Stan_Halen: FIRE INSIDE my Soul, the Agony and the Ecstasy!

[Stan_Halen]

I decided to give this a high-energy rockin' treatment. First thing to go was the acoustic guitars!

The low end should be driving, the electric guitars screaming whenever possible, and the music reflecting the passion of the lyrics.

After saying all that BS, turn it up and enjoy!

[cptfiasco]

stan, strong mix, You paced the energy well without become to in your face. Levels are well synced, though I would liked more impact from the choruses.

The only thing standing out is the verse vox, there is noticable smearing/comb filtering going ...could be from a verb bus or some processing...good luck

[Stan_Halen]

stan, strong mix, You paced the energy well without become to in your face. Levels are well synced, though I would liked more impact from the choruses.

The only thing standing out is the verse vox, there is noticable smearing/comb filtering going ...could be from a verb bus or some processing...good luck

Thanks cpt! I think what you're hearing on the verse vocal (maybe a slight EQ phasing?) is the strong De-Essing I felt that track needed. I thought it was much worse on the verse vocal compared to the chorus vocal. As it turned out, I also liked the kind of dark/intimate tone the De-Esser gave the verse vocal, to contrast it with the expressive boisterous chorus vocal. I usually try to avoid De-Essing because it impacts the tone of the vocal, and always seems like a trade-off. In this case it became like an "effect" on the vocal.

[fHumble fHingaz]

Hey Stan! You've really got those guitars screaming in this mix, yet they are not harsh or too abrasive - actually, the mix overall has a very smooth feel about it.

Some issues that need attention on this though:

I'm noticing a "frequency gap" in the low mids - I can hear lots of low end coming from the bass & kick, & the vocals & guitar fill in the mids & high mids, with the cymbals taking up the highs - but there doesn't seem to be enough happening in that 150-250 region. It might affect the way the low end comes across on smaller speakers (I haven't checked), but it also takes some of the "drive" & "punch" out of the song. I would say that the bass could do with some more harmonics up in the low mids (a bit of distortion, perhaps), & you could afford to filter off more lows (& high mids) in the kick drum to make space for a larger bass sound that "connects" the low end of your mix to the midrange.

The vocals sound like they have some boxiness coming through in the low mids - around the 400-500hz mark, which tends to make them less attractive than they could be.

This might be a personal preference, so take it with a grain of salt if you will, but I felt you missed an opportunity to make full use of the stereo spectrum.... I was expecting the stereo width to "open up" during the choruses, & I was a little disappointed when it didn't happen... maybe the stereo width thing is just a fad at the moment, but being a child of the 70s, I'm a big fan of using panning to great effect.

Having said all that, this was mix was harder than it first appeared... so, great job on what you have achieved here.

[Stan_Halen]

Hey fHumble - Thanks very much! I did find this mix to be the most challenging of all so far.

I'll have to look in the "frequency gap". One thing I do know is - and especially with all these guitar tracks provided - I did HP on guitar tracks up to around 200Hz as necessary (just saw this on Pensado's Place with Kevin Augunas last week). This relationship of guitar HP to low-end management is a challenging one. Perhaps after hearing a lot of mixes with heavy low-mids, I tend to go in the opposite direction. It seems there's usually too little, or too much, cutting in that area.

Did you notice the boxiness in the verse vocals or chorus vocals? These were already different in character, and I treated them quite differently in processing. Perhaps this relates to what cptfiasco said about the "smearing" in the verse vocals (dark character from De-Esser I think)?

I'm kind of puzzled on the stereo field comment. On successive mixes I have been pushing stereo more and more (due to comments, and that "trend") and thought I really pushed it out on this one. Harmony vocals were panned 100/100 as were most of the reverbs. Guitars (except the two main tracks) were panned hard and reverbs also panned hard. Both of those came in the chorus. I'll have to revisit that also, as to whether my panning had the desired effect on the listener!

[JoshERTW]

Nice work Stan the Man.

