Maybe it is just many years of doing it, but I can analyse a vocal tone after one listen. No, that's not all there is. You should be able to hear every instrument after one listen and know how you are going to approach the mix. You make check lists in your head. Replace kick and snare, run bass through a good bass amp sim, widen overheads and give them some air, split lead guitar to left and right with 30ms delay, guitar arps need some stereo chorus, finally work on the vocal to fix the bits that hurt your ears on first listen. Then pull all the faders to zero and pull up the kick and bass. Then one by one, add everything else. With each step seek out the spot where it sounds like it's part of the performance. If necessary, do as I did and send it to a small room reverb. Lastly pull up the lead vocal. Push it in front as you mix. If it sounds great when it's right up front, it's going to sound sensational when it's balanced with the band.
There. Everything I know in a few short sentences.

 

Thank you again! Everything you say is important for anyone passing here wanting sincerely to learn and improve, not only on mixing, but on audio in general, and here I absolutely agree with you: everything passes above all and at first by the brain.

I think that before touching anything you have to "see", to "visualize" your plan and the effect of your actions, what you have to do (or NOT do), what you wanna do, and what action could be very appropriate considering the style, the roots, the influences of the music you have in your hands.

I understand that with the years this "mental visualization and planning" step should become easier and easier, when you know intimately the tools, what they do and what's their limits and defaults.

One day on the sister site (or perhaps here?) I red some posts concerning the famous "sweet spot". What (I think) I understood from this discussion is the fact that many plugins sound far, far better if you find the perfect input level and loudness. So I concluded that if I take a reverb or a compressor for example, and insert it on a track / stem with the wrong level, it could sounds very bad, even if it's considered as the best of the best plugin ever.

Do you agree with this hypothesis?

...Or perhaps is it just useless amateur chit-chat... In this case no need to waste your precious time answering stupid questions, it was just a discussion that intrigued my natural - can't help it - curiosity.

 

Last edited: Aug 7, 2021

Wow this has grown considerably.

I will have to come back when I have more time and have a listen to what everyone else is doing.

Okay it is the weekend. I gave myself 2 hours, I could have used an other 2 hours for more automation but sometimes that leads down the rabbit hole. I have put the track through a limiter, I was going to post the non-limited version but I know how people are about volume knobs.

Anyways, the lawn will not cut itself and I have some BBQing and eating to do.

FLAC
https://1drv.ms/u/s!AqqPYYPhCRV_gnZx6hPlh4dMvYBA?e=dRYm0c

MP3 for those who are bandwidth challenged
https://1drv.ms/u/s!AqqPYYPhCRV_gnVx78x1tjUlpi-g?e=OxEbO1

 

Hey, thank you for your effort, @JMOUTTON, I'm happy you've chosen to propose a new POV on this difficult case, in fact, as with @Lenny Belardo II just before you, as an incompetent amateur I'm impressed of what you can do in such short period of time!

And I'm surprised of how natural, almost "obvious" your mix sound! I hear no overall tonal / balance problem, the instruments have each their place and not a single one of them seems to "eat" the others, exactly the opposite of my own pathetic trial!

The only remark I could do here is for the treatment of the electric bass (and kick too): here again we can hear / feel the compression a little too much, and the natural sustain of the bass instrument is a little too much "eaten" by the thickness of the attack, and an important part of the natural dynamic, the thousand of subtle nuances that is the intimate expression of the human player, all of this is gone in the process...

As I try to say earlier, it's the kind of reflex that is very common - and welcome - for more modern, urban or electronic music... but - IMAHO - doesn't apply here, because the style of music employed is not... made for..., adequate with... this kind of choice. (difficult to find the good term here!) This very modern compression plugins and mixing technique are not in harmony with the very vintage / retro mood of the song.

I think you must take this song as it is: a 60's jazz / blues / soul influenced pop song, and perhaps, if you allow me this humble advice, use a more 'retro' kind of compressor(s)... or be as radical as me: don't use any compressor at all! Why? Because as a musician I found a very interesting play here, this bass line is near perfect as it is, and I think this delicate composition and experienced finger technique deserves to be respected.

You can of course, if you want, make the sound thicker, using an (valve) EQ (or a filter) (or possibly a bass amp sim' like me?) according exactly to your taste, BUT please, and it's a pure musician that asking you that, have a little respect for the obvious talent of this bassist, and let her/his smart notes shine and breeze!

