final song mix (#2 of 11) - <<<deleted>>>

Hi BB, sounds great on cheap Sennheiser headphones, great song,singing,playing and guitar sounds, especially that acoustic guitar.

Greetings, Rik

morenoise
thanks, the sennheisers are great levelers of the playing field, thanks for letting me know that part.



whack
good, laptop speakers, that's good.
i have a set of PC speakers with a nice subwoofer to check on, as far as computer speakers go, but not a laptop.

levels of the premastered mixes?

you know, i always shoot for PEAKS of no higher than -6db, but i have some pretty dynamic tracks between drums and voice, and they shoot all the headroom....
i think my typical RMS is probably sitting around -18 to -15 typically, but the drums will take it up to -6 on just about every other beat.
i could limit the drums, but i only like to take a couple of db's max off the drum hits, so i have to live with that.

so, what ends up happening is by the time i get to this stage, my levels have drifted.
right now, most all the peaks are still about -6, i'll get an occassional peak that will take it up to -4.5, but absolutely no higher than that.


when i do my first 'faders up' mix, i'll shoot for -10db peaks, knowing that with my process, eventually they end up around -6.

Hi Bat,

Sounds stellar on these cheesy office speakers (and that's hard to do!!!)
Amazing playing/song here....rhythm breaks and tempo juts...fine stuff.

SPINDLEBOX
those acoustics, were very basic, tracking wise.

i use a pair of mics for each track, typically, but on this one, i used one mic per track.
there are (2) acoustics, hard left and right, and another blended in the middle very lightly.

guitar: Taylor 414 full body

i used a ADK Hamburg condenser, pointed towards the body/neck joint, away from the body

got close to the mic, and strummed medium-light.

that signal runs thru a A Designs Audio MP-1, and into a DBX MC-6 compressor.
output to the digital input of a ART DPS convertor, and into the soundcard. i print my compression.

i use the 80hz rolloff on the mic, but on mixdown, i highpass at about 140-155hz on acoustics.
add a bit of high end above 8khz, and that's it. i use the standard Sonitus track EQ for almost everything.



drums:
i wrote this drum track using Sony Acid.
i output that file to a 16 bit stereo file, and am stuck with it, i don't have acid anymore.
so, i used a lot of 'room' sound, that's what i was going for with this one.
i have so many others that have a tight drum sound, i needed this one to give a 'big room' effect to counter the sound of the others....
i like a lot of diversity in the sound, arrangement and feel of all the songs going on one album.

thanks for the comments!



no how
when it sounds good thru the cheezy office speakers, i know it's getting close!
LOL
thanks


markno999
bose headphones, check.
the few of those i heard, always sounded good to me.
a friend has a pair of those noise cancelling ones, and i was amazed at how well it worked.
plus, they sounded good

BAPU

I'm hearing some overall dullness in the mix. 

probably because it's not mastered...
i find going into mastering with 'bright' sounding mixes, always makes the mastering a bit tougher.
seems better, to sweeten during mastering, across the board....than adding a bunch of high end in the box.


vox levels, yeah, i have this sound i'm going for, and it's anything but commercial mix-like....

but i don't want them to disappear. so i'll look at that.
in my mix at my monitors, the vox is plenty loud.

 i want them to blend, more like a classic rock mix, than a modern in your face thing.

thanks for checking it out

This mix has the vocals burried and the mids seem to be absent, maybe overcompressed?



Spindlebox,
Your song sounds very nice.

spindle
your welcome.
what you did to find the sweet spot is exactly what you should do...
hands and knees, baby!
LOL

this will be mastered, yes. i'll have a local shop do it.


scotty
vocals buried? really? well, i'll crank em up a bit.
there's no real hard core compression anywhere, everything is pretty light....
high thresholds with maybe 2-3 db max, usually 2:1 or less ratios, long attacks, it should not sound compressed at all.
only on the acoustics, did i go for actual pumping, and that's done in time with the music.


james
middle shallow....
you mean mix wise, or eq wise?
i could bring a few elements into the middle more...
the drums are mostly overhead on this one, and are more left/right


maybe this one would be a good one to break with the strict L/C/R panning i've been sticking to lately....
i like the separation of it.
i've got the vox eq'd different now, and came up at least a full DB as you suggested...
part of the deal, was shortening the attack on the vox buss compressor, raising the threshold, smoothing out the vox eq at 1.5khz-3khz, and raising at 10k and up with a shelf.....
then, it tucked in nicer, AND was louder.
good ear.


thanks guys, moving onto the next one....