Hated Love - Holster's Mix

[bholst]

Well, this one was another chance to take a whole different approach. We'll see if it paid off at all. lol. Thanks to kakeux for the DI tracks, as it gave me a bit of re-amping practice. Outside of that, I pretty much stuck to the original sounds and just dialed them in as best as I could. Due to the limited time that I had this month, I took this as an opportunity to mix this aggressively. I can see more positives to this approach than I expected. Again, we'll see if you agree.
In terms of reference tracks this month, I mostly stuck with the New Kids on the Block classic, "Step by Step".
LMAO. No reference, that was part of the aggressive approach. Just sat down and dialed it in. I seem to be known on some of my mixes of being too 'clean' and 'open', so perhaps doing the mix cram session helped dirty up my mix. You'll be the judge.
Thanks to kakeux for the tracks, and thanks again to Brandon and the Slate dudes for providing this top-notch learning opportunity

-holster

[jpierre]

I like the guitar sounds nice and clean.. the guitar after the bridge that extended i would haev use the oter one jus my personal taste.. but nice mix mehn... the kick drum is a bit light imo.. but then again am listening on my laptop so...

[bholst]

Thanks jpierre! Yeah, that kick will have plenty o' punch when you try it on bigger speakers. I was really torn on the guitar coming out of the bridge. I elected to pull it because of what I was trying to highlight with the vocal (a sort of anguish at that point), if that makes sense. Thanks again!

-holster

[fHumble fHingaz]

Sweet mix holster! Huge low end on the mix, but it's nice & clear - seems to be your trademark - no mean feat! Beautifully represented frequency spectrum - the high end is crystal clear, but not overbearing.
The vocals sound great too.

An excellent mix once again, so I have to put my super-picky hat on... let's see...
-The only time I found the mix getting slightly muddy was during the guitar break - the rhythm guitar just sounds a little too rich in low mids there - maybe building up with the top end of the bass a bit?

-Sometimes I felt the distorted rhythm guitar coming from the left might have been better balanced by putting some of the harmonies more to the right - when the harmonies come in, the ones on the right tend to build on the rhythm guitar & weigh that side down slightly.

-Using the "plinky" synth at the beginning was really cool touch, but I noticed that it could have done with some timing re-alignment, as it is ever-so-slightly out of sync with the drums. On any other synth sound it probably wouldn't have been an issue, but that particular sound has such a percussive nature that it tends to stick out a bit.

There you go - I told you I would be stupendously picky! (I know you love it)

Seriously mate, top job!

[bholst]

Thanks ff! Yeah, I do appreciate the 'squint mode' stuff Just like you, I want to keep on improving. I know I still have tons of room to grow. If I had given myself more time to crank that mix out, I would hope I would catch that synth timing thing. Hopefully over time though, I'll learn to catch that stuff even when I'm in aggressive/speed mix mode I liked your ideas regarding the harmonies too. Thanks again my friend!

-holster

[danmanisa]

Too clean and open? And that's a bad thing? You're a funny man Holster!
Yep, mixing aggressively was my approach too (thanks for the kind words on my mix BTW)!
So far, a really solid mix. I feel like it really takes off from the first chorus onwards. I re-listened to the first verse and it felt a little flat and I'm trying to figure out why. The only thing I could think of was that maybe the drums are bit too up front and aggressive given how sparse that section is and it pushes the vocal back a touch. Once the guitars (awesome sounds by the way, please - if you have not already - let me know how you reamped, as in mics and amps please!) come in, it starts to push along more. (Please excuse my poor english. I got no excuse, it's my first and only language, but I still seem to have days where it does not work for me!!! )

Great snare sound on the build up, sounds like you used more bottom snare there and it works well. Bass and kick are speaking nicely to each other.
Well, it is clean and open and it is also very good. Easily a S16 candidate based on my listens so far. Well done once again!

[kakeux]

Hi,

Really cool one! Solid! I like the huge bright choruses! The mix is moving nicely and have good dynamics changes.

One point for me, the synth sound a bit off time during the first verse...I know it is the case in the original file, but your sound enhance it quite a bit.

Nice job!

[Magnolius]

Nice sound you got here! Love the drums And the vocals sits nicely in the mix. I really like the balance between the different elements. The only thing I could comment on is that I find the synth line during the verses is distracting. They doesn't really seem to be in sync with the rest of the instruments so it gives the song a slightly limping feeling... Other than that really solid work!

[lucccien]

Another great mix holster. Only thing I wasn't fond of was the gratuitious use of what sounds like a tom to accentuate certain snare hits. But that's just me! The synth in the beginning sounded a bit off timing. Beyond that, I really dig your kick sound. Amazing that you got that sound from the original kick. Your mix is well balanced and the tones are great. The width is perfect. Excellent work!