 

Last edited: Aug 7, 2021

Not compressing either of those at all.

I hit the OP-AMP on my 5500 a bit harder than prudent and the it saturated electric bass and bass drum more than I would have liked. I do have an expander on both kick drum and the bass which would remove a lot of the decay as well. Time was running short and I wanted to get it out and printed at -14. I wasn't interested in reworking it with the time I had left as I was already get lazzor beam eyes about being on the computer on a Saturday morning.

I wasn't very fond of the bass and bass drum myself either, the snare was still bit boxer than I would like and the upward comp wasn't pulling up the rimshots and rolls as well I wanted. Some of the vocal cuts and fades were a bit too abrupt for my liking and didn't blend back in as I would would have liked. Cleaning up the pops and clicks on the vocal and the resonance on the SNR TOP/SNR BTM just ate up too much time. I convinced myself that it was kind of fitting after noticing the blaccent the vocalist kept throwing around in the song. I made up this sound in my head called Joplin Reggae and called it a day.

When we get back home from the beach on Monday, I'll take a look but I think the only compressors actually working 1-2dB are on the vocal stacks, snare aux and the master bus. I'll throw the unmolested non-limited version above with the other ones to try to understand a bit better what you are hearing,

Cheers

Cheers and enjoy the weekend.

 

You have gained a valuable insight here. Hear the things that DO NOT need your attention. The piano in this track sat nicely just as it was. You can totally destroy a performance by dissecting it to an extent where it becomes isolated tracks with no relationship to the song. As you correctly stated you have to "see" the song. Analyse the parts that are the focus. The top layer. That will always need work, because that's what people are hearing foremost. That is of course the vocal. Then the is the middle section. That's the piano and guitar in this case. In this track it's fine as it is. Don't mess with it. The bottom end in this song is poor. Timing is good so just do a drum retrigger and get the kick and bass in their place, let the over heads breath with a wide stereo placement and job done.

 

Thanks you a lot (and many thanks also @Lenny Belardo II! ) for your explanations, for the time you two both have taken to write them, it means a LOT to me, as it could be precious for other noobies like me reading this topic!

You reminded me IRL situations I experimented myself, where I was often saturating some inputs preamps of the PA mixtable, resulting not only in an obvious distortion, but also in a flattening of the general dynamics of the instruments, here I suppose I had attained the very limits of the preamps, so that there were no more any reserve of dynamics left, rendering everything absolutely flat.

It takes me a lot of times to learn (the hard way) how to operates, to sit (with my musicians mates) in the limits of the analog gear I had the chance to have, I think that was because at first my inexperienced ears and brain was not really hearing - been aware, conscient of - the saturation problems. Because in fact, in reality, live instruments can actually have an infinite dynamic!

With my guitar + amp, in rehearsal situation, I could easily reach (differences of) levels that are absolutely unbearable for any qualified preamp worthy of its name. (Same worries with drums, bass and piano!)

So in a way, the simple act of recording with microphones is an act of betrayal. I think that the only thing an engineer can do is to reconstitute, to render a sensation, an emotion, as close as possible to the real thing.

What I learned too is an usual trick, well-known of many live musicians, that I called "fingers' compression". It is the simple fact that in your way of playing a string (or hitting a drum, or a piano key...), you have to refrain from hitting too hard (or sometimes too softly too, depending on technical conditions and on the song itself), so that you always stay in the limits of the gear!

This is, in other terms, a natural compressor that you have in your hands. In fact most of the times I don't have to touch any button to raise my volume (for a solo for example): I just manage to play louder, to attack my strings with a special angle and at a certain force to naturally emerge from the mix. So I don't need any compressor here: everything is in my hand, and even if the other musicians play very loud, I can guarantee that you will hear me, even if you absolutely don't want to, for gosh sake!

All my remarks about the bass starts here: I just noticed that this guy knows exactly how to modulate his dynamics with his fingers in direct relation with the other instruments and the singer, so he's also, de facto, a human compressor!

 

Last edited: Aug 8, 2021

Hi, this is my approach on this song. I've partly used some different effects and cutted, copied and time stretched some files.

-14LUFS

Spoiler: I hate this unnecessarily big window ;-)

EDIT: Here's the stereo piano version

Spoiler: I still hate this window

EDIT 2: Since @JMOUTTON can't stop complaining about the bassist's performance, I edited the audio file and reduced the nasty sound bits

Spoiler: that window again

BTW, did anyone notice the new break at 2:55 (already in v1)?

