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#1
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Please Critique this mix - there are some great respected ears in here -
Please, Please, do NOT....
......don't say you don't like the girls voice, you don't like the song, that there is too much stuff going on, or not enough stuff, it's too sparce etc..... Those are Production details, which I am NOT looking for a critique on. I AM HOWEVER hoping to get some thoughts from some great professional ears that post in here on a frequent basis. It's a mushy, new country ballad, so many of you won't like the song, or the production right off the bat. There is however, lots of stuff going on.....and at times, not much at all. The track has... Drums (lots of drum room) Bass 3 Acoustics Whirlitzer Grand Piano Mandolin 4 electric guitars 9 piece string section Synth Pad 3 vocals I know mp3 is a horrible sonic representation compared to a hi-res mix, obviously take that into account, I don't have the bandwidth for the potential traffic generated by this post, for everyone to download a 38meg 44,100 16 aiff Basically, I'm going for an intimate sounding, warm, wide mix, and need to know if I'm getting there by leaving most things flat, and dry, except for the vocals. Intimate, and "organic" can easilly cross into "amateur" mode, and sound like a rough 2, lots of room, no rev on anything except for the vocals and steel guitar. All sonic thoughts, critiques, praise, dislikes, and advice are welcome. http://members.rogers.com/studio/Heart'sStillBreaking.mp3 -- David Kalmusky Visit the "DRAWER OF SHAME" if you dare, audio that should never be heard !!! http://www.kalmusky.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=40 Or... Post your crazy studio mishaps, and funny studio stories, in my "studio s HOSes forum" http://www.kalmusky.com/forum/forum.asp?FORUM_ID=6 |
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#2
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Please Critique this mix - there are some great respected ears inhere -
David Kalmusky wrote: Please, Please, do NOT.... .....don't say you don't like the girls voice, you don't like the song, that there is too much stuff going on, or not enough stuff, it's too sparce etc..... Those are Production details, which I am NOT looking for a critique on. SNIP All sonic thoughts, critiques, praise, dislikes, and advice are welcome. Those thoughts seem to be contradictory but at any rate... I think you have a terrific mix. I like the girls voice. Why so many disclaimers. Country music is just as valid as any other music mushy or not. Let's see some back bone. My system has everything about in the right place and it sounds nice. Here's the stuff you said you don't want. I think you need a stronger statement/melody in the intro. The fiddle or the pedal or even the wurli would be nice to hear it stronger. At the "b" part of the 1st verse you lose the singer and the story she is singing. From "I thought by now" to "anticipating" is unclear like you are trying to hide the lyrics. This treatment reminds me of Shelby Lynne's "I Lie Myself To Sleep" on Tough All Over. Only I can always follow Shelby's words and the song story. I also think that in the chorus you need to pull the hi hat pattern up to 16th notes where you do the staccato figure. My ears just want to hear something more intense and pushy there. Maybe not the HH but something needed to happen there. Maybe a counter BG layer or something. Also in the 1/2 chorus that serves as a bridge it would be nice to have a quicker pulse for just a few bars where it's staccato. Last...I wanted to hear a full chorus again at the end. I wasn't done with the song where you ended it. I wanted it to take me farther. If I'm going to invest my attention in your song I was my full moneys worth. Don't go skipping out early. That's about it. I like the voice alot. Sounds alot like Shelby Lynne. Patric |
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#3
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Please Critique this mix - there are some great respected ears inhere -
Ha! Now that I listen again....that's what IS there isn't it. I'm done
