*** MC MC #1 ***

[DoozerDan]

Ok, I think I'm happy with this now.  So I'll call it a final, but anything that you guys spot, I'd love to know about, so I can fix. A small point that bugs me is, about 1:52 seconds through, is a is a small ticking noise, just once, but enough to be annoying...

Ok, now for what I've done....

Ok first I listened to all the tracks, decided which ones I wanted to use, and when.  I than faded them in and out to fit where I wanted.  Once that was done, I panned everything, putting one guitar fill of to the far left, and another to the far right,  I than panned the lead guitars, about 30 to the left, and the other about 30 to the right.  I panned the backing vocals to 64 left 44 left and 32 left.  I did the same to the right.  I put the Bass guitar 15 to the left.  The Piano I put 15 to the right.  I put the acoustic rhythm 24 to the left and the electric rhythm 24 to the right.  All the drums/percussion, lead vocals, strings and oohs, I left in the middle.

I than went through all the guitars, and cranked the Mid gain up, and dropped the highs gain and low gain a bit.  I went to the vocals and upped the high gain, and dropped the mid gain and bass.  I went to the bass, and upped the bass gain, upped the mid gain a bit, and dropped the high gain a bit.  With the Kick drum I upped the bass gain, and the mid  gain, and the high gain, not sure why... I just did...  The Snare I left the bass gain as is, upped the mid gain, dropped the mid frequency, and left the high gain as is.  The high hat I dropped High gain a fraction, dropped the mid frequency a fraction, upped the mid gain, and left the bass as is. I did nothing to the strings piano, or other percussion.

What else...  Oh yes,  I also cleaned up the lead guitar tracks.  Cut out the bits which shouldn't have been there.

With the vocals I removed the volume dips that I had, and compressed it some more.  I than added some reverd, and a tiny bit of echo.   I also added some reverb on on the lead guitars, to even it out with the other.  And some reverb to the bass. 

I think that's about it... I can't think of anything else at the moment.. But I'll post it if I do..

I'd love to know what you guys think, 'cause this is like one of the first songs that I've mixed, so I really want to now where I went wrong etc.

Dan.

[jeff]

I managed to get as far as downloading the RAR file.

How do I extract the seps?

Thanks!

Jeff

[Davidinoz]

You need a program called winrar (free download). When you unpack the rar file you will have all the ape files.

[jeff]

Ok...Thanks.

Uhmmm....half the puzzle solved. Where can I get a safe link to the software?

[CurtisDowney66]

If you don't want to use winrar(I think it costs money to get the full version), I use this program... http://www.extractnow.com/ .  It does alot of things, and is free and very easy to use .
Curtis

[jeff]

Thanks Curtis!

Got it! 

[Cary]

You also could have just dl'd the apes from the first few posts in this thread. 

Have fun Jeff!

[jeff]

I like the idea of grabbing it all in one chunk. Thanks for offering that.

I got most of the tracks in my working file. I haven't listened to any of the mixes..or read too much of this thread. So my mix is bound to suck.

Unfortunately, I'll have to hold here til I get my next little break. Picked up a new print client today. Of course, we're starting from scratch and have a tight deadline to tackle.

I'll be lurking.

Jeff

[Bassic_Soul]

I'm goinng to call this final because my 20G hard drive was full and I had over a gigs worth of mixes and tracks dedicated to this tune. It doesn't sparkle as much as I'd like it to (as it the clarity of the mix), but I did get something out of the clinic. I finally found a deesser that I can work with in the fish fillets from digitalfishphones. That was well wotrh the effort in itself.

I'll be lurking 

[Cary]

Ok, I think I'm happy with this now.  So I'll call it a final, but anything that you guys spot, I'd love to know about, so I can fix. A small point that bugs me is, about 1:52 seconds through, is a is a small ticking noise, just once, but enough to be annoying...

Ok, now for what I've done....

<snip>

Hi Dan - I just listened to your latest mix.  Here's what struck me on first impression.  Oh, and I'm going to be straight... don't take any of these comments as anything but helpful critique.
I believe the lead vocal is too loud.  I would guess about 5db or so.  I think I'm hearing some compression artifacts.  Did you use a compressor on the lead vocal?
The mix is bass heavy.
I know you worked hard on this and that's great.  I believe your putting time into things that aren't getting you big returns though.  In my opinion, panning isn't that much of an issue.  One could do a mix with all the instruments in the center and get it close..  This isn't a slam in any way, it's an observation about how many will think panning is super important.  I personally don't believe that's true.  Yes, panning does open the mix up, but I would say it's better to get the mix sounding good in mono and them work on the panning.  Food for thought.

I see you did a lot of EQ to the parts.  You found the parts were not good on their own?  I know there are a few schools of thought on this.  Some want to enhance the sound, some want to make 'space' for other instruments to get around masking.  Some don't even think masking is an issue.  Anyway, I'm wondering if you had stuff un-eq'd and later decided it didn't sound good.  I'm not trying to put you on the spot, just looking to get some dialog going.

[Cary]

I'm goinng to call this final because my 20G hard drive was full and I had over a gigs worth of mixes and tracks dedicated to this tune. It doesn't sparkle as much as I'd like it to (as it the clarity of the mix), but I did get something out of the clinic. I finally found a deesser that I can work with in the fish fillets from digitalfishphones. That was well wotrh the effort in itself.

