Mix Ideas

[31flies]

It's not great music, but it's 50+ tracks of DP. Sound great in headphones, sounds like •••• on Mac speakers.

Please help. What's wrong here!?


http://studioonthefly.com/mixhelp.html

[JadeLatrell]

Thats a cool track. I think, to get maximum effect, I would go one direction with it.

To my ears, it starts on an 80's pop vein, then moves into an early 90's Adam Ant type vocal thing (I would lose much of the chorus effect here), then the U2 feel comes in as it blends to anthemic, morphs to a Spin Doctors groove and ends with a hip hop feel.

I really think there is a lot to it and the melody is very strong. I think a better focus on just that line would be best. Maybe a focus on one "influence".

I thing the U2 "With or without you" vibe works well here.

That might narrow down what else needs to be done, but overall, great song.

[emulatorloo]

I've stumbled across a few of your tracks on the net, and I just want to say I love the way you write.

So therefore it is hard for me to give you constructive criticism -- I enjoyed the track, esp the harmonies towards the end and the little unexpected twists here and there. Unlike JadeLatrell I really like the shifting styles, esp the more times I listen to it.

I guess the only thing I would like to hear different, (as Jade also says) is trust in your voice more -- maybe a little less overt processing on the lead vocal -- You've got a good intrument there -- let your voice shine thru, don't bury it in flanging/chorusing.

Very enjoyable song -- thnks for posting it.

[31flies]

I appreciate the input. I'm afraid you might have "stumbled" across someone else's music, though. I've got stuff on GB and a couple others but I've noticed there are some other guys with my name, although thinking about it, I don't think my name comes up here on my profile. Hell I don't know.

Yeah, I'm happy with the style changes, but it can be tricky transitioning from one to another-- right down to the edits. I used to work with this guy named Carl Stephenson who is credited as the godfather of trip-hop and was insane (like, literally) and would put together these pieces of music that were 80+ tracks that went all over the place seemlessly. He'd have all these Roland 8 and 16 track machines linked together. His studio was just a mess but he'd make these massive track collections mix into perfect sounding songs. In some cases half of the tracks would be me laying various instruments, but when it came down to engineering the •••• I wanted no part of it and thus never really figured out how to escape the "mud" that comes with assembling so many sounds.

I'm going to play with removing ALL of the effects from EVERYTHING and take another listen, re-post it.

One thing neither of you commented on was the constant use of falsetto as a vocal layer. I love the sound of that (like "Keep a Lid on Things" by Crash Test Dummies) but it's realy hard for me to be objective on 1) the mix level of the falsetto and 2) whether or not the notes are actually being hit well.

Well anyway, you're all busy. I appreciate the comments. I'll mess with cleaning up the effects.

[JadeLatrell]

Id love to hear more of this track. Perhaps with some of the vocal effects removed I will have a differnt take.

Ive been listening to it more. And the style changes are still getting to me. Dont get me wrong, I like each of the styles and the song seems to work in each style change. I am thinking more in terms of what might sell to the public, or a label for that matter.

Regarding vocal effects, I like the heavy verb about half way in, its mostly the chorusing that I dont like as well. Regarding the hip hop ending, its really quite cool and, to me, would be a cool remix of the "U2" version.

I REALLY like the falsetto layer. Its more "classic" than Crash Test Dummies and I think works better than some of their stuff.

[Phil O]

Sound great in headphones, sounds like •••• on Mac speakers.

What are you using for monitors? My impression is that it was mixed on bad monitors or in a bad room, so it's not translating well. It may have sounded good when you mixed it, but on my system it sounds as though the EQ is all off. Please understand, I'm not trying to be negative here, just trying to give you some useful feedback.

Phil

[31flies]

the whole god damned thing is mixed in headphones. I just can't justify the $$$ on monitors...I need mics! And more mics! Which is really why I posted it, I need help and ideas from guys with real monitors.

Thanks.

[Phil O]

If you want to do mixes, perhaps you may need to re-assess your priorities. Mixing with headphones can often times result in the type of mix that you are now unhappy with. I think you can get into some inexpensive monitors that won't break the bank, but will still give you far better mixes than you can get with headphones. If money is a real issue, maybe you could find someone willing to loan you some monitors. My old Event 20/20's are on loan to a friend right now. (I'll probably never use them again for anything). Maybe you could get into a similar situation. To try and get suggestions from folks and incorporate those into your mix when you can't actually hear what they're suggesting is bound to cause more frustration. MHO.