[jerze]

Hey Bholst, verse sounds great nice blend of parts only thing holding it back is a little more time getting the synth timing together.
Man nice kick and bass sound maybe a little adjustment on the low end.
Liking the snare not sure about the tom hit with it like the idea. . Nice guitar sound what plug-in did you use.
The 2 last thing and mainly personal preference at 2.51 top and bottom snare would have build together imo and spreading the hi hat all the way seemed a little weird maybe spread the guitars a little wider to get a wider ending imo. . Overall for not having much time sounds great

[dudermn]

I'm surprized you didn't get a 5 star rating, usually your mixes are good.
I guess it because how heavy the drums are?
At 1:30 I was thinking... "why did he even leave the hi-hat in"
Pretty hard to nit pick the vocals.
But the mix falls apart at the end :/

[bholst]

I'm surprized you didn't get a 5 star rating, usually your mixes are good.
I guess it because how heavy the drums are?
At 1:30 I was thinking... "why did he even leave the hi-hat in"
Pretty hard to nit pick the vocals.
But the mix falls apart at the end :/

Gee, thanks for all the useful information to help me improve my mix that 'fell apart'.
I'm certain that my future mixes will be 'radio ready' from here on out because of it.

Look. I never once professed to be some mixing expert on here. In fact, I will be the first to tell you that I have a long way to go, so ANY help is appreciated. What my rating is before you listened seems completely irrelevant. Why even bring it up? Some months will be better than others for me. I'm still learning.

I'm not exactly sure what the intentions are by leaving short, snide remarks and low balling scores, but I'm seeing this as a trend on others that you've posted on too. My whole reason for taking what limited time I have to mix for these contests is not because I think I stand a chance to win. It's because of the TIPS for improvement that I'm hoping to gain from my peers. If you're not willing to help after taking the time to listen, then could you just leave whatever score and move on?

[bholst]

spreading the hi hat all the way seemed a little weird

You bring up a very interesting point. Something that I noticed and I've struggled to fix in the past. How are you supposed to deal with the hat when the only source is coming from the 'stereo' overheads? I'm going to post it as a thread for discussion.

[JDenney]

I personally love the low end sound. All that beef makes my ear bellies full (WTF did I just say?). Everything has a great clarity to it. As usual, your vocals sit just where they need to be. The guitar tone is really sweet. Step by Step is a good song, btw.
Oh, and the mix didn't fall apart at the end, I know because I listened to it.

[bholst]

The fact that you called "step by step" a "good song" causes me to question your judgement. As for the 'ear belly'? Ummmm, I'm at a loss. lol

[brandondrury]

Be REALLY careful with that synth up that high. You may be okay here, but I've had a few of these relatively "pure" waves (it works for sine waves, triangle waves, and anything without a lot of harmonics) can have very high Q (narrow wave) peaks that will kill a person on the wrong stereo. I haven't figured out how exactly how to handle these just yet, but I know a clue is I don't see these "combs" on any big boy stuff I've checked with SPAN....for whatever that's worth.

Some of the sibilance treatment is 2%....obvious. This is a subtle thing but as a person who was OBSESSED with no sibilance and then heard how badly I screwed up the de-essing I'm now OBSESSED with making sure there are ZERO artifacts. It's a tricky business and I don't have a great answer on that one other than I catch myself automating the de-esser amount a lot lately. It's less critical on this song than others.

Overall I really like the mix. I'm hearing Trigger on it. (Nothing wrong with that. ) A few of the Trigger snares have a peak in them at maybe 2k. That's a good thing, generally, but I've noticed I need a smoother compressor on them or more drum bus compression to ease up on that peak. I'm hearing that peak on your snare, but my computer speakers are notorious for finding problems in that 1k-2k region that most speakers don't....so whatever.

The hihat was mentioned on another thread. The hihat ain't exactly soft, but never in a zillion years would I have even noticed it unless I had read that thread. I may have noticed how damn sweet it sounds. If anyone heard that and didn't dig it, they had to be either listening on a different set of speakers or come from a RADICALLY different place than I come from musically.

Other than this tiny crap I have no issues with this mix. Great job as usual, dude.

Brandon

[jackslab1]

Dang holster, you gonna win one of these before long. Great mix. The only thing that got me was that tom hit through the verse. I think that's personel prefrence stuff. Excellent job man.