 

Last edited: Aug 12, 2021

Hey, very nice share, thank you for it, @No Avenger!

The first thing: I appreciate how you have treated the voice.

This voice is still strong, but never aggressive, I think you have in a first time cleaned up, de-essed this stem and other tricks I don't know, but without removing the "vintage rock-jazz" character of the singer, in other terms you have let the vox someway "as it is", just correcting the obvious defaults and mike (bad) saturation (transcients!) problems, and adding some smart fx.

The delays on some beginning of phrases, and on spoken words at the end, is a very nice move, and add some gravity to the sentences.

The piano is... strange, in the sense that starting at the beginning of the song, it is basically mono (?), and becomes suddenly a little more stereo when we approaches the end...

I think it seriously lacks some stereo space, of course perhaps it's your taste, but I'm more thinking about a simple lack of attention. But tonally speaking, it is very well EQ (or simply not EQ?), it is woody and well present in the mix, exactly as it should.

For once, I have not much to say about the bass (!), you have managed to preserve the sustain of the instrument, should I say it's a miracle?
...Or perhaps is it simply that you have refrained from compressing like if everybody was deaf and your life depended only on it?

Comparing to the original stem, I hear like a vintage comp' (the consequence though being that the differences between the soft notes and the loud notes is far less hearable, perceptible), I can hear a boost in the subs, all of that with a nice, subtle saturation on it, but nothing that anyone can sue you for!

All in all, it's a nice result. But the question is now this one: in a tough competition like this, with thousands of candidates, is your mix could counts among the winners? I don't have any answer, because I'm a really bad judge, I'm a good listener but I don't have any technical skills, so I'm totally unable to answer this simple question: which is the best one?

...Perhaps @MrLyannMusic is the only one who could bring "The Great Answer To The Ultimate Question Of Life, The Universe, And Everything"?...
Hem... errrfff... Something like...hhhmmm... 42?

 

The singer has a beautiful and very expressive voice.

 

First of all without going into too many details, As i probably stated, this is not my main genra, i was actually experimenting with techniques approachs, and most importanly plugins, what's the best way to try out a new plugin than to see it in action, how it holds against my other plugins and against my chains, so i try to use these kind of stems to try out new things, secondly, the video i posted was my first attempt recorded via software capture, so not the best quality? 3rd i was so exited to share my attempt, i didn't give my ears the appropriate time to recover and take a second deep listen, but there it was, i'll be posting my "refined" mix soon, as i spent the last few days, testing Windows 11 on a new drive, eveything was up to my specs, and i even got lower latencies "as expected" so i went through the trouble to migrating my machine to Windows11, it tooks me a alot of time to actually, Download, Install, Authenticate my programs/Plugins, once everything is up and running which already is, i'll be posting my Rendered version ...

As for our beloved @No Avenger i think He probably the only one who got the message, as from the versions i heard from you guys, his version was the only one who went into the trouble and actually playing with reverbs and delays, this was probably a live take, but it was a dry one, so it relies on atmosphere to actually convey the best experience listening to the song, for exemple the slap back delay used on the guitars, gave it sush a depth it made it intresting and made me exited and waiting for the guitars to come back...

My only two negative remarks, are these, first of all the delay on vocals sounds a bit lose, it is best to use sidechain compression with long release(at least in this case) so they wont clach, a bit more louder maybe? you know me @No Avenger , second is Piano, i think it needs more love and attention, and most importanly in your mix, some widening, so it wont interfere with what you have already!

on the other hand I loved the editing done with the drums and bass at the end, gave it extra points, but my surprise is that how low/mid end dosen't sound busy quite the oposite, full and present! kudos for that.

 

, my pleasure.

, again. I used a downward expander to get rid of some low level noises, then saturation, low cut, downward compression, upward compression, leveler, EQ and lowered some noises manually. I somehow found my way with down, up and levelling to get the dynamic balance of my choice (for all vocals).
The main delays with 5/8th left and 9/8th right (so not the one at the end) are triggered by the untreated vocals to maintain the original dynamics of the performance (that's why they sound 'lose', Squasher )

Fok, fok, fooook, ( no worries, all good), you're right! I accidentally inserted the mono version of a plugin. Interesting how the stage opens up when you stick to stereo plugins.

