My Eternal Mixing Problems

Reist · Post by **Reist** » Fri Apr 06, 2007 6:42 pm

Here we go. Tell me what you think, but please don't compare it to your mixes. Compare it to my old mixes, since I'm likely never going to be able to mix as good as you guys.

New Song

Post by **Spud** » Fri Apr 06, 2007 6:53 pm

blue wrote:he doesn't have computer DAW software. he mixes on his all-in-one unit.

Well, don't keep us in suspense. What all-in-one unit is he using?

blue · Post by **blue** » Fri Apr 06, 2007 8:41 pm

Spud wrote:
blue wrote:he doesn't have computer DAW software. he mixes on his all-in-one unit.
Well, don't keep us in suspense. What all-in-one unit is he using?

the yamaha aw-1600 he mentioned in his first post

http://www.songfight.net/forums/viewtop ... 0172#80172

blue · Post by **blue** » Fri Apr 06, 2007 8:43 pm

jolly roger wrote:Here we go. Tell me what you think, but please don't compare it to your mixes. Compare it to my old mixes, since I'm likely never going to be able to mix as good as you guys.

New Song

sell the yamaha and move to cubase.

Billy's Little Trip · Post by **Billy's Little Trip** » Fri Apr 06, 2007 9:50 pm

He'd probably even have enough money left over for some good mics. By the way Roger, I love my "Fire Box" analog to computer interface. Not sure if that's what they're really called, because I slip into a coma in that area between analog and computer because it's like a wormhole in space. All I see are spirals and I start having LSD flash backs, then the next thing I know, my music is digital.

Post by **Spud** » Fri Apr 06, 2007 11:41 pm

blue wrote:the yamaha aw-1600 he mentioned in his first post

Geez, blue, that was four pages ago. Puce has my head spinning. How am I supposed to keep up? I'm still a little sick, you know.

Adam! · Post by **Adam!** » Sat Apr 07, 2007 2:47 am

Spud wrote:Puce has my head spinning. How am I supposed to keep up?

My posts are a little spread out, so I'll sumarize. Mostly just so I can keep track of them myself:

JR posted a song he had mixed based on some of the advice he'd gotten from the other mixing thread, as well as the source tracks (as 128kbps mp3s

). Deshead, B.L.T, myself, and JR himself did remixes, and we all gave brief (or, in my case, not so brief) notes on what techniques we used (mine: Part 1, Part 2).

My main goal was to make my mix four times as loud as the original.

Billy's Little Trip · Sat Apr 07, 2007 10:45 am

You have to admit, I did pretty good with the snare, or at least I think I did, even though the over all mix is a bit brash for some peoples taste. But I didn't get the kick quite where I like it. I like both Puce and Des's kick tone and thump much better.

PS, Puce, very clever making each of my letters, BLT, link to my 3 mixes, lmao!

Reist · Post by **Reist** » Sat Apr 07, 2007 1:32 pm

Puce wrote:JR posted a song he had mixed based on some of the advice he'd gotten from the other mixing thread, as well as the source tracks (as 128kbps mp3s ). Deshead, B.L.T, myself, and JR himself did remixes, and we all gave brief (or, in my case, not so brief) notes on what techniques we used (mine: Part 1, Part 2).

Then I posted my New Song!! (trying of course to get a good mix as suggested by the others)

Billy's Little Trip · Post by **Billy's Little Trip** » Sat Apr 07, 2007 4:19 pm

Wow Roger, great job! I didn't notice that you did a new one. Tell us what all you did. I'd still like to hear more snare, but that's just a personal thing.

Reist · Post by **Reist** » Sat Apr 07, 2007 5:03 pm

I'm not really sure how to describe it, but I'll try.

1. I moved some of my mics - snare, toms, and guitar (I emptied the crap out of my kick drum, only to find that I have no way of getting the mic pointing at the contact point without a blanket in there. I'm going to have to leave that until I have a new stand.
2. I did my best to follow Puce's directions compression-wise on the snare, kick and toms.
3. I used a limiter on guitar and bass.
4. I realized that a gate would be more useful on the toms (I can have one or the other), so I switched it up.
5. I exported the drums, thinking I had done a pretty poor job.
6. I realized that I had all of the settings turned off.
7. I fixed that and reexported the drums with an overall light compression on the drum track.
8. I mixed in the full drum track with the guitar and bass with an overall light compression to make it all feel as one.
9. I listened to it and liked it more than most of my mixes.

ps. I tried recording as was suggested - whale on the snare, kick and toms, and play light on cymbals.

ps - BLT, I agree that it needs more snare now that I listen to it again.