[bobbybovine]

Hey there Holster, very solid and balanced sounding mix here. You have chosen a very nice guitar tone that works well with the song, actually all of your sound choices work great together. I do notice a few things that were a bit distracting for me though. The synth at the beginning is out of time, sounds like it just needs to be time stretched to end on the downbeat, an easy fix. The other thing that bugged me is the tom hits that were happening on the snare. It wasn't every snare that had it and it did seem a bit eratic. I am wondering if it was a false trigger or something there. At first when I heard it I thought that is cool, and to be honest I thought it would have worked really well as a rhythmic element if during the verses the tom was on every second snare hit, but the erratic nature of it tended to pull my ear to it and away from what I really should be focusing on in the song. Also during some of the chorus' the louder backing vox sound a little off pitch to me, I noticed this on a few others that have the backing vox up louder in the mix. It was only a couple of spots and not really a big deal. I found those backing vox being slightly off was great if they were duplicated and some subtle chorus on them. For an aggressive and non referenced mix, this was very nice and all those things above are small potatoes and an quickly repaired on a revision if this was a paying client. Great work.

[dudermn]

Maybe I should've just mentioned 1 Thing.

1. Your vocals are good. That may not be an issue here. - you could talk about you fx chain...
2. At 1:30 the hi-hat is so quite .. to me anyway, that it's barely audible. - bring it up a few dbs
3. The strange end bridge guitar didn't fit in. That's why it falls apart. - That guitar was hard to work with even, I don't think I nailed it. It gives me the vague impression it's out of phase.
4. I've listened to other things you've done, I liked um......

A great deal can be said with few words.
Plus I'm lucky I found the time to snicker at every mix here, it was enduring but I listened to them all.

If you want some tips, go post this in the bash this recording thread

Kinda thinking about it, chill out dude.


I check every thread, and reply where needed. I'm not slacking off !
But, alot of people don't really read every reply (luckily for me , and most of the time if I notice something, mentioning it is of no affect (as seen here).
So the first comment is just a foot-note, and other comments may follow.

I agree with Brandon that the hi-hat sounds great, but even he wouldn't have noticed it.

[JoshERTW]

I'm going squint mode on this too man, pretty tight mix:

- High harmony on the left during the chorus seems to unbalance things slightly
- Drums in the big guitar solo seem like they are perhaps a little too dry, or they are maybe gated or something - they have a very mechanical feel in this section and could use some more sustain to help carry things forward to the big finish.
- Drums overall could come down a little in volume, they darken the mix in a pleasant way but I think the kick is the slightest bit overbearing in the sub-lows.

The last two are pretty subjective/personal prefernence type things. Well done! The drums aren't doing it for me but everything else sounds great, nice touch with the synth near the start there, very cool vibe to that part.

[dudermn]

And further more!
This mix is great, and you haven't even noticed it, seem as.
AlbertoM-Hated love Mix

[redworks]

sounding good overall. big drums that don't override the rest of the mix. i wondered if it was the way to go when i was doing mine but you have done a good job at showing me how it can be done. one thing that jumped out at me and probably others have mentioned is the frogger synth that you pasted in the early part of the song. it seems to be out of time just enough to turn me off. it is funny interesting how someone who obviously has the ability missed something that jumps out at me. i think it just goes to show how we can be so focused on one thing that we miss other things and it renews in my mind the value of having a friend with an ear who can listen to your mixes before you release them. that is one of the things that makes this forum so valuable. anyway i am rambling unnecessarily. a few spots on the vocals could use a little more tuning. especially with the harmony parts being so present.

[Jeronimo Mora]

STEP ONE One one... You can have lots of fun.
STEP TWO Two two... There's so much we can dooo.
STEP THREE Three three... IT'S JUST YOU AND MEEEEEEEEEEEEE.
STEP FOUR Four four... I can give you moooooore.
RRRRRRRRRRRAW

[Jeronimo Mora]

Nice mix Holster! !

I wasn't the biggest fan of the tom triggering in certain places. As fH mentioned, the gameboy synth seems to go out of time with the drums. Not sure why. Your mix appears to be ever so slightly slower as well. Might just be psycho acoustics. I'm 99% certain it wasn't you. The mix is very balanced. I would have liked to have heard more guitars during the chorus. Perhaps, 2-3 db? The guitar section at the end that rhythm guitar has a little too much lower midrange. The end chorus appears to have ever so slightly too much low end. Automating the bass down a bit would have helped.

Excellent work as usual .

[Jeronimo Mora]

I check every thread, and reply where needed. I'm not slacking off !
But, alot of people don't really read every reply (luckily for me , and most of the time if I notice something, mentioning it is of no affect (as seen here).
So the first comment is just a foot-note, and other comments may follow.

I'm not trying to be an asshole here but your comments are usually vague, indecipherable, and hardly of much use. I appreciate the time you take into listening and commenting on every mix, but please try to be specific and as "neutral" as possible. Being snide helps no one. Again, I'm not trying to single you out or be a douche.