now. Patric David Kalmusky wrote: Please, Please, do NOT.... .....don't say you don't like the girls voice, you don't like the song, that there is too much stuff going on, or not enough stuff, it's too sparce etc..... Those are Production details, which I am NOT looking for a critique on. I AM HOWEVER hoping to get some thoughts from some great professional ears that post in here on a frequent basis. It's a mushy, new country ballad, so many of you won't like the song, or the production right off the bat. There is however, lots of stuff going on.....and at times, not much at all. The track has... Drums (lots of drum room) Bass 3 Acoustics Whirlitzer Grand Piano Mandolin 4 electric guitars 9 piece string section Synth Pad 3 vocals I know mp3 is a horrible sonic representation compared to a hi-res mix, obviously take that into account, I don't have the bandwidth for the potential traffic generated by this post, for everyone to download a 38meg 44,100 16 aiff Basically, I'm going for an intimate sounding, warm, wide mix, and need to know if I'm getting there by leaving most things flat, and dry, except for the vocals. Intimate, and "organic" can easilly cross into "amateur" mode, and sound like a rough 2, lots of room, no rev on anything except for the vocals and steel guitar. All sonic thoughts, critiques, praise, dislikes, and advice are welcome. http://members.rogers.com/studio/Heart'sStillBreaking.mp3 -- David Kalmusky Visit the "DRAWER OF SHAME" if you dare, audio that should never be heard !!! http://www.kalmusky.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=40 Or... Post your crazy studio mishaps, and funny studio stories, in my "studio s HOSes forum" http://www.kalmusky.com/forum/forum.asp?FORUM_ID=6 |
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#4
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Please Critique this mix - there are some great respected ears in here -
"David Kalmusky" wrote in message
All sonic thoughts, critiques, praise, dislikes, and advice are welcome. http://members.rogers.com/studio/Heart'sStillBreaking.mp3 Plusses: good, perhaps even excellent musical values. C&W isn't my genre of choice but I could listen to this kind of music all night with the right food and company. Good art & craft is good for me in *any* genre. Minuses: too bright and clipped, thin-sounding. I get instant ear-burn listening to it with 7506s. The Adobe Audition FFT filter called "de-esser" with the 9 KHz hole reduced to about 6 dB (from 10) and an added rise of 3 dB at the bottom end, gives a nice start on mastering for a listen, natural-sounding product. |
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#5
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Please Critique this mix - there are some great respected ears inhere -
Sorry. On one listen through I heard the string line before the 2nd verse
and fired off a reply saying that would be a good intro figure. When I listened to the piece again from the beginning I saw that indeed the string line was right where I suggested it should be. Probably why I thought it was such a good idea. Ha! I should have referenced the post I posted right before this one (that one?). Who is the artist? Where is she in her career? Is this her first project? Good work and good luck. Patric David Kalmusky wrote: In article , says... Ha! Now that I listen again....that's what IS there isn't it. I'm done now. Patric Can you please elaborate ??? I'm not sure i get it ?? David Kalmusky |
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#6
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Please Critique this mix - there are some great respected ears in here -
I like the girls voice. Why so many disclaimers.
Country music is just as valid as any other music mushy or not. Let's see some back bone. Yes, didn't mean to "disclaim" country music, again, I wanted to focus on what IS there, and not ideas of "Big guitars" and "drum loops" from a multitude of listeners working in other genres, I've been producing country music for 15 years, make my living doing it, and if i thought it sucked, i'd be living a sad little life, sorry for the disclaimers, it was more of a psycological ploy to keep the posts focused on the subject i requeststed, i've seen how posts stray un-controllably from the issue at hand, however.... i am not a psycologist, I'm a music producer, and i should probably just let the masses do, what they do ! I love the gils voice too, and have a great deal of respect for the artist, As a result, I wanted to eliminate her, and her performance from critique, this post, I really just wanted mix comments, which you contributed some excellent thoughts. Here's the stuff you said you don't want. snip At the "b" part of the 1st verse you lose the singer and the story she is singing. From "I thought by now" to "anticipating" is unclear like you are trying to hide the lyrics. This treatment reminds me of Shelby Lynne's "I Lie Myself To Sleep" on Tough All Over. Only I can always follow Shelby's words and the song story. No - I need to know this, very valid, you don't know the song, her lyrics are getting lost to you, HOSemely important, and needs to be rectified, I know the song, I co-wrote it, produced it, played on it, engineered it, and mixed it, I've heard it over 200 times, at this point, i'm sure, even when focusing on the mix, i take some of the words forgranted, thankyou for this comment. I also think