• Songs
  • First song posted on the forum - Back to Reality by NOC (p.2)
2016/11/29 09:20:32
emeraldsoul
Fun! 
 
I'd say 30hz might be too low for the hpf. The theoretical lower limit on human hearing, in some sort of anechoic chamber being fed a pristine sine wave, is supposed to be 20 hz, right? But that's extremely theoretical.
 
But most speaker systems can't reproduce diddly below 40 hz to begin with, and perhaps even higher. So you can start your hpfilters there.
 
Plus, on a cymbal or vocal track, you can hpf those anywhere north of say 400 hz, because the deep bass information in the cymbal is unwanted and muddy.
 
You probably know all of that already, but sometimes it helps me to type it out, so I might remember it better myself. Old farts will understand.
 
-Tom
2016/11/29 10:41:19
bitflipper
Good song, good performance, good mix. This old fart thinks it's definitely worthy of continued refinements.
 
If I was working on it, as it stands now I'd be concentrating on two aspects: bass and width.
 
If that's a sampled bass, I'd look around for a punchier library. If it's a real bass, I'd be looking into compression and EQ, maybe gentle distortion to help bring it out more. And once I got a nice cutting tone, turn it up. 
 
Width is trickier. Given the instrumentation, there's only so much you can do to widen it. Bass & vox have to be mono, you don't want drums to sound artificially wide, and the guitars already have pretty good width. But there are little things you can do. Pan the backing vocals off-center. A subtle ping-pong delay can make the vocals sound wider, just keep it low on the lead vocal and put most of it on the BGVs. Consider triple-tracking the lead vocal and panning the doubles out to opposite sides, at barely-audible volume.
 
I'd also encourage you to consider additional instrumentation that can be panned out to the sides. That could be a subtle synth pad, or it could be hand percussion. Don't assume that because it's your basic guitar-bass-drums format there's no room for keyboards and percussion. Listen to the old Cream recordings, for example. Yer basic G-B-D lineup, right? Listen closer: there are keyboards in almost every song, and hand percussion in half of them. 
 
As a final polish across the master bus, use a M/S EQ to accentuate L-R differences in the upper frequencies. Here's a reference that might help. It's about Fabfilter Pro-Q, but the principles apply to all equalizers that offer M/S filters.
 

 
 
2016/11/29 12:11:00
Wookiee
All the advise has been given, it is a good song, sounds well played and with the tweaks suggested above it will probably shine, thanks for sharing.
2016/11/29 13:25:57
daryl1968
I really like this. Great song and performances. Mix sounds spot on to me - clear as a bell.
2016/11/29 13:52:55
Sam4246
Thanks again for the feedback - you know, you mix the song for so long you either lose objectivity or you keep tweaking when you don't need to.
The project is just Marc and myself but we are going to be biased about the mix since we wrote the song. Having the input from you guys is a great help. Bitflipper - definitely going to try some of those techniques.

Al
2016/11/29 20:25:36
Freddy J
Great advice given above.  Terrific song and performance.  The lyrics certainly relate some angst.
Nice one!
2016/12/22 15:30:13
stevec
Better late than never...    As others already said, good song!
 
For the mix, cleaning up the lows via HPF should help, but at the same time maybe get the bass to pop more.  I'd also bring the lead vocal forward a bit, either through level and/or compression, and pan the harmonies away from center to give them more width.    Minor nits all around - you've got the important parts.
 
2016/12/22 18:55:50
Sam4246
stevec
Better late than never...    As others already said, good song!
 
For the mix, cleaning up the lows via HPF should help, but at the same time maybe get the bass to pop more.  I'd also bring the lead vocal forward a bit, either through level and/or compression, and pan the harmonies away from center to give them more width.    Minor nits all around - you've got the important parts.
 


Thanks for the tips! It was my first time using Melodyne Editor and I think I pitch corrected way too much (100%) on the main vocals. Marc was not that off - I was just stoked to use Melodyne. I learned not to EVER make it 100% again - it made getting the harmonies right so much more difficult. Although, once I did get them right, I cloned them and panned one hard left and one hard right.
My lesson learned - NEVER EVER EVER pitch correct to 100% again.
2016/12/22 21:13:33
stevec
Sam4246
stevec
Better late than never...    As others already said, good song!
 
For the mix, cleaning up the lows via HPF should help, but at the same time maybe get the bass to pop more.  I'd also bring the lead vocal forward a bit, either through level and/or compression, and pan the harmonies away from center to give them more width.    Minor nits all around - you've got the important parts.
 


Thanks for the tips! It was my first time using Melodyne Editor and I think I pitch corrected way too much (100%) on the main vocals. Marc was not that off - I was just stoked to use Melodyne. I learned not to EVER make it 100% again - it made getting the harmonies right so much more difficult. Although, once I did get them right, I cloned them and panned one hard left and one hard right.
My lesson learned - NEVER EVER EVER pitch correct to 100% again.



That is good advice!  I always try to tune by ear rather than by snapping to scale, sort of like avoiding 100% quantization. 
 
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