Billy's Little Trip · Post by **Billy's Little Trip** » Sat Apr 07, 2007 7:53 pm

I just listened again, and that tune jams. The mixing compared to the song you started this thread with is like night and day.
On this latest one, the cymbals aren't clipping, the toms have a nice thud, the snare has a nice ring, the kick is punchy. I'd like to hear a little ring on the kick so that it's not so boxy, but I can live with it the way it is.
The guitar has a great tone.
The bass has all the deep tones, but I "personally" would like to hear some strings on the bass, but just a tiny little bit. But it sounds great as is. I do pretty much what Puce does. I plug my bass right into the board/interface, then I copy my bass track and keep one as is pretty much and the copied track to EQ mids, highs and distortion. Then I use the EQ'd copy to just highlight the original bass track to taste. I just use a tube driver to warm things up. I love tubes, they give the perfect amount of distortion in my opinion. But I've found that compression on the bass is critical.

Reist · Post by **Reist** » Sat Apr 07, 2007 8:35 pm

I find my biggest problem with bass is that I don't have one. I just use an acoustic effect on my amp and pitch shift it down an octave. This could definitely be my big problem with the bass. I'll work a bit more next time to try and make it better, but my guess is that my bass sound is not going to be great until I am actually using a bass. Thanks for the advice on that though, BLT - I'll save that for later when I can use it effectively.

Billy's Little Trip · Post by **Billy's Little Trip** » Sat Apr 07, 2007 9:33 pm

That's a good trick, because it sounded like a bass to me. But you could still do the same trick with a copied track and some creative EQ'ing, I would think.

Reist · Post by **Reist** » Fri May 04, 2007 12:52 pm

I definitely spent 20 minutes yesterday working on a new mix for my old entry, Blank Stare. I figure I'll post the before and after for you guys. I just think that it's cool how I used to think the old mix was good, and now it sounds so much better (and louder too 8) ). I didn't record any new tracks either - both used identical tracks.

Old Version
New Version

Reist · Post by **Reist** » Mon May 28, 2007 9:21 pm

Whassup! I decided I'm going to rerecord my first 4 or 5 songs that I recorded for songfight as Andrew Reist, and I already did Bitter Orange. Keep your eyes peeled on this thread for some epicly good music!

obscurity · Post by **obscurity** » Tue May 29, 2007 9:50 am

Why, is someone else gonna post their songs too?

</cheap-shot-that-I-couldn't-resisit>

himynameisntmark · Post by **himynameisntmark** » Tue May 29, 2007 11:20 am

jolly roger wrote:I find my biggest problem with bass is that I don't have one. I just use an acoustic effect on my amp and pitch shift it down an octave. This could definitely be my big problem with the bass. I'll work a bit more next time to try and make it better, but my guess is that my bass sound is not going to be great until I am actually using a bass. Thanks for the advice on that though, BLT - I'll save that for later when I can use it effectively.

I'm pretty sure Maggie wouldn't mind lending you her bass if you asked her. She's getting a new one, after all.

Reist · Post by **Reist** » Tue May 29, 2007 1:49 pm

But not the bass amp (it's at my house, but I can't seem to get both the bass and amp at once).

himynameisntmark · Post by **himynameisntmark** » Tue May 29, 2007 2:49 pm

It's worth asking

Reist · Post by **Reist** » Tue May 29, 2007 3:52 pm

Back to my project - So I'm starting on the originally unposted Silly Rock song. Don't expect me to post my 'Crack in my Heart' song, since there's really not much I can get myself to do with that one.

Reist · Post by **Reist** » Wed May 30, 2007 3:19 pm

I finished this last night, but hadn't had time to post until now. I didn't end up doing 'Clouds Were Touching the Ground', but that song is really tough to fit into the way I play now (and I'd have to change a lot of it to keep it from being so boring ...

. Side note here - I know the lyrics are lame, but hey - they're kind of classic, at least for me, so I totally had to keep them the same. Here's the links, and if you can, tell me what you think - productionwise at least!

Bitter Orange (Old)
Bitter Orange (New)

Silly Rock (Old)
Silly Rock (New)

Not Exactly Normal (Old)
Not Exactly Normal (New)