that in the chorus you need to pull the hi hat pattern up to 16th notes where you do the staccato figure. My ears just want to hear something more intense and pushy there. Maybe not the HH but something needed to happen there. Maybe a counter BG layer or something. Also in the 1/2 chorus that serves as a bridge it would be nice to have a quicker pulse for just a few bars where it's staccato. Last...I wanted to hear a full chorus again at the end. I wasn't done with the song where you ended it. I love breaking the listener's heart with the song ending, leaving a tad of un-resolve, wanting more, again... arrangement, and production, is subjective, 20 arrangers, and 20 producers would make entirely different choices, as would 20 different mixing engineers, however....after 15 years of arranging and producing, my word isn't remotely god, nor is it neccisarrily the "Best" production, or arrangement for the piece, but it is my "Signature" and I've learned to make decisions, stand by them, fall in love with them, and move on, I know the client, and record company trust me not to wreck their song, and that's good enough for me to have the confidence in that department without going into detail on why, or "what i was going for" - as for mixing, this is the first project I have taken on, and decided to mix, I'm totally open, a little insecure, and not as sure of myself, as I am in other departments, and really appreciate all your great feedback. Thanks Patric -- David Kalmusky Visit the "DRAWER OF SHAME" if you dare, audio that should never be heard !!! http://www.kalmusky.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=40 Or... Post your crazy studio mishaps, and funny studio stories, in my "studio stories forum" http://www.kalmusky.com/forum/forum.asp?FORUM_ID=6 |
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#8
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Please Critique this mix - there are some great respected ears in here -
David Kalmusky wrote in message ...
Please, Please, do NOT.... .....don't say you don't like the girls voice, you don't like the song, that there is too much stuff going on, or not enough stuff, it's too sparce etc..... Those are Production details, which I am NOT looking for a critique on. I AM HOWEVER hoping to get some thoughts from some great professional ears that post in here on a frequent basis. It's a mushy, new country ballad, so many of you won't like the song, or the production right off the bat. There is however, lots of stuff going on.....and at times, not much at all. The track has... Drums (lots of drum room) Bass 3 Acoustics Whirlitzer Grand Piano Mandolin 4 electric guitars 9 piece string section Synth Pad 3 vocals I know mp3 is a horrible sonic representation compared to a hi-res mix, obviously take that into account, I don't have the bandwidth for the potential traffic generated by this post, for everyone to download a 38meg 44,100 16 aiff Basically, I'm going for an intimate sounding, warm, wide mix, and need to know if I'm getting there by leaving most things flat, and dry, except for the vocals. Intimate, and "organic" can easilly cross into "amateur" mode, and sound like a rough 2, lots of room, no rev on anything except for the vocals and steel guitar. All sonic thoughts, critiques, praise, dislikes, and advice are welcome. http://members.rogers.com/studio/Heart'sStillBreaking.mp3 -- David Kalmusky b******r I'm not a pro so my advice should be taken as such. I don't know what equiptment you are working with but this sounds really close to the real deal to me. A bit sibilant but that could be fixed by a good master. Keeping the instruments dry.... you're walking a tightrope there. When all the instruments are plying I.E. the intro, it's not, but somewhat close to sounding cluttered, I would say because everything occupies the same dry, natural space. I don't know enough about this genre to offer appropriate suggestions but whatever I would try would be very subtile because again, this sounds really close to radio stuff to me. Maybe eq some instruments to be smaller than others or a really tight (milliseconds) delay on one or two things. In the first verse the arpeggiating guitar sounds a bit stark which I thought drew too much attention to itself. There was a staccato string figure which I thought had the same effect. These could be remedied with a really subtile reverb or delay. Subtile changes always seem to make the best improvement to me. The tracking sounds great. It sounds like you didn't use a lot of eq, which I like, and hey, the vocals sound pitch corrected so that alone gets you halfway to country gold! |
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#9
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Please Critique this mix - there are some great respected ears in here -
