Hated Love - mix by Vocal Point

[Vocal Point]

Well, I think I did a better job with the overheads this time. Tape saturation seems to take the "bite" out of the cymbals, yet retain the overall frequency spectrum. (I'm guessing here - that's what a little saturation sounds like to me.) The kick drum track seemed a bit weak, but I tried to make the most of it. Doubling the track, bass-enhancing one, and high-passing the copy seemed to help. I didn't use the distorted bass track; I used the same method on the other bass track as I did on the kick drum.

Since the theme of this song is rejection and depression, I tried to maintain the sense of despair the band seemed to capture in their articulations.

The mix may be a bit quiet, but, again, I'm trying to achieve more dynamic range.

[fHumble fHingaz]

Nice mix Vocal Point. The highs are nice & clear, but not biting. Vocals are nice & clear - all the elements have good separation, yet the mix feels cohesive.

One point I noticed was that the attack of the bass guitar seems to be emphasized to the point where it almost sounds like a doubled hit on the kick drum - perhaps adjusting the attack on the bass compression to a faster attack might bring down those transients a bit & not cause a fight with the attack on the kick.

The kick does feel like it is lacking a little low end punch around the 100hz mark - perhaps a little too much high passing. One thing that would help is to cut a bit around 400hz on the kick to get rid of the slight boxiness that it has. This would enable you to bring up the level of the low end more without emphasizing that slightly unflattering quality of the sound.

Overall, a nicely put together mix!

[danmanisa]

Welcome again VP,

First off, I love how subtle, smooth and understated you have made that little electric guitar. It really sets up a vulnerable feel like you have stated. In some other song it may sound a little muffled or something, but it really works here to set up you goal well. There are a couple of minor things that I would recommend, but they are slightly personal taste more than anything. The kick seems to lack low end and it disappears almost completely in the bridge section, with only the clicky attack cutting through which is often masked by the bass. Secondly, I would bring those vocals up a touch more. You seem to have musically made a nice and, as I said before, vulnerable sounding mix musically. It feels like it is waiting for the vocals to just speak to me, but they seem nestled a little too far back for me to completely get the message.
I love what you have done with the mix overall, a very understated mix that does what you intended, and for that, mission completion.

[Jjsodarock]

Hey Vocal P,
Solid mix. The overall eq curve is good. The only stuff I can blab about is all personal preff. The vocal may have had an automated eq on it at 1k and or 2300Hz that could have been bumped up to give emphasis to some of the phrasing. 2k is the general area where consonates live. Also eq on the reverb return can make them a bit more clear. Bla bla bla Good Job, Jojo

[wireman957]

Hey, VP! Quite an improvement over last month, IMHO. Lots more clarity than your May mix. That being said, your kick is still just a bit boxy sounding. I think fHumble had a great suggestion about cutting a bit around 400Hz, and boosting at 100 (maybe even lower.
taking it one step further, if you have an RTA plugin (several free ones out there) you can look at the "natural" peaks of an instrument (in this case the kick) and see where the attack and resonant (thump) frequencies are as the instrument was tracked. This can help you decide where to boost or cut to shape the sound. A kick is usually going to have a resonance peak somewhere between 50-80Hz and depending on what head, beater and mic, the attack peak can be anywhere from 3.5-6k or so. I usually try to use the natural peaks as my starting points for any boosts then pull out some of the midrange until I end up with the attack/thump combination that gives the clarity and power that I'm looking for. As for the kick/bass duo, you might want to try ducking the bass guitar's attack slightly by using the kick as a key input to a fast compressor on the bass track. this will allow the kick's attack to come through better by momentarily lowering the level of the bass so that the main attack sound you hear is that of the kick. A side benefit of doing this is to make the kick and bass sound more integrated. You may also be able to bring the overall level of the bass up without covering the kick and suddenly the whole low end of your mix is delivering more power. Here's an article that might give you a better idea of what I'm saying: Moulton Laboratories :: Principles of Multitrack Mixing: The Kick Drum/Bass Relationship

With all that being said, I dug your guitar and vocal tones - you pretty much nailed those this time around - and your mix balance was pretty happening. Like I said, I can tell you've been working on things. Your mix this month is much nicer overall! Good job, man!

[Magnolius]

Well balanced mix A little understated maybe. I think what's holding this mix back is the drums. They feel a little thin and boxy. I see you have gotten good advice above so won't go in to details here. A tip could be to start with kick, snare, bass and lead vocals and find a good balance between these elements as it provides the basis of the track. When these sound powerful and engaging you can start adding in the overheads and the rest of the instruments.

[Vocal Point]

OK - thanks for the comments, everyone! I experimented with what fHumble suggested on the kick, and discovered that I had left a low-cut setting at 50Hz "on" on the drum bus. After turning that off and trying his other suggestions, it sounded better. As wireman957 suggested, I did look at the frequency spectrum of the kick drum - it seemed to have a fundamental frequency at ~108Hz (seemed high to me??), so I carved out a little room for it there from the bass tracks. I didn't attenuate the kick's mid-range, though. That probably explains the boxiness. The attack time I used on the bass compression was pretty fast, but I also set the ratio high. That might explain the "double-hit" sound of the kick/bass - I'll have to experiment some more, then dig into the article about ducking...

