Fire Inside - Egavas Mix

[Egavas]

Determined to post a little earlier than normal... So here it is

It certainly was refreshing after mixing live folk music all weekend

I've read on quite a few mixes how some of you guys have an idea of how you want the finished track to sound...... I don't get that, not as a conscious thought anyway, So I just went for Loud and aimed for some degree of quality without mixing the life out of the song.

[BillyBoBBizWorth]

Kick ass!!

Now this is my kind of mix.Loved the stoppage at 0:49,great effect/edit.You must get ideas like myself,because i was planning on doing some pitch bending effects on the guitar squeals.You applied them quite well and i really enjoy hearing them throughout the mix.If only the guitar player done some real psychedelic pitch bends we wouldn't have to create them,i guess its half the fun though.No joking though,i had this Gary Moore kind of guitar squealing thought going through my head for this track,very glad someone else did as well.Not only thought about it,but executed it fucking brilliantly.

Yer,this mix does it for me.Also really digged the ghostly/echoy background vocals,easily better than the idea i had for backing vocals.Blows it out of the water,infact!

Had about 3-4 listened on a system,very likely i will be listening again on my headphones regardless of whether i edit my post or create another one !

Exellent,partytime...

Cheers

[JoshERTW]

Solid work, good balance and tonal choices. A bit wetter than many mixes but tastefully so. I like the almost dreamy feel in the verses and the big guitars in the chorus. Love the guitar solo - The hard panned pinch harmonic/lead tracks are a little too loud and feel kind of harsh. Other than that my only real criticism is a bit of vocal masking in the choruses, but its pretty minor. I think taming the high's a little bit is the only thing that I would suggest - top shelf work

[Bigduggieface]

This is one rockin' mix! Excellent job. Great balance.

The bass is very full down low and you've carved out a space for the guitars, vox and snare. The guitars might be a bit on the honky side with a bit more of a 1-3kHz peak than I'd personally prefer, but this is a small criticism.

Not overly compressed and every instrument sits solidly in the mix. This will be a tough entry to surpass.

[Egavas]

Kick ass!!

Yer,this mix does it for me.

top shelf work

This is one rockin' mix!

I'll be wearing this face all fuckin day Cheers Guys

Also really digged the ghostly/echoy background vocals

Ha Ha, I wasn't sure what to do with the backing vocals and struggled to get them to sit somewhere I was happy with so turned them down with plans to come back to them later.... and ended up forgetting about them even being there. So that's turned out to to be a bit of a happy accident

I've heard a few rock tracks in recent years where that 3-4k presence is pushed on the guitars and figured I'd give it a try. I might have gone a little to far, but I'm reasonably happy with the results.

Again, Thanks for the Grin

[redworks]

yeah man you deserve the grin. This is a rocking mix and it still has some good dynamics and shape. i do find the vocals a little low in general. pushing the dry vocals up a little while keeping the reverb/delay thing you got going on where it is would do it. I also appreciate that you have still been able to bring the acoustic guitar into the mix in a significant way. well done.

[belleym]

Nice treatment on all the instruments and panning of the guitars to keep the mix flowing and building. I did catch the vocals distort at 0:30 and heard a dissonance between the lead vocal and backing tracks at 1:31. The delay on the vocal versed sounded more natural during the 3rd verse than the 2nd. Maybe it's the vocal phrasing or you had the delay mix a little less for the 3rd mix? Really good mix here!

[Egavas]

Cheers Red,

Yea, I though rocking guitars were awesome but felt a break was needed and the acoustic seemed to to do the job. I also feel like it gave the distorted guitars more power as they screamed back in to the chorus.

Edd

[Egavas]

Belleym, Thanks

I didn't automate the delay sends, although I had thought of lowering them and just boosting for the ends of phrases, so I guess your right the it's the singers phrasing in the last verse that makes it seem a little more natural. Plus on the 2nd verse, just dropping back to the acoustic probably makes it more noticeable.

I actually forgot about the backing vocals, all I had on those was a bit of compression and the intention of dealing with them later on.

The lead vocals, I used a comp with plenty of saturation to give them a more powerful feeling as the singer got louder at the end of the verses.... I guess it gives the feeling of dynamics even though the level stays fairly even. I used one setting, again with no automation and the the vocals do the work. Perhaps I should have just pulled it back a little for the part, but I kinda liked it

[IMF OnSite Recording]

Nice!I like the verse in contrast with the chorus, the bass track coming in is doing to dynamic buildup naturally for the verse and that is working the best. When the chorus comes in its a big bang of width and loudness that really brings up the excitement. Great job on that!

