Hello good people from around the world! I wanted to share my latest mix and mastering using Acustica Audio Mint channel strip and Taipei, Nebula (Cupwise YouRei on fx, VNXT 140, AlexB S432 GE, and Henry Olonga Girthy filters! hope you like it. I added tape hiss to the mix for little vintage vibe. still wanted it to be hi fi.

 

Not my thing, but I can appreciate all the work that went into it.

 

Man this song is a classic.

 

Am I listening to the song or the software?

 

To my ears it sounds abrasive in the highs and needs some balance with frequencies below 1.5 khz.

 

Last edited: Apr 24, 2022

Needs more cowbell

 

Thanks for the comments good people. I will add more cowbell and 1.5khz frequency .

 

i hear aggressive highs on the voice.
Like digital hiss on sibilance.

Very strange on a Nebula mix, because Nebula is very kind on those frequencies.
It sounds like MP3 wobble or something like this.

Can you send voice only here ?

 

I'm not all that experienced, but it sounds fine here. Non-audio people would not find anything wrong with it. The song and performance are captivating though. I could listen to this all day.

 

I'm wondering if that crunchy sibilance is caused by hitting the N4 higher then -18db? I've noticed a compressed distortion when doing that sometimes.

 

The singing and performance are very good. The stereo spread is good but it feels like in the goal to separate, that the piano has been widened perhaps a little too much. Almost to the point the left is a tad louder than the right? A few frequencies jump out and almost attack. If that is on purpose all good and well. The 'airyness' is nice and it feels like something in the lower mids is missing? Could just be me too. Otherwise it sounds good. Did you consider a resonance suppressor?

 

@tamere, thanks to share your mix with us, nice Mecano cover!

Very nice and fine piano part, but I just wonder if it's not too ahead? Perhaps it could be interesting to lesser (or remove) the compression on it, or to lower the level just a little to let the voice fully express?

About your beautiful voice, just three humble suggestions:

1°) I don't know if it's because you have used a tape saturation, but the sound of your voice is a little too muffled, I mean that the higher harmonics are too much lessened comparatively to the rest of the frequencies... Perhaps it's the choice of the mic? Or simply, the EQ?
Whatever the reason, IMHO your voice deserves a more transparent and more "clear" sound, with all the harmonics intact.

2°) IMHO the choice of reverb is not the best possible considering the song itself, I think there is room for improvement here, for example it could be interesting to test a classic "church" preset, but with more pre-delay, and the length reduced.

I suggest to use Overloud Breverb, or TC Electronic, or any equivalent (high) quality reverb, and if available to use the "ducking" setting in the goal to avoid "drowning" the voice into the reverb. The attacks of the voice should be perfectly clear, and the reverb not an obstacle to the comprehension of the words.

If you really like long, big reverbs, and there's no "ducking" setting available, there is a way to tame it anyway, by moving all your reverbs plugins to a send bus, putting a compressor at the end of the chain, and connecting the dry voice to the sidechain input of the comp.

To sum up my - amateur - suggestion: you have your main voice track without reverb connected to the master, you send also the dry voice signal to a parallel bus, where you insert one or several reverbs, followed by a compressor sidechained to the same signal, so that the reverb level is lowered during the voice phrases, then raised after the phrases.

I dunno if it's the "academic" or "right" way to do things, it's just what I personally do in these kind of situations where the reverb threatens to "drown" the voice and lesser the intelligibility of the words.

3°) Considering the interpretation of the song itself, I think here also there is room for improvement, it should need a little more fluidity, more "humanity"...

I don't know if you often use real (or virtual) rhythm boxes, they have often a setting called "humanize", who introduce a (subtle) dose of randomness in the interpretation of MIDI notes... It's exactly what I would like to suggest. This beautiful song should deserve more "humanity", more "fluidity", more "lightness" in the interpretation...

This is only an impression, a feeling that, considering your immense potential as a singer, you haven't delivered the best you can do, far from that. Perhaps it's the song itself? Covering a well-known standard is always difficult and risky, because the original interpreter have let her imprint on the song. Perhaps you would be more at ease with an original, exclusive composition, made especially for you?
No pretentiousness here, I'm far from being a "professional of the profession" , I just hope that you'll find these modest suggestions positive and inspiring.

 

Last edited: Apr 26, 2022

Why are you asking this question?

 

@KungPaoFist
Nebula is very picky about input level.
You are probably right on this point.
I don't see HOW Nebula could sound so digitally clipped, apart input saturation.

 

I did not push Nebula. I use -18 levels and gain match all my tracks.

 

are those High Hats on youre Nose ?

 

I thought that’s the effect OP was going for. I think that crunch works well in this case!

 

I think it sounds clipped simply because the OP have used tape saturation on the master, but tbh I don't think it's appropriate considering the style of the song.

Saturation is great on Rock, Rap, Trap, and all kinds of EDM you can imagine... Even some traditional Funk and R'n'B can enjoy a warm tube sat.

...But here, it's different. It's a Spanish / European pop standard from the 80's. Mecano was a pop band characterized by its cristal-clear sound and its beautiful choice of reverbs. The delicateness and precision of their mixes is an example among many others of the same period.

If you wanna warm the sound a little, you could possibly add a subtle quantity of tube saturation on one or two instruments tracks, but IMHO not on the master, and above all not on the voice, which have to stay super clear to express all the nuances, the emotions and the poetry of the song.

The singer here have a beautiful voice and a lot of potential, so the harmonics of the voice must not be muffled, but sublimed by the mix.

 

Last edited: Apr 27, 2022