Slate: August 2012. Fire Inside - The Unplugged Virgin Mix - by JP

[jpjeffery]

I was traumatised by those Heavy Metal guitars, so I dropped them completely.

My mix sounds OK to me, but then what the heck do I know? Still, it was fun to do!

[phaseIIskater4]

I really enjoy this mix! For being just the acoustic guitars, it sounds great. Around :49-1:00 and 1:35-1:44, I can hear something in the background, but I don't know what it is! It follows the guitar melody. It sounds so cool! Did you do something to the vocals as well? I'm guessing a chorus effect or Haas delay???

[jpjeffery]

Thanks! There is some Haas effect going on for all the lead vocals, yes, but also in the chorus I added some phaser.

What you hear following the guitar line is a double-tracked marimba sound.

[phaseIIskater4]

I knew it was marimba! Sounds awesome there!

[marvin]

Well that's different!
Cool to hear the track acoustic! Overall I think the sounds you have good, like the acoustic guitars. Drums sound too dry for me; a nice room would creat some space for all the instruments. Not a big hall or anything, just a small/medium sized room, maybe just a second long, could do wonders, giving the track depth. Personally I like to bring out a lot of early reflections in the reverb, if possible in the reverb plugin. Gives a nice live feel to it.

Vocals, well, I think it's too much with the effect all the way through. It sounds a bit buried, and it loses precious bottom. When you dropped the electrics, you made yourself some sonic space for the vocal to shine in, but instead it took a step back. A fairly dry, properly compressed vocal, with some room, and maybe a short delay, with a nice bottom, would sound great in these surroundings, I think. Nice echo though on final verse! And nice marimba!

cheers
marvin

[jpjeffery]

Thanks, Marvin.

I think I know what you mean about the vox, especially as I heard Nick's mix and his vocals production sounded so clear. I did play around with EQ on everything including the vocals and while I gave them more presence than the bare wave files I was never entirely happy with them. I like the idea of the phaser on the chorus vocals (I had no effects on the verses, by the way) but again, couldn't quite achieve exactly what I wanted beyond getting a 'spacey' feel.

As for the reverb on the drums, well, I'll give that a go just to see (probably too late to submit an edited mixdown) but I actually like them quite dry. I might change my mind afterwards though!

Glad that two of you like the marimba...especially as I'm no keyboard player so those lines were really hard to play well enough (so many takes!)

Thanks again for the comments. Appreciated.

[fHumble fHingaz]

Very cool! Kudos for thinking "outside the square"...

I was traumatised by those Heavy Metal guitars, so I dropped them completely.

LOL! I can relate to that!

Marvin's really covered all the things I heard as well, so I won't labor things too much...

Musically, I quite enjoyed the mix - the drums could do with just a tad more brightness & perhaps the overheads could come up a bit...

As Marvin suggested, maybe a tiny little bit more room-style common reverb on all the elements would have bonded things together a bit more realistically too. It doesn't have to be much - just set up a common reverb aux/buss with a convolution-style room of your choice, & send a little bit of each element to it. Send more from the elements you want to keep in the background, & less to the ones you want in the foreground of the soundstage. Think of the common reverb send level control as your "front to back" pan pot. Use a bit of pre-delay on the reverb to give the effect of the sound "bouncing off the walls". Mix set the overall level of the verb so that you only really notice it when it's not there. Ironically, sometimes a verb set up like that can be perceived as "drier" than one with no reverb!

I loved Marvin's comments about the vocals - you gave yourself a LOT of space there, so filling it up to the full with the vocals would be a good idea. Not to keen on the effect on the vocals - It has an "out of phase" sound to it that's a little bit unattractive. I think if you had a more "electric" mix, it might have been more suited stylistically, but in the context of the overall "organic" sound you were going for, it sounds a little out of place to me.

Anyway, very cool mix ideas! Keep it up!

As already

[jpjeffery]

Thank you, F to the F.

I think perhaps I might have listened to some reference tracks as suggested above, the more I listen to it - at least away from my super Sennheiser headphones - the more the vocals sound almost missing. I think, as also suggested by two of you, this may also apply to the drums.

I did consider some 'verb for the drums early on in my efforts but I always worry about doing that makes any track sound a bit 'stadium rock', and that just didn't sound like the right thing for the feel I was after.

Bring on September! I wanna do more!

[IMF OnSite Recording]

FIRST GLANCE: Sounds dark and weak at first.
DRUMS: Drums need more punch. Parallel comrpession is good at this.
BASS: Bass's high mids could come out more...
GUITAR: Not bad wit hteh acoustics, get some smooth verb going or something to fill in the spaces.
VOCALS: THats an odd effect on the vocals.. get rid of that and bring them forward a bit... a reverb bus will get you some more space in the vox. do an aux send to the reverb bus to add some depth to the vocals... like the delay but it feels too crude.
OTHER (IF APPLICABLE):
WHAT I LIKE: The tightness is real good, nice easy going mix,.

