Re:Mixing/Mastering Probs
2011/07/18 12:14:13
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Hi toetap,
I have no idea if this was posted elsewhere.
I should tell you up front that although I dabble a bit, I'm not really a musician. I'm more of a technician/sound guy. I have done a little mastering in my misspent youth--and even that was years ago. I'm also just listening off the PC and using headphones--not the ideal environment of serious listening. So take everything I'm saying here with very large grain of salt.
I listed to Peter Cook and Return To Splendor. I like PC and it's mix and mastering.
Splendor sounds promising. I like it over all. Since you're asking--there were just a few things I think could be improved.
In the slow intro to the song, it sounds like you're trying to double-track the vocal. The second vocal timing was off enough that it was hard to understand some of the lyrics. My suggestion would be to go back and remove the second vocal, clone the first and use one of Sonar's plug-ins (V-Vocal, I think) to offset the frequency and timing to get the double-track effect. I can only guess that it's the effect you were going for. Maybe you were going for another effect that I didn't pick up on.
The second suggestion is for the rest of the song. This may help with the master, too. I suggest a re-mix where the guitar volume is just lowered a little bit or the vocal is raised a little. Some of the vocals got lost from time to time. Instead of changing the volume, you could also try adjust the EQ for both tracks.
This may sound redundant--it's almost the same action as the second suggestion, but with a slightly different goal or strategy. This song seem much denser than PC. I think I'm hearing all of the instruments, but they do seem all squashed together. That may be due to the compression. A remix may be a good idea to remedy this. It will give you a chance to raise and/or compress the tracks individually, so you won't need to compress the whole song as much in the end.
Essentially, PC was a simpler song, and therefore a much easier mix. RTS is a much busier song--you may have too many instruments that are trying to occupy the same frequency ranges. They may be overwhelming your vocal at times. If you're able to simplify that mix a little I think you may be happier with it, too. That may mean dropping a track or EQ-ing it or lowering the volume.
Thanks for reading and considering my humble opinions. Take some time before you do anything--hopefully, some of the real musicians around here will chime in an give you some better opinions.
Best of luck to you,
Jan
Should auld acquaintance be forgot--hey, who the hell are you guys?
X2(X3 pending hardware upgrade), Emulator X2, E-mu 1212M, Virtual String Machine