Other than that, I narrowed the Drum Room to 60% because this way it fits better to the/my panning of the dry drums.

, the third. No, its not a miracle, it's called Kazrog True Dynamics, Summit TLA-100A, dEQ6 (dyn EQ), Kuassa Cerberus (bass amp), Omega N and Equilibrium - ok, it's some sort of a miracle.

No doubt, (apart from the little mono mistake).

 

Ah, bad mistake. Luckily, I learned that lesson and don't do this anymore.

In fact, there're two delays. 1/16th in the same pan and 1/8th panned.

I got that covered in the post above. And I didn't use any compression on these delays on purpose. I like how they follow the original dynamic, like in a real room (apart from the pan, ofc).
BTW, I routed the reverb the same way.

I'm so sorry, that my version doesn't hit the -4LUFS mark, not even for LUFSm max. But honestly, that's your domain, and you're much better at it than I am.

Ja, ja, got it.

What do you mean, surprise?
Seriously, the 'secret' is to turn the shit up loud 'til the furniture is moving. That's when you notice imbalances in the low end - ask my neighbours (from across the street).

 

I'm happy you have joined me in my Bass Amp Sim' Worshipers' Club, @No Avenger!
My conviction is than even with synthetic or sampled bass one could use Bass Amps with incredible sound benefits!

The only irreconcilable difference between you and me is the fact that I forbid myself the use of any compressor in smart bass lines like this one. As said earlier, I think we have to respect the musician's intention and own dynamic. It's in fact the only thing I regret about your mix: the fact that subtle nuances and delicate notes of the live play are someway eaten by the compression.

I don't know if sometimes it happens to you to hear Jazz music, and particularly live Jazz music, but if you do you will realize how important the dynamic nuances and subtleties of a live musician are important for the quality of the song, as an instrument player myself I would be sad if you'd mix my bass this way, but hey, it's your taste and I totally respect it!

 

On principle I agree with you, but here I found some sublte compression added the needed weight to the bass. In fact, if it wasn't for this genre, I would've compressed it a lot more.
Additionally, due to a lack of experience, musicians often don't know how to play properly for a recording. That's what our job is for, right?

 

Yes, but here we have an obviously talented bassist who knows exactly how to handle his own dynamic, if you study the levels of the original stem you will find that the guy is always inside certain limits, it never cross the lines, staying inside digital (and analog) limits.

When the guy accentuates certain notes and soften others, it always have a sense, a meaning in artistic, emotional and musical POV. Considering the vintage pop-blues-soul style of the song, I think we must adapt to the special retro mood and change our habits, reflexes and prejudices in consequence.

 

Added the stereo version.

 

Thank you, the piano is now (at least for me)... perfect! We can really feel the space improvement, it's like you opened a new window!

My remark on the bass remains though, as I tried to explain in my answer to your PM (clumsily perhaps, English being not my mother's tongue - and living in a non-English country so I can't practice - I often struggle to find the words).

 

I have some free time now.

I bypassed the insert point to external gear.

@Amore_de_la_Vida

Here is everything in line with the bass drum and the bass.

BD:

CMic ~ 2dB compression. .1ms: Fast Attack -> Transient DeEmphasis
DMic ~ 6-12dB compression. 3ms: Fast Attack -> Transient DeEmpahsis
BDAUX - 1-1.5 dB compression 4ms: Fast Attack ->Transient DeEmpahsis - Blending 2 BD mics.

Bass:
BassFlex - 1-2dB compression. 10ms: Medium Attack -> Leading Transient Emphasis
BassFlex - 2-3 dB compression. 01ms: Fast Attack -> Side chain Transient DeEmphasis During BD Transient

All other processors are EQ or low level saturation. You can see the entire chain in the video if you want. If we are going to be this detailed about things sometimes we have to check on what is actually going on and make sure that the vocabulary we are using is actually referring to the same things on both sides of the conversation.

I don't know where you are hearing heavy compression from, but you hear what you hear.

Also here are the sources and the final outcome of this original thing.

I didn't want to check any of it out before hand but since we are all pretty much done I went to take a peek.

Original source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqGaK...
Winners: https://www.lewitt-audio.com/blog/her...

