Kiss the Ground (mix advice please)

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LpMike75
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2011/11/28 18:37:42 (permalink)

Kiss the Ground (mix advice please)

Hey guys, this is over a year old and a second posting with a new mix.  I have been struggling with getting the low mids under control in all of my mixes.  Just when I thought my the low end is clear, I may of cranked it up too much.  Looking for objectivity on the mix as I have lost it.  Thanks for any help or thoughts.  
   
  ++++UPDATED MIX++++++
http://soundcloud.com/michael-lizotte/kiss-the-ground
 
Songwriters
 
Andy Menassis
Michael Lizotte
Robert Byers (Lyrics and Vocals)
post edited by LpMike75 - 2011/11/28 23:11:03


- Mike
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    bandontherun19
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    Re:Kiss the Ground (mix advice please) 2011/11/28 19:39:41 (permalink)
    On a notebook for now, so so rissen on good system :-( So no mix advice? I really liked the song though? And your vocalist"RULES..." (one vocalist to another ;-) 

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    marcos69
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    Re:Kiss the Ground (mix advice please) 2011/11/28 20:05:19 (permalink)
    Great song, performed well.  As for the mid lows - The bass has a bloom to it and the drums are kinda muddy.  It seems to me that the kick, toms and bass guitar are all sharing the same freq's. maybe around the 200 Hz ? range.  I don't hear any snare or cymbals at all, which I think is contributing to the perceived low mid problem.  All other instruments and vocals are mixed very well.  Seems if you went back and nailed down just your drums and bass and then bring the rest in you might have some improvement.
    post edited by marcos69 - 2011/11/28 20:07:03

    Mark Wessels

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    #3
    Rimshot
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    Re:Kiss the Ground (mix advice please) 2011/11/28 20:43:43 (permalink)
    LpMike,

    Great song and lead vocal!  I like the arrangement very much too.  Overall, agree with Mark as it needs brightening.  Big guess but for fun, try a mastering limiter with EQ on the master bus and try:

    500 db -3
    3 db 4K
    5 db 10K

    You might have to add about 3 db at 60 after this. 

    Love your work.


    Rimshot 

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    LpMike75
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    Re:Kiss the Ground (mix advice please) 2011/11/28 23:09:09 (permalink)
    Robby- Thanks - Robert Byers is the singer, we collaberated on this project along with Andy Mennasis.  We all took a songwriting for film and television class from Berklee Online.  Both are really talented guys and ya Robert is awesome.

    Marco- Thanks for the listen and suggestion.  I thought I had carved out enough notches to let the low end guys sit together but I think my levels sucked, I use SPAN and notived around 150 and 450 there was some buildup.  I EQ'd my kick and added some percussion strip to make it a little more snappy instead of dull, as well as EQ'ing the bass/kick/toms and Timpani.  There is very little snare and cymnbals, mostly used in the chorus.  The hand claps felt like enough in the verse, so it does leave an empty space in the high end catagory.  The piano's are really sweet lines but I cant get them to stand out without messing up the mix, so they are background material (Andy has some cool lines underneath)

    Rimshot - Thank you for the listen and advice.  I went back and tweeked the mix with your and Marco's comments.  I lowered the bass and also EQ'd the bass and kick differently.  I made some minor tweeks and used your EQ suggestion on the high end.  Hopefully this sounds a little cleaner.  Now I found a spot the vocal level needs to come down 3 DB lol....its never going to get done. 

    Hopefully this updated version is better


    - Mike
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    LpMike75
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    Re:Kiss the Ground (mix advice please) 2011/11/28 23:57:28 (permalink)
    Hey Bobby - Thanks for the compliments.  I wish I could sing like that!  The singer is Robert Byers.  The song was written by myself, Andy Menassis and Robert Byers we all took a songwriting course together and collabed on this song.  I agree, he is a fantastic singer.  The version you heard was hopefully fixed after you read the above mid/low range comments.  I am hoping it fixed most of the problem.