Be careful with the guitar high passing, it can sometimes work well, but it may leave that low end gap. I think I foudn the ideal place to HP the guitars was about 120 or so this month. I've certainly ramped it up to 200 before but you can lose a little bit of the "guts" - This could very well be where your spectral gap is coming from, I think I did the same thing on either my May or June mix with the guitars and got the same comment (also from FF too I believe). Keeping my HP on the guitars to 150 as a maximum has seemed to improve the situation.

I'm also noticing a bit of boxy character in the vocal - I would guess it's being introduced by the time based effects you have on the vocal. If you are trying to push the vocal out front with a delay, try to use a delay that has a built in ability to high and low pass, and filter the delay/verb up to about 400. If you are using a reverb, I would suggest doing it as an AUX and just slapping an EQ in the chain on the FX channel after the verb and doing the same thing, just lopping off 400hz and down (and I usually chop off 12k and up too)

Nice work man, got some good energy going there.

[Radukku]

Well Stan...(I've said this a few times by now...but it doesn't get old really!...) you're the man! A'rockin' you went indeed!
Firstly and such (again...) as always I get the feeling of (brain) mix surgery performed thoroughly throughout! (corny...is this English?!...)
Secondly I like the sound of the drums and the kick in particular well, kicks ass! Did you use some...well, kick ass samples or just some EQ magic? Hi hat processing reminds me of mine (so I like it a lot!...) Also the snare packs a lot of punch and saws its way through the mix (growl...) but there is a tad of boominess attached to the toms (at least when listening through my old cans) ..nothing 'bad' enough to write home about though!...
I will have to agree with fHfH and Josh about the 'missing link' that appears in the low mids and even if I like the guitars as they are maybe just boosting the bass a tad in that region would work a mini miracle but fHfH already said that!
I also miss the acoustics (not a driving rock option I know but they add a bit of a...zing if you like, you know the gritty sound of a pick on the strings, and I believe they were part of the 'experiment' Brandon was talking about in the 'Behind the music' part for this song...oh well just my HO...) But that's your mix, your decision!
The vocals sound okay to me (definitely better than mine!...) maybe they conflict a bit with the hi hat (!?) or there's a bit of chorus effect or indeed reverb/delay I dunno, its not strong enough to pinpoint...
Love the guitar solo and the rhythm electric tracks there! Good roomy sound!...
Overall another strong performance form you!
And thank you for sharing it with us!

[IMF OnSite Recording]

Nice and energetic!

ahhh, the vocals are sounding a bit odd, especially in the verse; is there some weird effect on them? Kinda like maybe a tiny center delay thats giving it phase issues or something. it is also really showing the sibilance too. Whatever effect that is i would recommend turning it off and just getting rid of the 7k area sibilance. If there's heavy EQ going on, keep it less deep on the cuts\boosts to preserve the quality of the track.

This mix is very center oriented. Try panning guitars more left and right, as well as overheads too. Moving those leads into different spots of the stereo field will give it more width too.

Overall this is a pretty energetic mix, good job at that!

[Stan_Halen]

Nice work Stan the Man.

Be careful with the guitar high passing, it can sometimes work well, but it may leave that low end gap. I think I foudn the ideal place to HP the guitars was about 120 or so this month. I've certainly ramped it up to 200 before but you can lose a little bit of the "guts" - This could very well be where your spectral gap is coming from, I think I did the same thing on either my May or June mix with the guitars and got the same comment (also from FF too I believe). Keeping my HP on the guitars to 150 as a maximum has seemed to improve the situation.

I'm also noticing a bit of boxy character in the vocal - I would guess it's being introduced by the time based effects you have on the vocal. If you are trying to push the vocal out front with a delay, try to use a delay that has a built in ability to high and low pass, and filter the delay/verb up to about 400. If you are using a reverb, I would suggest doing it as an AUX and just slapping an EQ in the chain on the FX channel after the verb and doing the same thing, just lopping off 400hz and down (and I usually chop off 12k and up too)

Nice work man, got some good energy going there.