Phil

[JadeLatrell]

I couldnt agree more with Phil O.

Monitors arent just for mixing, either. Granted, its hard to monitor your own vocals when tracking through anything but phones But if you can only get to tape or disk what sounds right to your ears and if what sounds right is colored by phones and not accurate, then your end result will suffer because the foundation is faulty.

Monitors and room treatment are the least sexy in the recording chain, but I argue are the most important. If you can accurately hear what you are tracking, you can make a $100 mic sound like...well maybe a $500 mic. You can EQ and compress adequately to really make it shine.

An example is this. When I was checking out mic pres, I looked at some oline shootouts. With Headphones and the speakers I was using, I didnt hear much difference between some of the pres and mics used. Then I ran them through the Adam A7s and wow, the pres and mics actually sound much different.

With phones and mac speakers, you simply cant adjust fine levels of compression and eq, and chorus for that matter because you have a non-real world true stero separation. So the chorus on the vox might sound great in cans but all of us notice the difference on monitors.

This reminds me of a scene in the movie UHF where a blind man is sitting on a bench with a friend. The blind man had a rubiks cube which he turns and shows the friend.

"Is this it?"

"Nope"

"Is this it?"

"Nope"

"Is this it?"

....

[31flies]

I've never seen that Rubiks Cube scene and I just burst out laughing. That is really funny and that's what it feels like for sure. I guess I might as well just use the internal microphone while I'm at it.

I don't think my headphone mixes totally suck, but they're kind of big and dumb. When I burn to disc and check mixes in my car or elsewhere I can imagine a big smiling moose wearing a tutu and dancing around a crystal shop, glass breaking everywhere.

Okay, done. I'll get monitors. (duh)

Thanks for the help guys.

[JadeLatrell]

The funny thing is, I really cant get enough of the track. I keep comming back to it so you're doing a lot right.

Am listening now on headphones and I can see where it sounds much better on cans. Its funny, over the MacBookPro speakers, the snare really stands out better where I wish it stood out more on the monitor mix. Probably due to the mid curve of the laptop speakers.

I'm really digging a few things.

The indian vocal sample (assumtion on the sample)
Transition to the raw rock part
Transition out of the raw rock part
The backing "Imma burn for you" chant.

What are you using for the dum samples on the trip part...its sounds so familiar...

[emulatorloo]

I appreciate the input. I'm afraid you might have "stumbled" across someone else's music, though. I've got stuff on GB

<Snip>

One thing neither of you commented on was the constant use of falsetto as a vocal layer.

I did indeed hear your tracks on garageband --

I did not notice the falsetto until you pointed it out -- really subtle, which I think is good.

--

[Todzilla]

Sounded good on my weiner Computer speakers, but I am loathe to give detailed mix feedback based on their limited fidelity.

Love the hook. Really sticks it and pulls everything else together. They're also the best vox on the tune. Overall, I love the complexity of the many layers of simple and clean parts... works very well IMO.

The tremelo effect on the backing vox got a bit distracting. Perhaps back it off a bit, increasingly so with each occurrence?

The bridge left me a bit cold and the outro felt long and less related to the main tune. I wanted to hear you beat the hook to death on the outro, but then, subtlety was never my forte.

Nice work!

[31flies]

Thanks Todd, and all...I'm going to rethink the solo now. I guess what I was trying to do was add a third style to the techno-ish verses and the pop chorus. My feeling was that the "robotic" approach to the verse vocals (which I like) -- that that might actually leave you cold, not the solo. I also screwed up that bounce to disc and made it fade back after silence, and yes, most definately I now see that the fade is too long.

Thanks for all the help guys!

[donreynolds]

I llike he aong. the biggest first impression that i had was the overprocessed lead vocal on the I burn for you hook. It sounds as though you are singing out of a reverb box. Way too heavy in my opinion.
U2 pulls this off but they have Bono's clear voice up front with the the processing present but supporting, not overpowering if you understand what I mean.
How do youset you vocal processing up in your mixer? are you putting the reverb/ chorus etc on the same track as the lead vocal? If so, try using another aux track and bus the vocal signal pre-fade to tracks with the reverb and other vocal FX seperately so you have nore individual control and can just EQ and compress the lead vocal.

good overall effort though. Welcome to the world of Mixing!!