One must also be careful not to personally interpret what vintage means to other people. So the intent on vintage for these kids was Funk/Rock/Electro, that's not vintage to me and I am not even old yet, but compared to these kids I am older. To me vintage with that sound was more of a classic rock/reggae. I am not sure about the blaccent, I hear it but who knows maybe all Austrian chicks who just grow up singing along to black female singers develop a blaccent from imitation. That's an other confusing thing but that's also not so relevant as it's not consistent and just adds to the confusion for me. So it might have been jazzy but it wasn't intent and it just wasn't structurally sound enough to be jazz to me.

Either way, we all take away from it what we take. Nobody gets off the life train without their own baggage.

@No Avenger

I Like the bass, the choice to prioritize it at the expense of the bass drum was a good one. Though there are some very sharp and cutting parts where there is a half slap or nail hang that make me want to hurt the bass player or make him face the corner till he gets it right. I have them too, I don't think anyone went after them too much.

Nice mix.

@MrLyannMusic

The entire thing is multiple takes and copy pasta.

Just look at it on a spectral editor you can see the splices.

Many of the artifacts in the vocal are bad no zero crossing merges especially the ones at onset. Some are mouth sounds, but the majority are bad edits and mic wire pops.

Ambiance is always going to be a personal choice though, I enjoyed the cats addition of space but I consider that more of an artistic license thing than a process you want to engage in without the producers or artists consent, if this was a paying gig.

I think the whole thing kind of reflects poorly on Lewitt to be honest. If I was selling microphones I wouldn't intentionally gimp a track for a contest, that would like intentionally shitting in the ingredients of a cake contest if you were a flour sponsor. However, I don't think the mics are the problem but the edits and what eventually was provided is something akin to a producer's cut for mixing engineer wasn't the best quality.


---------------------------------------


Anyway.

Cheers everyone and enjoy your week. It's going to be hot as mofo where I am, hope the weather is kinder where you all are.

 

Hey, thank you to share your own vision in a fresh new version, @JMOUTTON!

Previously I had shared an example, inspired by the fact that you said you used hardware units (external? analog? ...UAD? Sorry, I'm not familiar with the high-end hardware rack market) on some tracks for your mix.

In my real-life past example I said that sometimes, when you reach certain limits of the (analog) hardware, or certain values (which is different for each type of hardware used), the result can be an actual flattening of the dynamics.

If you could observe the signal - directly on the outputs of the hardware - with an oscilloscope, you could see that if you reach certain values with the input signal, the analog electronics react, not necessarily always by adding distortion, but also by reducing, I call that "flattening", the differences between the notes of lowest amplitude and the notes of strongest amplitude, who ends up sounding exactly with the same strength.

It's what I thought I was hearing in your precedent mix, but of course I can very well being wrong and have heard what I wanted to hear - a perfect audio illusion, a sort of placebo artifact.

...But instead let's talk about your fresh new interesting work!

- At 0:10, on the second part/phrase of the vocalization, there is a little glitch on the voice: the volume raising automation is set a little too late, resulting in a brutal, un-natural attack of the note.

- Like with your precedent mix, you have raised the highest harmonics of the voice, and overall I found this - near - pleasing to the ears... though a little too much for me... sorry...

- The only thing that I can really say next is about the drums: they are very present and that's a good thing, you haven't used any reverb (or a very discrete one), so that all the punch is preserved and the drummer feel very close...

...But they seriously lack medium, and the dry attacks, especially on the snare and BD, are a bit too much exaggerated to sound realistic. Overall, drums sound very aggressive.

This is the only thing I can say with an bit of certainty: real drums don't sound like that, even over-mixed, over-produced and over-effected.

I think the problem (perhaps, I have absolutely no certainty here) could lies in your listening system, which (perhaps again) do not favorize a detailed listening of the higher frequencies. If ever you could have access to a perfectly neutral Sennheiser HD800 like me, you will perceive immediately what I am talking about: it's like the attacks in the upper-trebles area someway... jump on you to attack you!

But these problems can't eclipse the qualities of your mix, starting with the automation which avoids a bunch of problems on the stems, so I can say it's a perfectly clean mix, all-music and not a single noise or artifact to ruin the notes or mood, a heartfelt "bravo!" for that!

You are very sober on the effects, everything is very subtle and I appreciate that!

No instrument, no stem is "eating" the others, here I can only feel admiration for the overall balance of your mix. I'm very, very far from there... yet?

 

Last edited: Aug 12, 2021