Thanks Josh! I see what you're saying about the guitar HP. I just played with taking mine down to 120Hz (except the Solo guitar), and that seems a bit low to me. But I think with this song there were so many guitar parts that just one setting for HP may not be ideal. I had my lead guitars HP more than the rhythm ones, for example. I am going to play with it some more.

Were you talking about the verse vocal as far as the boxy character? The verse is treated different than the chorus, which already had different tone IMO. It was strong De-Essing on the verse, a touch of Delay on the chorus.

[fHumble fHingaz]

Did you notice the boxiness in the verse vocals or chorus vocals?

I found it was in both - maybe even as high as 600hz?

I'm kind of puzzled on the stereo field comment. On successive mixes I have been pushing stereo more and more (due to comments, and that "trend") and thought I really pushed it out on this one. Harmony vocals were panned 100/100 as were most of the reverbs.

It was just a general impression, but now you've explained your panning scheme, I understand why I was thinking that...

Guitars (except the two main tracks) were panned hard and reverbs also panned hard.

To create a better impression of width, I've often found it better to pan the "constant" elements hard - eg - in this mix, the rhythm guitars - because the leads come in & out, & aren't duplicating each other like the rhythms, it seems that same impression of width doesn't persist. I've noticed that EQ is a big thing with width as well - Sounds with a prominent high-mid & high content tend to work better on the edges of the mix.

[Stan_Halen]

Secondly I like the sound of the drums and the kick in particular well, kicks ass! Did you use some...well, kick ass samples or just some EQ magic? Hi hat processing reminds me of mine (so I like it a lot!...) Also the snare packs a lot of punch and saws its way through the mix (growl...) but there is a tad of boominess attached to the toms (at least when listening through my old cans)

Thanks Radukku! I just used EQ and parallel compression on the drums, no samples this time. I really had to push that HiHat track up all the way, couldn't even hear it initially above the OH's. Having multiple snares tracks, with different processing, helped get a good sound IMO. The Toms were a challenge. I ended up pushing them kind of loud, with not a great deal of treatment. Reason for this: I approached this mix as kind of a "live" and "in your face" feel and vision. I didn't want it to sound too 'polished', rather more raw and powerful.

Love the guitar solo and the rhythm electric tracks there! Good roomy sound!...
Overall another strong performance form you!

I'm glad you liked this - thanks! I did work on that a lot, to give the solo section a good feel.

[Stan_Halen]

Nice and energetic!

ahhh, the vocals are sounding a bit odd, especially in the verse; is there some weird effect on them? Kinda like maybe a tiny center delay thats giving it phase issues or something. it is also really showing the sibilance too. Whatever effect that is i would recommend turning it off and just getting rid of the 7k area sibilance. If there's heavy EQ going on, keep it less deep on the cuts\boosts to preserve the quality of the track.

This mix is very center oriented. Try panning guitars more left and right, as well as overheads too. Moving those leads into different spots of the stereo field will give it more width too.

Overall this is a pretty energetic mix, good job at that!

Thanks Ian! The verse vocal just had EQ and a Waves C1 compressor in "De-Esser" mode. I actually was trying to tame the sibilance in the verse vocal (I thought it was much worse than the chorus vocal), and it seemed like the C1 did it better than my other tools on this. It had seemed like the sibilance was closer to 8k, but playing with it again it does seem to be more around 7.2k and the C1 still isn't taming it very well.

fHumble mentioned the stereo field too ... thought I had been making progress on that. Lead guitars were pushed out, some a good bit, some all the way. Rhythm guitars were panned just a fair amount though.

[wireman957]

Hey, Stan - lots of energy here. My first impression is that everything is well balanced, but it somehow feels a little "small" and as subjective as this may sound, like it's not filling up all the space between my ears...okay, no jokes about the space between my ears, most of which I'll readily agree is a bit like the Mojave Desert - not a lot there and and what is is constantly shifting...

