you convert a track to MIDI? Same questions for the "ooh's"...

fHumble, I can't for the life of me figure out how you got some of these sounds to the point where they are. I stand in complete awe of your mastery! Which plugin are you going to take this month?

[Magnolius]

Wow. Just WOW! I'd say the rest of us should just go ahead and quit now, but first I have too many questions...How did you do the acoustic guitars? Was that some sort of amp sim or did you convert a track to MIDI? Same questions for the "ooh's"...

fHumble, I can't for the life of me figure out how you got some of these sounds to the point where they are. I stand in complete awe of your mastery! Which plugin are you going to take this month?

+1

I would love to hear the inside story to this mix!

[LePou]

for the mix ! No one expected less from you.
for the acoustic guitar trick !

[JoshERTW]

Good lord man - How the hell did you get those electric guitars (and/or insert "x" element of this mix) sounding like that?

5x 's from me too.

Wish I'd submitted mine earlier, its gonna be a let down now

Out of curiosity, how many hours you got logged on this masterpiece?

[bobbybovine]

fHumble, Great mix, your low end is controlled exceptionally well. Vocals are smoking as we have come to expect from you. The arrangement is really cool, very unique which is hard to acieve after all these mixes are submitted already. The acoustic part sounds awesome, and I wasn't expecting it which made it even better. My only gripes with your mix are the guitars in the chorus are pretty scratchy with everything going, then as the chorus ends and you can hear them ring out and they sound better to me, sounds like something may be masking the meat of the sound on them. Overall I do find your mix pretty heavy in the 1k to 2k range as well as having less high end across the board than I would like. I think it is mostly the guitars and it sticks out more to me on the last chorus where the intensity is. The lack of high end doesn't sound bad by any means and I am sure it was totally on purpose to give the song a darker overal feel, but I do miss it. Great job once again.

[m24p]

Vox were a bit over-compressed. Very noticeable in the sparse parts. 0:42. In a dense mix you need it, but you can automate that sucker to be gentler in the sparse parts. Very good underdubbing of the harmonies. I felt the snare was huge and industrial sounding, but lacking in a high-mid "pop" so in the dense parts it got totally drowned out by the guitars. It probably sounded better pre-mastering. 1:43 is an example of what I mean. That poor snare is buried there. In most of the song it cuts fine, even in some of the dense parts, but there are some spots where it doesn't.

Cool feedback in the guitars at the end.

[Jjsodarock]

Hey fHumble,
Very artistic my man! I can't really say anything bad or helpfull. Not what I expected from you, non the less . Very good work, Jojo

[fHumble fHingaz]

Wow, thanks everyone, for listening & commenting...

I really appreciate both the compliments & the criticisms - there are always things to improve on...

I have to say, I really struggled to get this one completed - I have so much else going on at the moment - It was a case of, I knew which point I wanted to get it to, but it took me a loooonnng time to get it there, mainly because the time spent was so fragmented.

Additionally, I fell for a special price on Audiodeluxe.com & got Melodyne Editor this month, so I had to learn how to use it, which ate up a LOT of time... which brings me to the next point...

How did you do the acoustic guitars? Was that some sort of amp sim or did you convert a track to MIDI? Same questions for the "ooh's"...

+1
I would love to hear the inside story to this mix!

As I now have Melodyne with it's DNA capability, I wondered how I could use it in the mix. Then I remembered that I had been kindly given a free copy of the "Strum Acoustic" plugin by AAS a year or 2 ago, which I had only use once on a mix... so I wondered what would happen if I converted the DI signals to midi with the DNA function in Melodyne (because it processes polyphonic signals)..hmmm... Well, it was super easy actually - I was floored just how easy it was to "reamp" the electric guitars as acoustics! There was very little "fiddling" with the midi needed after converting it.

how the hell did you get those electric guitars (and/or insert "x" element of this mix) sounding like that?

I used the DI's on the guitars exclusively for the heavy tones & blend a few of the tones with reamped DI's for the verse tones - From memory reamped through Guitar Rig 4, Amplitude & Pod Farm... umm.. one was a Cornford Amp model, the others... I'll have to check - I blended quite a few sounds.

Out of curiosity, how many hours you got logged

ermm.... I hate to think... too many

[fHumble fHingaz]

Same questions for the "ooh's"...

... Oh, & I forgot to mention: I did some pretty intense work with Melodyne on the vocals - I was very impressed with it. There was no midi triggering trickery with the oohh's (such as triggering choir samples, which I actually did consider at one stage) - they are all the original parts with the pitch massaged in Melodyne - I did add a couple of extra harmonies via Melodyne to "lush-en" them up a bit.