David Kalmusky ) wrote:
Ok - this is what i need - Thin..... I DONT want a thin mix... I want fat, and warm.... the mix had a light L1 sparingly applied to increase levels a bit to put the whole thing in perspective, however, George Graves at the Lacquer Channel in Toronto, Canada will be mastering this project, and i'll be removing the L1 from the mixes i bring to him. At 0:42, on the fourth syllable of "an-ti-ci-paaa-ting", is the L1 or something else on the stereo bus clamping down, maybe triggered by a low E from the bass? - Brian |
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#11
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Please Critique this mix - there are some great respected ears in here -
In article ,
says... David Kalmusky ) wrote: Ok - this is what i need - Thin..... I DONT want a thin mix... I want fat, and warm.... the mix had a light L1 sparingly applied to increase levels a bit to put the whole thing in perspective, however, George Graves at the Lacquer Channel in Toronto, Canada will be mastering this project, and i'll be removing the L1 from the mixes i bring to him. At 0:42, on the fourth syllable of "an-ti-ci-paaa-ting", is the L1 or something else on the stereo bus clamping down, maybe triggered by a low E from the bass? - Brian You Know Brian... I hear it too now... but just in the vocal... it doesn't seem to me like the whole track is getting sucked into the void... just the vocal, I drew a vol graph line on that sylable and brought it up 1.5 db it seems to straighten it out for me over here, just as a saftey precaution, as per your mention, and the fact that the bass note is very predominant, I pulled back that bass note 1db. the L1 is not showing any gain reduction, just broght up to the point of the slightest flicker, then brought back a db. thanks for your meticulous listening. David -- David Kalmusky Visit the "DRAWER OF SHAME" if you dare, audio that should never be heard !!! http://www.kalmusky.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=40 Or... Post your crazy studio mishaps, and funny studio stories, in my "studio stories forum" http://www.kalmusky.com/forum/forum.asp?FORUM_ID=6 |
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#12
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Please Critique this mix - there are some great respected ears in here -
In article ,
says... David Kalmusky wrote: being completely honest, about 25% of the vocal has pitch correction implimented to tighen up the vocal and make it a little more "Pristene" however, At what point did people start deciding that the use of pitch correction was mandatory? Who says the vocals have to sound perfect? I want the singer to sound human. Humans aren't perfect. Of course there are limitations, and would be singers who really can't sing. But that is a different discussion. -Rob I agree, the rest of my previous post coincided with that thought precicely. absolutely not manditory, and in fact, the last thing i think about when i'm cutting a vocal. I elect to used it, sparingly, more as an effect, to tighten harmonies occasionally, on a vocal, as long as it does NOT remove the human aspect from the performance. Some vocals, I don't use it at all, other vocals, maybe 10% of the track, others a little more. humans aren't perfect, absolutely, neither are drums, but we occasionally compress them, and put reverb on them, a drum doesn't sound off reverb, every time you hit it in every environment, now... with that in mind, some people over process drums, gate, squash, tons of reverb.... i don't like that either, i prefer a natural sounding kit, but have many tools at my disposal to go for things sonically when making music, and records, in this day and age that have evolved many moons beyond banging a drum by candle light in a cave. If I "over use" these tools, on drums, or vocals, or anything for that matter, then i suppose that is "My sound" when making a record, however, in my case, it is not. I set out to make the best sounding record possibe, with what ever tools i have available to me. fortunately for me, I've had the lucky opportunity to work with artists that'll blow you away, singing in a room with an acoustic guitar as accompaniment, that performance is always there, and it's my job to make a great record, capture that performance without steralizing it with all of these toys in the recording process, however, I elect to use them ocassionally, at different times, I've even used tuning technology to pull a vocal just a tad bit less than perfect, from whence it came, to create some tension, and widen harmonies, some of the BG session singers are so perfect, they CANT sing, just slightly out of tune, and if it's what I am going for, i can achieve it, and have, many times in the past. my job is to make the best sounding record I can, and leave the acoustic performance in the room full of listeners, up to the artist, most of the ones I have worked with, can not only cut it, they are brilliant at it. But you're right... let's not get on the auto-tune thread, i'm really not interested in it, it's such a tiny little insignifigant part of what I do, I don't want to sit around and talk about what reverb is better then the next either, i have my favorites, and my own little thing going on over here, some people love my work, some people hate it, and they always will, it's a different discussion. -- David Kalmusky Visit the "DRAWER OF SHAME" if you dare, audio that should never be heard !!! http://www.kalmusky.