COMMENTS\OVERALL MIX: THe mix overall sounds small and soft. Try bringing things up a bit more and using a little limiting to level it off as it merges through busses... about 2-3 db of reduction. UtilizE reverb to add depth and spend some more time on the acoustic track to maybe incorporate some effects to make it come to l;ife a bit more. Overall its a nice tight mix

[jpjeffery]

That was my first ever 'proper' mix, so some of what you're saying is like a whole new language!

For instance, I know what compression is, but parallel compression?

[danmanisa]

Hey,

Nice take on the song. I personally really disliked the acoustics so I guess will be interesting for me! Actually, as I listen....dare I say it..... I think there should be more of them!. Given the bass is really powering a lot as is the vocal, you really need some more energy from the guitars to balance out and give the song a bit more flow.
Drums are pretty well balanced, although they are a little dry and the kick is somewhat muffled. A little extra push on the attacking frequencies of the kick might help there. The vocal effect is interesting although I'm not sure I like it all the way through. On second listen and I am starting to get used to it a little more.

Look, in the end, you are always going to fight the feel a little given the original intention and delivery of the instrumentation leaning towards that feel too, but this is a pretty decent effort at quite a unique mix.

[jpjeffery]

Thanks, man!

[m24p]

That was my first ever 'proper' mix, so some of what you're saying is like a whole new language!

For instance, I know what compression is, but parallel compression?

I can answer that one.

Really smash the track or bus or group or whatever with compression. Mix it with the original uncompressed track. Some compressors have this built in via wet and dry faders, and some DAWs have a built-in mix knob. Lacking either of these options, you have to either duplicate the track in question or do a send.

[jpjeffery]

So you're saying you end up with an uncompressed track PLUS a compressed copy, and you use them both?

[m24p]

So you're saying you end up with an uncompressed track PLUS a compressed copy, and you use them both?

Yep! Although depending on your DAW they're may be a cleaner easier way to do esentially the exact same thing. For example, a compressor I use a lot, ReaComp (get it free here: REAPER | ReaPlugs ) has a "dry" fader and a "wet" fader. By default, the dry fader (the uncompressed signal) is set to -Inf, which means none of it gets through, and the "wet" fader is 0 dB by default, meaning there's no make-up gain. Very frequently I set the "dry" fader to -6 dB and the "wet" fader to -6 dB plus somewhere between half and all whatever gain reduction I'm to be getting. For example, if I'm getting 12 dB of GR (pretty high) put the dry fader at -6 dB and the wet fader somewhere between 0 dB or 6dB. This is a cool technique for allowing some of the dynamics to persist but still bring up the lower level signals.

[redworks]

Good ideas here and it is obvious that a lot of effort went into this and for this being your first 'proper' mix this is well done. I read through the others and would echo the comments on the drums and the vocals. I would also like to add that the acoustic guitars lacked a little bit of the power that was available. This is a powerful song and well your mix is tight it lacks that power. By bringing up the guitars and the vocals you could still have that driving power with the tracks you used. I would send the guitars to a buss and i would hit them a little with a limiter/compressor before sending them to the 2 buss. Just enough to bring up the meat of the guitars a touch. Well done and i would like to say that i look forward to hearing your next months mix but if you where traumatized by these guitars then i am guessing Septembers song is not going to be your bag. Either way keep on learning as you are and you are going to have some really good mixes coming in the months to come.

[jpjeffery]

Thank you for your comments. I appreciate the time.

...if you where traumatized by these guitars then i am guessing Septembers song is not going to be your bag...

Correct! Although not necessarily for the same reason.

I like Heavy Rock and much Heavy Metal (Led Zep are my favourite band, I love Sabbath, Purple, Rush, Porcupine Tree, Anathema) but what traumatized me was that I first heard the track with just the acoustic, bass and drums...when I added in the guitars I was kind of blindsided! This month, it's not so much the guitars as the vocals. I just can't stand that style of vocals.

So, unless there's more of the same, I'll be back in October (although I understand there is still some time to make some changes to the August submission...even if I don't get more points it'll still be a good exercise)

Cheers, Redworks.

[jpjeffery]

...a compressor I use a lot, ReaComp (get it free here: REAPER | ReaPlugs )..."

You know it's not actually free...



Still, sounds interesting, I'll give it a go...when I get the time! (*sigh*)

[m24p]

You know it's not actually free...



Still, sounds interesting, I'll give it a go...when I get the time! (*sigh*)

Ummm... it IS actually free. Reaper the DAW isn't free. But that plug-in suite? Read the website:

Want to use some of the comprehensive FX plug-ins that REAPER provides, but stuck in another host? Haven't made the switch yet? Fear not -- you can download ReaPlugs, a package of FX that includes many of the plug-ins that come with REAPER, for free!

[jpjeffery]

Ooh! Missed that. Soz.