Although the pitch work obviously really helps to tighten the harmonies, I do believe that finding just the right balance of the "blend" of the different parts makes a HUGE difference to the end result.

[redworks]

once again you have shown what hard work, a good mind, a sound ear and some creativity can produce. i just threw away my mix again and am starting all over (just kidding there is no point). there are a few cut out spots where it is a little awkward. the one that stands out the most is at 2:56. other than that come on man. really cool elements. dynamics are off the chain. i mean you made that guitar solo after the bridge actually have meaning. you played with my emotions. i would also say that except for what i mentioned before the mixer was invisible the song wove a tale and it was a good one. you have pushed the limits for the sake of the competition and the betterment of the song. your mixes not only show me what a good mix can sound like you have given me new ideas for how to get the mix there. thanks for doing that

[bobbybovine]

oh yeah, I meant to mention the very last couple of chords that finish up the song. You were probably the only one to "fix" those. Pretty much every other mix left the guitars and the drums be a little off and yours are dead on. I tried to fix it initially and was making it worse so I changed my ending to get rid of them. Good job on that, its a small detail but one that shows off your attention to detail over everyone else. You definitely remind me to be a perfectionist everytime I listen to your mixes.

[bholst]

Hey ff! I'm really torn on this one man. I really am. On the 'producer' side of things, I think it's flawless. You're one of the only ones to enter this month that followed the instructions of taking this song and changing it up a bit. You did a superb job of breaking up the repetitive nature of this track. Big points and kudos for that!
On the mix side of things, this is where I'm torn. There's this harshness (it's the only word I can up with for it) that I'm hearing and it's on PC speakers and my monitors. I think its a buildup that happens when you have the snare, heavy guitars, and the harmony vocals in the chorus. It just really stood out to me. Now having said 'harsh', it's not that I can't listen to it. In fact, some may really like how abrasive/aggressive it is. I'd chalk it up as subjective/personal taste
Other than that, everything has its place and it's definitely a dynamic mix. Good job (as always)!!!!

-holster

[bholst]

BTW, very nicely done on the faux acoustic!!! I'm jealous of how well you pulled that off.

[JDenney]

It's a good mix.
Some things that I personally don't like, which are strictly personal are 1.) Electric guitar. Just sounds fuzzy to me and not much clarity. 2.)Snare. It does not have as much pop to it as I'd personally like.
You made the vocals sound top notch! Like I said a couple things, I don't like are personal taste.

You're clearly know what you're doing, I mean, you mean everything here
Keep up the good work.

[willj]

What a pretty mix buddy.

Very nice on the first break. Super cool arrangement there. Esp where the big vox come back in. Yeah the first chorus was set up perfectly.

Your reconstruction of the song is about as good as its going to get. It has a nice dose of well thought out creativity to it with the acoustics and bridge harmonies.

I'll only leave you with one comment and maybe a little unexpected, but for me this mix is pushing the limits from 320 ish down to 160ish with a slight congestion in the upper bass. Very much guess but cant be too far away from that. Just not a freq range i recall you bassing any of your mixes around, and obviously not problematic.

Very fine job. I know you had gathered such from my 5 lil drinking smiles

[JoshERTW]

I'm totally backwards compressing my vocals next month - You gotta blog this one dude. This is "big-boy" level stuff.

[bholst]

I'm totally backwards compressing my vocals next month - You gotta blog this one dude. This is "big-boy" level stuff.

"Backwards Compression" - Have you tried it?

[jerze]

Wow great sound! 5 stars Acoustic section pure genius.5 stars not using it again?

A quick question about the high backup vocal in chorus. It seems to have an almost harsh distortion, hi frequency Sound. Not sure how to describe it. Really noticeable at (you keep lying line about 3.10) But is noticeable in all the choruses.
Never having used auto-tune is this something the plug-in adds to correct the vocal tuning Problem? Or maybe something in my speakers. Great job!

[fHumble fHingaz]

A quick question about the high backup vocal in chorus. It seems to have an almost harsh distortion, hi frequency Sound. Not sure how to describe it. Really noticeable at (you keep lying line about 3.10) But is noticeable in all the choruses.
Never having used auto-tune is this something the plug-in adds to correct the vocal tuning Problem?

Hey jerze - I'm not sure about this one - I'm not saying it isn't there, but I'm not hearing it on my speakers - There are always heavy guitars under that line, so maybe you're hearing some kind of resonant interaction with their distortion?

I'm using Melodyne for the pitch correction, & I actually found it to be very transparent. The pitching really hasn't been corrected a massive amount anyway, because Kakeux sang the parts very well - it's more of a fairly gentle "massage".

Thanks for the kind comments, & I really appreciate the feedback from everyone.

Cheers fH fH