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=40 Or... Post your crazy studio mishaps, and funny studio stories, in my "studio stories forum" http://www.kalmusky.com/forum/forum.asp?FORUM_ID=6 |
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#13
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Please Critique this mix - there are some great respected ears in here -
I like this mix. The only things that caught my ear is the hihats...could
be brought down 1 or 2 dB and the snare up 1 or 2 dB. I found my self straining to hear the snare at places and being destracted (very slightly) by the Hihats. I'll listen to this again a few more times and see if more things pop out! BTW, nice song and she has a great voice! |
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#14
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Please Critique this mix - there are some great respected ears in here -
In article , area242
@REMOVEyahoo.com says... I like this mix. The only things that caught my ear is the hihats...could be brought down 1 or 2 dB and the snare up 1 or 2 dB. I found my self straining to hear the snare at places and being destracted (very slightly) by the Hihats. I'll listen to this again a few more times and see if more things pop out! BTW, nice song and she has a great voice! Thanks, it's not a big "drum song" I do agree with you, however most of the HH are in the room mics, I don't want to really bring the room down on this recording, i'm really liking it, and I'm ok with a predominant HH as a compramise. I felt the kik was a little loud on the outro, i brough it down 1.5 db, but I'm ok with the hats being pretty strong in the room, which is up quite a bit on this track. I do agree with you however, the drums are good and strong in the verses, there isn't much competition, so you can hear the snare, and drum room, pretty rockin' the kit becomes a little overwhelmed by the wall of strings, vocals, synth pad, piano in the choruses, but I don't mind this so much, I'm really featuring that instrumentation. I may back the room off a tad, and yank up the snare in the choruses, thankyou for your input, and compliments. -- David Kalmusky Visit the "DRAWER OF SHAME" if you dare, audio that should never be heard !!! http://www.kalmusky.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=40 Or... Post your crazy studio mishaps, and funny studio stories, in my "studio stories forum" http://www.kalmusky.com/forum/forum.asp?FORUM_ID=6 |
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#15
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Please Critique this mix - there are some great respected earsinhere -
Rob Adelman wrote:
David Kalmusky wrote: being completely honest, about 25% of the vocal has pitch correction implimented to tighen up the vocal and make it a little more "Pristene" however, At what point did people start deciding that the use of pitch correction was mandatory? About the time the technology to "make it so" came available. Who says the vocals have to sound perfect? Dunno. Whoever likes that sort of thing, I guess. It's not without precedent - barbershop, the Osmonds and The Beach Boys all depended on close harmony with tight pitch control. I want the singer to sound human. Humans aren't perfect. Of course there are limitations, and would be singers who really can't sing. But that is a different discussion. And no constraint who will actually end up singing. -Rob -- Les Cargill |
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#16
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Please Critique this mix - there are some great respected ears in here -
My ear isn't respected as much as most in this newsgroup, but I enjoy
your mix very much. I'm biting my tongue on production notes, but I think all the instruments sound very natural. I can hear all the nuances of the instruments you recorded, and I especially like the sound of the piano. Good work, Jeff |
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#17
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Please Critique this mix - BIG RANT on producers - Sorry !!