You really hit the nail on the head with this mix, and it is the best I've heard yet. You really gave it a feel that I think the band would love. Great job on the effects for vocals! You actually did something very similar to what I did on delay - I love it!

I cant really find anything wrong with this mix! If I had to say something I would say mix in a little parallel compressed drum bus in there and roll off under 100hz just to give the drums overall more transient bite.. but that would be it.

Great job man!!!

[Egavas]

Cheers Ian,

I love using delays, I find I can add much more width and depth to a mix than I've ever managed with any number of reverbs.
I even use them on live gigs, it tends to make things sound a little more pro than just slapping on a single reverb (which always reminds me of karaoke dj's )

I did parallel the drums and automate that in and out a little between verse and chorus, maybe I could have used a little less comp or longer attacks on the original tracks.

Or do you mean let a little more transient stuff through on the parallel?

I think crushed them pretty hard and tried to removed much of the transients and just mixed it in for body.

Edd

[drbob1970]

Hi
nice powerful mix, I like your treatment of the guitars. I also like a lot some of the creative ideas you brought to the mix. I particularly dig the drop at 49', works really well.
I wondered if the overall drums level could come up just a tad in the chorus, as to me it tends to be a bit "eclipsed" by the powerful guitars.
The only thing that was a bit distracting to me is the echo/delay on the vocals in the verses. I'd maybe use a ducker to make it a dynamic effect, letting it come up as it is now at the end of the phrases, but dropping it a bit more the rest of the time.

Very good job on this mix!
Eric

[Egavas]

Cheers Eric,

That's an excellent suggestion for the delays, the though of sidechaining fx in that manner has never crossed my mind.

I may have to give that a try later and see how it fairs

Edd

[willj]

Heres a good mix. just solid from beginning to end. the only thing i would work to improve on here is that some of the sounds are a bit small, but ya cant have big without small, so its not killing you, but i would just like to hear a lil more out a few of the instruments.

i realize you didnt use a snare sample or anything, but this is one of those times where a mix def calls for it. Now, had you mix be a bit more laid back, then i think this snare sound could have worked nicely.

I think you gotta do whatever you gotta do to give the client a pro product, and if that means using a sample because there are certain things that are out of your hands then so be it. for example in my mix Dave Pensado could not have made that snare work(well ok maybe he just wouldnt have wanted to try ) and if i would have used the existing audio, most likely it would have just sounded well out of place.

youre getting some nice seperation between the rythm and bass guitar but it sounds like you need to ease up on th HP filter a bit and let the guitars be a little bit bigger and bassier. i think some nice bassy guitars would sound good here. Nice harmont parts added to the guitars.

Just a great job all together.

[Egavas]

Thanks for the input Will

Listening to it in car, I felt that the bass seemed a little on it's own. I figured it was just a touch to loud but what your saying kind of makes sense, I didn't think I was being to aggressive with high pass at the time but I'll certainly watch out for it next time.

Samples is something I need to think about a little more. I've got a reasonable collection but don't really know whats in there and don't have time to flick through them to find I have got one that fits the bill. Maybe a job for a rainy day

Edd

[willj]

Thanks for the input Will

Listening to it in car, I felt that the bass seemed a little on it's own. I figured it was just a touch to loud but what your saying kind of makes sense, I didn't think I was being to aggressive with high pass at the time but I'll certainly watch out for it next time.

Samples is something I need to think about a little more. I've got a reasonable collection but don't really know whats in there and don't have time to flick through them to find I have got one that fits the bill. Maybe a job for a rainy day

Edd

Hey Edd, yeah you know some of it could be a product of our differences in our listening environments, and thats kind of a bummer about the digital cup IMO, but i was actually guaging it off of the bass guitar.

So if infact you have a system down, and youre getting what you like, by all means dont let me change your thinking Its just what i was feeling at the moment.

[Egavas]

It was one those things, listening back a couple days later thinking to myself I could have done that bit a little better...
I was actually surprised no one had mentioned the bass earlier and was beginning to think I'd gotten away with it

How do you approach this sampling malarkey?? Do you tend to go with a straight sample, or patch through something like BFD to make use of the velocity layers?
I've always thought that I'd never be able to get the same...... dynamic feel from samples as you get with a live tracked drummer.