Finding time to comment on other mixes is not easy for me right now, so I really do appreciate the time you all have taken to share your expertise!

[ChronoWulf]

I like what you have going on with this mix - Drums sound pretty good, love the way you controlled the distorted guitars, and the clean guitars are nice and clear. I agree that you could take the vol on the vocals up a few dbs - they were a little far back in the mix for me. Nice sound overall though and I really appreciate the dynamic range as well - always taxing on my ears when its loud the whole way through.

[Jeronimo Mora]

Nice mix !

This mix has a very natural feel which I enjoyed. I felt the snare could have been 2 db louder during the chorus. I felt that most of the elements could have been high passed a little more aggressively. The kick drum sounds a little bit like a thud. Vocals sound good. I felt the synths could have been low passed a tad bit more (10-12 khz) to get rid of some of the fizzyness.

A trick I like to do on the kick drum is parallel compression. Idk if you know this already so I'll type it out anyway. Copy the kick drum track. On the copy, high pass it (~400hz-500hz) and give it a little high end boost with a shelf or something (7khz or so?) Now compress the living CRAP out of it. Blend the original track with this new track to bring in some of the upper midrange attack without it sounding boxy. On the original, just give a little boost at 150hz or 100 hz and at 5-7khz.

Good mix !

[redworks]

nice to see that i am not the only one struggling to get the kick where i want it. misery likes company. nice mix going on here. well controlled high end. you are also achieving a good amount of dynamics for individual elements. i would like to hear a little more aggression on the automation to bring some elements in and out and creating greater dynamics on the mix as a whole.

[bobbybovine]

Hey Vocal Point. Your mix is really quiet, I know you said you were trying to get some dynamic range in your mix. However, you don't actually need a large dynamic range to make it "feel" dynamic. One way I acheive loudness without many artifacts is to have groups set up of, Drums, drums and bass, guitars, rhythm, synths strings, vocals etc..... basically groupoing like elements together in stages. Each of those groups gets a touch of compression, nothing crazy, just to know off some errant peaks, maybe 2db with a fast attack and medium release (release depends on the group) this way the limiter isn't doing the majority of the work and makes for a much cleaner outcome.
The dynamic feel can be achieved by a healthy dose of automation, bringing things in and out and even a 1db change might not be heard, but it will be felt. As I listen here at 0:39 you have got some clicks and pops that should be removed (I have the same ones in my mix and have yet to tackle it so I am not sure where they are coming from) I am noticing some low end missing from that kick. It makes the low end sound a little wierd when the bass guitar and kick drum don't have similar energy. What I notice about your drums is that they don't seem to really gell with the bass guitar, using a drum and bass group with some compression like I mentioned above helps a lot with that. Those 2 should be locked together very tightly especially in a very groove oriented song like this one. I like your choice of the guitar in the right and synth in the left, A cool thing you could have done here is for the chorus make that guitar go stereo to make it sound larger and you could have panned the synths in a little tighter at the same time, little changes like that really add to the dynamic feel of a song while the actual dynamic range has hardly changed. This is a nice mix, I like your vox and your levels are very appropriate, nothing too loud or too soft. Good work man.

[jhkillam]

Lots of good parts to this mix. Best things I can offer for adjustments could probably be that the vox seem a bit low in volume compared to the instruments. It could probably work as is in the verse, but they could really use a bump in the chorus to make it pop. It's been a while since I've been in the session, but I think the track that was called tetris something or other, the little staccato synth part in one of the verses, it stuck out pretty loud to me when it came in on the left. Also as a minor housekeeping item, there is quite a bit of silence at the start of the track, as well as the little bit at the end where you can hear the sticks placed on the snare drum, I always like to cut stuff like that out.

[JoshERTW]

Hey man,

First thing I noticed was the sick bass sound, but second thing I noticed was the "peakyness" of the attack on the bass, Fhumble already touched on it.

Everything has it's own space and is generally pretty clear - I'd like to hear the lead vocal out front a little more, a bit of pre-delay might help with that. Guitars feel pretty wide, which I don't think fits perfectly with the vibe you've got for the rest of the song, but thats a subjective thing. Feels like the guitars need a bit more dirt or something in that solo too, again, artistic preference, but I think both of those things woudl better help you to achieve what I 'think' you are going for here - Cool mix overall man, nice work.

[bholst]

Hey! Just typing as I listen. One quick thing to point out as a tip. Make sure you get rid of as much of the quiet space before the start of a song. Extended quiet periods of more than literally a couple seconds will often cause the listener to move on to the next song. Just throwing that out there. Anyway, the mix itself is really sounding pretty dang good dude. It really sounds like you're making some good progress. Awesome!
Guitars really sound pretty sweet in this mix. Drums feel good. Pretty much everything has a good feel. I might suggest a little more beef in the kick, but be very careful with it. A little goes a long way before low mids start misbehaving. Good job man!!!

-holster