    Robert recorded his part at home, no idea what software he used, Andy recorded his part at home, no idea what he used either.  I used Sonar with Sonar plugs.  I used Sonitus compressors, EQ and delays.  Pro Channel compressors, saturation and EQ's and "Spaces" reverb.  After mixing in Sonar I exported to T-Racks where I tried to throw some polishing touches on it. 

    I know you said forget about the mixing side of things and just write, but for this project my goal is to put together a solid mix that sounds polished, then send a nice polished version to the other two guys.

    Thanks again for the listen and compliment, I hope to eventually have a mix that sounds great without having to pay anyone hehheh


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    Venus
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    Re:Kiss the Ground (mix advice please) 2011/11/29 07:25:53 (permalink)
    Pretty song. I like this mix. Bass sounds good to me.

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    Guitarpima
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    Re:Kiss the Ground (mix advice please) 2011/11/29 13:30:39 (permalink)
    I love the song. It is really cool.

    The bass drum is buried. The bass is good but could come up a bit. The tricky part is getting both not to mask each other. You can roll off the bass around 80hz and adjust the frequency and/or the Q till they both work together. You can create a dip around 300hz, or so, in the bass as well. Use a high Q setting so your narrowing the amount taken out.

    The toms are causing a lot of the mud IMO. Definitly roll them off until the mud goes away. Yet another tricky thing. If your using a drum synth, it's just a matter of fixing it in the synth's software.

    I think the EQ is the hardest part of mixing. Planning out what instruments will be at what frequency is pretty easy but making sure that other instruments don't crowd another's space is the tricky part. Panning takes a roll as well. I'll plug www.DannyDanzi.com here. Lots of good advice on his forum. He is such a helpful chap. :)

    What is that noise at 3:06 into 3:07?

    You can try to lower the fret noise at the beginning. Zooming in and creating envelopes is time consuming but for a good song, it's worth it. If it doesn't work, just undo it.

    On my fourth listen and it's not getting old. Very well done!

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    jamesyoyo
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    Re:Kiss the Ground (mix advice please) 2011/11/29 13:39:59 (permalink)
    This is original, and pretty cool. The breaks are great.

    Though the mix issues with the low end/drums are just way too distracting. Especially that too hard right-panned hihat.

    I am pretty sure that to remix this correctly would take no more than an hour. It is almost there. Let me know if you would like me to give it a go.
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    LpMike75
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    Re:Kiss the Ground (mix advice please) 2011/11/29 18:14:08 (permalink)
    That would be really awesome James.  I will send you a PM


    - Mike
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    timidi
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    Re:Kiss the Ground (mix advice please) 2011/11/29 18:45:21 (permalink)
    Nice stuff. Like the song. The mix needs some work I think. James will fix it up real nice for ya.
    I didn't quite understand what the intro had to do with the song though. There's a cool piano riff around 1:21 that might work better somehow maybe. Or, just start the song at :15 seconds.

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    LpMike75
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    Re:Kiss the Ground (mix advice please) 2011/11/30 00:06:04 (permalink)
    "I didn't quite understand what the intro had to do with the song though"

    Hey Timidi - Thanks for the listen.  Not sure what the intro has to do with the song, do you think the trumpet swell is too much?  I needed something to give us a big build up to the droning rhythm in the verse.  At this point I have heard it as is so many times that I cant picture anything else there.  I wish I could make the piano's a little more prominent but I keep messing up the mix when I try, it really is some nice piano lines going on underneath


    - Mike
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    evadianepug
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    Re:Kiss the Ground (mix advice please) 2011/11/30 00:57:24 (permalink)
    Really nice tune!  Love the vocalist.  Music sounds good.  Others have given advice so I'll just stay with this.  Beautiful song.

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    Scottytunes
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    Re:Kiss the Ground (mix advice please) 2011/11/30 05:18:47 (permalink)
    Fantastic! It all sounds great to me.

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