[willj]

How do you approach this sampling malarkey?? Do you tend to go with a straight sample, or patch through something like BFD to make use of the velocity layers?
I've always thought that I'd never be able to get the same...... dynamic feel from samples as you get with a live tracked drummer.

I just go with a straight sample. if you know how to compress it, its about all you need. If the dynamics are important to you they can be dealt with. I use drumagog. Slate has a module as well. They actuall have an algorithm called dynamic track which is adjustable and is supposed to mach the intensity at which the drum is played. It does a pretty good job, but you can maintain a lot of that feel by using 50% existing track and 50% sample.

The variations of the way the snare drum is hit is another big one that keeps it from sounding too robotic. Drumagog(and im sure slate) does this automatically as well.

Im sure you can use BFD to do something similar, but im a midiot, so theres not a ton of concrete info i can give you there. the two i mentioned are vst plugins, so it couldnt be any easier.

You probably wont get the same dynamic feel as you get from a drummer, but there are sooo many bigger fish to fry. First of all , whos even gonna care or listen to yr snare if it sounds like shit? its such an important element, and an average listener mostly only cares if it sounbs good. Just like when you play a recording that you KNOW sounds like shite and average joe is standing there telling you how incrdible it is.

Getting a good recording of a snare takes some skill, and its not usually something that comes with a 1st class sound from amature recordists. if what you have to mix fits the song then great, but if not theres not a lot of options BUT to sample, and def none as easy.

Another thing is being able to trigger any sound you want, so it really does open up some doors.

[Radukku]

Good mix man! Yes good reason to grin about! Dig the little pause at 0:49!
A lot of energy (and rightfully so) from the electric guitars.
i like the processing of the vocals too, one of the wettest so far but still sits well in the mix and don't make miss the electrics in the verse!...(with maybe) the only problem being that they tend to get overpowered a bit in the chorus by the guitars...But not because they need more volume but more like because the guitars are a bit too high in that mid high range...either low passing them or a bit of limiting would help with this but no biggie!
Guitar solo sound rather sweet but in a good way!
Bass sounds tamed and friendly towards the kick so they lock well together...
I would still say I feel the drums are still a bit dry and so a bit disconnected from the rest of the instruments...but that might be just me
Overall man a solid top job and good vibe!
Thank you for sharing it with us! Keep grinning!

[The-Zeronaut]

cool mix and well balanced.
the delays on the vocals were very good

[danmanisa]

Nice one E,

Typing as I listen and yet to read comments. Your mix seems quite bright on the guitar front, yet I'm not too sure if it's too bright so far. The acoustics sound great!, Really well treated. You also have really good balance of the bass guitar, I can hear all the little fills really clearly. Ok, after a little more listening, I am finding those guitars a little too bright for me. The main offending one is the artificial harmonic guitar, which I found personally very difficult to deal with and was close to muting altogether. You could afford a little more bass or low mids in these electric guitars, yet I completely understand the fine line between muddiness/boxiness and sharp/brightness!

really though, everything is very well balanced, clear and the song flows well. Perhaps do a quick reference with a similar styled song to dial in the guitar sounds (meatiness wise). Great work!

[bobbybovine]

Hi Egavas, I am hearing a great mix here dude! I am liking your interpretation for sure!! The vocals are great, love the slight delay you put on them. My only critisisms are of the guitars sounding a bit thin and harsh. Some low passing on them would take that edge off and on your bottom end, everything is there but it isn't quite as "full" as I think it should, maybe a little less high passing on the bass guitar. Although taking the ege off the guitars could bring out that bass a bit more in itself so it is kind of a hard call as to where the low end is really sitting. Great mix man!!

[Egavas]

Thanks Guys, the feedback's appreciated as always.

I really liked where the mix was heading, but in retrospect I should have eased off that 5k knob on the guitars.
They do seem to get a bit pointy after a few listens.

[fHumble fHingaz]

Wow! I like this right from the get-go... It sounds live (in a good way), exciting & punchy... Well balanced, clear, well separated, yet glued. I love the little creative touches & the delay throws.

... in short, this mix ticks all the boxes - 5 stars!

Killer job, dude!