The mix is really pretty dry - knowing you, probably a conscious decision, but the guitars were tracked with a fair amount of ambiance while the drums weren't, so finding a happy medium will make this song sound more like it's in one physical space. To me, the guitars seem like they're physically located behind the drums and vocals, in another space, which tends to subdue the guitar details and even the solo a bit. Finding that right space where everything can live together would have actually brought out the details of each instrument and let the song breathe a bit better, in my most humble of opinions.

There is just the lightest amount of boxiness on the toms and to my ear, the cymbal tracks have a bit of harshness at times, especially when they match up time-wise with a hard consonant in the lead vocals.

Edit: just read fHumble's comments and I'd like to add something to his regarding the spectral gaps: Listening on my monitors, there's Lows, Mids and high Highs...in other words, three distinctly separate areas of energy. What I'm missing, and I didn't really know how to verbalize it until I read fHumble's post, is a the continuity between these ranges. As if the low-mids and high-mids are a little under-represented creating too much of a contrast between lows-mids-(high) highs. Sorry if I'm not being clear, because the high mids are well represented by the guitars, just not anything else in proportion.

Damn, I wish I could could say all this better, because it's really a solid mix, just seems to have some frequency gaps in certain places that keep things a bit disconnected.

[IMF OnSite Recording]

It had seemed like the sibilance was closer to 8k, but playing with it again it does seem to be more around 7.2k and the C1 still isn't taming it very well.

Yeah, sometimes you just have to whip out a multiband and do it yourself even if you have to automate it slightly.. to me, that's a last resort but I've done it a couple times. I use sonars Vintage channel comp that has a de-esser section in it, i dial it in until i am seeing heavy attenuation on the sibilance but barely any when there isnt. Its a beast that varies by singer and style of vocal delivery.

fHumble mentioned the stereo field too ... thought I had been making progress on that. Lead guitars were pushed out, some a good bit, some all the way. Rhythm guitars were panned just a fair amount though.

I think that you'll find that going more towards hard panning 100% with the guitars will be real nice when the chorus comes in. If you roll off some of the highs on the leads and find the high mids that really bring out the "note", and start panning those - it will make a difference as well. Pan those overheads pretty damn hard too, and if they arent balanced stereo-wise, pan it in the right direction on the OH bus until theyre almost matched - then hit them with a LITTLE soft knee compression - and send them to a reverb FX bus to enhance its space a bit.

My weakness last month was vocals, and I really paid attention to that this month (I hope - almost ready to print and master - yes I said print this time *evil laugh that goes on for an uncomfortably long time and tapers off into a linear reverb style decay*)

But hey, your treatment is good - this is just some panning and maybe a small EQ adjustment.

[Stan_Halen]

Hey, Stan - lots of energy here. My first impression is that everything is well balanced, but it somehow feels a little "small" and as subjective as this may sound, like it's not filling up all the space between my ears...okay, no jokes about the space between my ears, most of which I'll readily agree is a bit like the Mojave Desert - not a lot there and and what is is constantly shifting...

The mix is really pretty dry - knowing you, probably a conscious decision, but the guitars were tracked with a fair amount of ambiance while the drums weren't, so finding a happy medium will make this song sound more like it's in one physical space. To me, the guitars seem like they're physically located behind the drums and vocals, in another space, which tends to subdue the guitar details and even the solo a bit. Finding that right space where everything can live together would have actually brought out the details of each instrument and let the song breathe a bit better, in my most humble of opinions.

There is just the lightest amount of boxiness on the toms and to my ear, the cymbal tracks have a bit of harshness at times, especially when they match up time-wise with a hard consonant in the lead vocals.

Edit: just read fHumble's comments and I'd like to add something to his regarding the spectral gaps: Listening on my monitors, there's Lows, Mids and high Highs...in other words, three distinctly separate areas of energy. What I'm missing, and I didn't really know how to verbalize it until I read fHumble's post, is a the continuity between these ranges. As if the low-mids and high-mids are a little under-represented creating too much of a contrast between lows-mids-(high) highs. Sorry if I'm not being clear, because the high mids are well represented by the guitars, just not anything else in proportion.