I'll be lurking 

Preston- Sorry it's taken so long for me to comment...
I would love to hear your mix without any sort of 'mastering'.  I hear lots of pumping and I believe its in a attempt to get your mix loud.
(I'm hearing one of the guitar parts that is out of time.  I'm feeling kinda bad about a lot of mixes that couldn't properly get the guitar synced.  I really should have had that sorted before letting everyone have the tracks.  True, most of the more experienced mixers knew how to get it lined up but it's not something we should have had to deal with in a mix clinic.)
The lead vocal is too loud on this and get's louder on certain parts.  Did you do some automation in certain areas?

I'd really like to help you get this better.  If you'd be willing to do some work and take direction, perhaps some good can come from it.  On the other hand, we can just go on to the next clinic which I will make sure is very few tracks and will focus on sound quality.

 

[Bassic_Soul]

I'd really like to help you get this better.  If you'd be willing to do some work and take direction, perhaps some good can come from it.  On the other hand, we can just go on to the next clinic which I will make sure is very few tracks and will focus on sound quality.

Cary,

Thank you for your comments and your offer.

As I remember the lead vocal was the only track that had no volume panning on it. I did use a soft knee compression that was built into the track EQ rack in n-track. The plug ins were SPITFISH & a Sony delay set very short. I normally would have used the Classic Master Limiter you showed me but that really stepped up the pumping that you mentioned so I just got the track as loud as I could with no master effects.

I have deleted the entire folder for disk space so I would rather move to the next project. Also I'm burnt out on this tune. How do you deal with the burn out issue as a pro? Any tips there?

Thanks again for running the clinic and all your time.

[DoozerDan]

Ok, I think I'm happy with this now.  So I'll call it a final, but anything that you guys spot, I'd love to know about, so I can fix. A small point that bugs me is, about 1:52 seconds through, is a is a small ticking noise, just once, but enough to be annoying...

Ok, now for what I've done....

<snip>

Hi Dan - I just listened to your latest mix.  Here's what struck me on first impression.  Oh, and I'm going to be straight... don't take any of these comments as anything but helpful critique.
I believe the lead vocal is too loud.  I would guess about 5db or so.  I think I'm hearing some compression artifacts.  Did you use a compressor on the lead vocal?
The mix is bass heavy.
I know you worked hard on this and that's great.  I believe your putting time into things that aren't getting you big returns though.  In my opinion, panning isn't that much of an issue.  One could do a mix with all the instruments in the center and get it close..  This isn't a slam in any way, it's an observation about how many will think panning is super important.  I personally don't believe that's true.  Yes, panning does open the mix up, but I would say it's better to get the mix sounding good in mono and them work on the panning.  Food for thought.

I see you did a lot of EQ to the parts.  You found the parts were not good on their own?  I know there are a few schools of thought on this.  Some want to enhance the sound, some want to make 'space' for other instruments to get around masking.  Some don't even think masking is an issue.  Anyway, I'm wondering if you had stuff un-eq'd and later decided it didn't sound good.  I'm not trying to put you on the spot, just looking to get some dialog going.

Hey, sorry I've taken awhile to reply.. Didn't see that anyone posted here.

That's awesome, just what I wanted to know.  I didn't spend that long panning, I actually haven't touched it much for awhile.  It just takes a while to list the panned settings for 29 odd tracks  

Vocals to load now.  Good.  At last, now I can turn them down again, and drop some of the compression.  And do loads of stuff to it all.

The EQing, was mainly to set the guitars at the mid, the vocals on the highs, and bass, drums etc on the lows.  'Cause I think they sit better like that, each in it's own area sort of thing.  That was the plan anyway. 

Bass to loud, yup.  I can see why.  I've not had a listen to it on another speaker set up, mainly 'cause I don't really have another to listen to it on.  And my head phones aren't bass heavy, so I guess I went for good bass on them   I'll listen to some other bands stuff, and compare the bass levels and sort that out.

Thanks for that.  Now I've got something to work on again... Now to find the time, with work started up again..

Cheers, Dan.

P.S.  It's great that someone will give me a straight answer, with out trying to soften it up...

[jeff]

Firstly, this is a nice, catchy song.  My compliments to Ray and whomever else contributed. Sorry if I missed the obvious... I probably skimmed right over the credits.

Alrighty, here is my thought process....

I feel the song should be performed with just a few basics components. A good song won't need anything more than that.

I stripped it down, so the song could be performed easily, anywhere, at anytime by 3 band members. I'd stick a tambourine in the drummer's hand. He'd chill til the start of  the 2nd verse. I'd also slice the tune down to 3-1/2 mins.

I don't know how to use AutoTune or any corrective plugins.  So I only used the default Compress in Ray's lead, and Default EQ on the entire mix...and faded the end.

Jeff

[Cary]

Jeff-
Cool.  The unplugged mix 
The lead vocal was a touch too loud (for me) but overall I thought you had a good idea.  Strip it down.   
Using this approach, perhaps editing it down to 3 and a half minutes would work too.
Cool man.. thanks for playing