Damn, I wish I could could say all this better, because it's really a solid mix, just seems to have some frequency gaps in certain places that keep things a bit disconnected.

Thanks Jeff! I appreciate your in-depth explanation with the spectral gap, and this is something I want to figure out. I wish there was a technical way to represent this, since its kind of a technical issue. I use an RTA constantly when mixing, for the full mix and solo on tracks. Wouldn't I be seeing "gaps" in the spectrum on the RTA? Maybe it's more subtle than that, as to deftly interconnecting all the freq ranges together?

My "emotional goal" on this song was to make it "bold and exciting", and I was fairly happy with that aspect of it. I may not have been as focused on the freq ranges as I may have been on other mixes, as I was trying to change up my style a little bit to focus on "excitement" as opposed to "taste". So this kind of raises a question for me ... is there a happy medium between excitement and taste? Or is it more one extreme or the other? I was purposely trying to make some elements stand out (like lead guitars), and even be a little provocative (but not harsh or irritating) in order to capture the listeners attention.

[wireman957]

Thanks Jeff! I appreciate your in-depth explanation with the spectral gap, and this is something I want to figure out. I wish there was a technical way to represent this, since its kind of a technical issue. I use an RTA constantly when miixing, for the full mix and solo on tracks. Wouldn't I be seeing "gaps" in the spectrum on the RTA? Maybe it's more subtle than that, as to deftly interconnecting all the freq ranges together?

My "emotional goal" on this song was to make it "bold and exciting", and I was fairly happy with that aspect of it. I may not have been as focused on the freq ranges as I may have been on other mixes, as I was trying to change up my style a little bit to focus on "excitement" as opposed to "taste". So this kind of raises a question for me ... is there a happy medium between excitement and taste? Or is it more one extreme or the other? I was purposely trying to make some elements stand out (like lead guitars), and even be a little provocative (but not harsh or irritating) in order to capture the listeners attention.

I would imagine you noticed and made adjustments, but there were lots of polarity/phasing issues in the tracks. It looked to me like all the bottom drum heads and maybe even one of the cymbals tracks (can't remember right this minute) were polarity reversed. If for some strange reason you did not flip those over and then time-align them as well (in a couple of cases), the frequency cancellations may have been the cause of what I think I was hearing

[Stan_Halen]

I would imagine you noticed and made adjustments, but there were lots of polarity/phasing issues in the tracks. It looked to me like all the bottom drum heads and maybe even one of the cymbals tracks (can't remember right this minute) were polarity reversed. If for some strange reason you did not flip those over and then time-align them as well (in a couple of cases), the frequency cancellations may have been the cause of what I think I was hearing

Ahh, that's an excellent point! I may not have caught all of them. That might explain the HiHat track I could barely hear and pushed the fader all the way up! Thanks!

[drummer67]

I was going to comment on there being a gap in the spectrum gap and it already has been covered really well by others. IMO, I think the toms could of been up a few db more in the mix. The kick and snare were there but the toms were soft. I think the panning on the main gtrs could of been spread out more too the sides. IMO, I think the acoustic gtrs were really needed and may of helped with the spectrum gap a bit.

Nice job man

[JoshERTW]

Thanks Josh! I see what you're saying about the guitar HP. I just played with taking mine down to 120Hz (except the Solo guitar), and that seems a bit low to me. But I think with this song there were so many guitar parts that just one setting for HP may not be ideal. I had my lead guitars HP more than the rhythm ones, for example. I am going to play with it some more.

Were you talking about the verse vocal as far as the boxy character? The verse is treated different than the chorus, which already had different tone IMO. It was strong De-Essing on the verse, a touch of Delay on the chorus.

Hey Stan,

On the vocal it was both, but moreso on the verse (just listened again to check) - I used the same EQ settings on both tracks, high passed to abotu 200, a little scoop at 350 or so, and I think a wider cut around 1k, and a shelf boost above 3-4k. I also aggressively attacked 400hz on everything else but the electric guitars and pushed my vocal out with a delay of about 60ms (plus compressed it by an ungodly amount, with a de-esser after the delay). The strong de-essing might be causing it to sound a bit "deader" - make sure you de-ess after any time based effects in the chain, I find that helps.

[willj]

Pretty damn solid mix. im thinking the vocals might be a bit on top of everything else with a few resonances that are getting in the way a little bit, but nothing too out of character, and outside of that i think everything else is pretty well done. im kinda liking the dryness of this mix more than the others ive heard. Here it just doesnt seem to bother me as much, maybe because there were more sore spots in some of the other mixes and the dryness may have accentuated the fact.

One possibility that may work for you is a LCR pan tactic. A lot of the old mixers only had this "feature" and there may be some benefit to researching this tactic or giving it some consideration. the idea in short, is that it creates a bit more space in the mix. My current choice is to pan the guitars to 80 L&R and push my delays or verbs outside of that for width.

Nice work dude!

[Stan_Halen]

Pretty damn solid mix. im thinking the vocals might be a bit on top of everything else with a few resonances that are getting in the way a little bit, but nothing too out of character, and outside of that i think everything else is pretty well done. im kinda liking the dryness of this mix more than the others ive heard. Here it just doesnt seem to bother me as much, maybe because there were more sore spots in some of the other mixes and the dryness may have accentuated the fact.

One possibility that may work for you is a LCR pan tactic. A lot of the old mixers only had this "feature" and there may be some benefit to researching this tactic or giving it some consideration. the idea in short, is that it creates a bit more space in the mix. My current choice is to pan the guitars to 80 L&R and push my delays or verbs outside of that for width.

Nice work dude!

Thanks Will, great comments! I guess I'm a bit of a minimalist when it comes to reverb, just using enough to glue things together, not to be very noticeable (unless for special effect).

I have heard of LCR panning, but hadn't thought much about it until you presented it here. I think Dave Pensado implied this when he said "there are only 3 pan positions: left, right, and center". I did do some reading up on it just now, and I'm liking it, for the reason that I probably move a pan pot "just enough" away from center. What this technique suggests to me is kind of a reverse tactic: throw anything that won't be center to the hard pans, then bring it in a tad if necessary. That could make a significant difference. I like your technique of 80 L//R and pushing effects beyond that. Awesome advice - thanks a lot man!

[JoshERTW]

One possibility that may work for you is a LCR pan tactic. A lot of the old mixers only had this "feature" and there may be some benefit to researching this tactic or giving it some consideration. the idea in short, is that it creates a bit more space in the mix. My current choice is to pan the guitars to 80 L&R and push my delays or verbs outside of that for width.

I think I do that on every mix, never knew it had a name

[danmanisa]

Very different approach to what I have heard so far. So far the mix seems to be pretty much based towards the center. Given the sheer number of harmony guitar tracks, I would look to spread the mix a little more during various stages. Very interesting vocal effect, like a minor flanger or something? It works pretty well in the verses, I like how subtle it is. Nice snare and kick sound and the bass is fitting in pretty well.
The vocals feel a little dark or perhaps low mid heavy compared to the rest of the mix. I'd look to scoop some of that boxiness out, spread the guitars so that it does not compete and perhaps add a little more ambiance to the snare to have it sit a little better (in regards to perceived space) with the vocal.
Guitars sound pretty energetic. I like how you've used the artificial harmonic guitar part (which I found hard to balance). I also really like your tom sound, I just wish they were spread some more so I could do an air drum roll across the speakers! Nice one.

[The-Zeronaut]

the hihat is a little harsh.
as someone else said is like there is a frequency gap on the mix
dont really liking the echoy/doubling effect on the lead vocals
otherwise solid mix