In article ,
says... My ear isn't respected as much as most in this newsgroup, but I enjoy your mix very much. I'm biting my tongue on production notes, but I think all the instruments sound very natural. I can hear all the nuances of the instruments you recorded, and I especially like the sound of the piano. Good work, Jeff Thank you Jeff, much appreciated, and kudos to you for biting your tongue on the production notes, not easy ... is it?? (bit of a rant....) Part of my job as an engineer for years, was sitting at the console, biting my tonge while producers made STUPID arrangement choices, and even worse production desicions, but as some of those songs landed top 10, I had to chalk it up to their character, and realize they were not bad enough choices to wreck the song, I'll always hear it differently in my head than they do, and you do, that's what gives us our individuallity. I often go back to a producer I worked under for a while who's a bit of a guru, well respected, high demand, lots of awards, gold records, and all high profile clients for the last 25 years, I refer to him as "Father Music" in 3rd party conversations, he's the only one that i would probably re-cut an entire track, if he thought I needed to, I'd change any part he thought intrusive, or add anything reccomended, and I always go there, expecting, and welcoming those types of suggestions. He NEVER gives them to me, the most he'll ever say is, "great work' "really great track" or ... I'm not crazy about the song.... but the production is really good. At one point I was lost, i was near the end of a track, and it wasn't sitting right with me, I needed Legitimate, serious help, and I was lost for ideas, i played him the cut, without any setup, or negativity, and just said, "what do you think of this?" His response was instantly... "no...no... you've got a way better one in you than that, walk away from it... it'll come to you" I jumped on it as opportunity and asked "should i change the groove?, is it too slow?, what about a more acoustic arrangement?" he just said, "you know you'll try all this anyway, and you'll work on it till it sits right with you, till the track becomes you, then you'll play it with pride for everyone else in the industry, who will tell you how they would do it differently, but you, and hopefully the artist, will know, in the pit of your gut, that it's as it should be, you know the drill, why do you even ask these questions, we should be talking about golf, or world poletics, you knew the track sucked when you walked in here, i know you did, I don't create like you, and you don't create like I do, even if i gave you an idea of mine for the track, you'll never feel like it is entirely your track, you won't get the same feeling, pride, and attachement to it, it'll just become a slate of work that you'll be done with, the song, the artist, and you, don't want that" That was about 10 years ago, I've never looked outward for advice since, I've researched, listened for inspiration, but it's all came from me in the end, good and bad, and I've kept my morgage up, bought a shiny new truck, and enjoy litening to all of my work, even after it's finished. This all stems down to not wanting production insight on the piece, famous guitarists in the industry that think they are a better player than jimmy page, would rarely walk up to him and say "you should have played "this" in dazed and Confused" as I'm sure one known blues player in a city would rarely say the same sort of thing to another. I make my living producing music, and have for some time, doesn't mean my sonic choices are great, right, wrong, too sparce, or too busy for everyone, there are many people in the industry that adore what i do, and many people that think I'm a hack, and always will. My production, is a guitarist's guitar playing, be it technical or feel oriented, a little out of tune at times, too busy, or whatever the case, it's how I play. Geeze, sorry for the rant, I really just don't want anyone getting the idea that I think I'm "god's gift to production" and that no one would have anything valid to contribute, on the contrary, everything is valid... but valid for them, and the music that they produce. this rant is really just a clear explanation that there is no lack of respect for the other producers in here, I know I' HOS a fan of a ton of music made by people in here, and i know, given the acoustic track, and the vocal to 100 people of that song, and a budget, you'd have 100 completely different sounding songs, some great, that half would hate, and some bad, that half would love. Enough babble... back to work, thanks again for your comments, and tongue biting. -- David Kalmusky Visit the "DRAWER OF SHAME" if you dare, audio that should never be heard !!! http://www.kalmusky.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=40 Or... Post your crazy studio mishaps, and funny studio stories, in my "studio stories forum" http://www.kalmusky.com/forum/forum.asp?FORUM_ID=6 |
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#18
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Please Critique this mix - there are some great respected ears in here -
I'm probably not one of the people you were thinking of when you said 'great
respected ears' but I'll take up a little space in this thread anyway! ;-) So to do was I was told not to do, I really like this song! Really nice arrangement and performances. I like the singer. To me it's very reminisent of 'middle period' Amy Grant ( and I do mean that as a compliment ) Really nice mix so far too. Most of this stuff is minor and in my humble opinion but : - it seems like some of the instuments are competing with the lead vocals at times, in particular the slide guitar, snare drum and grand piano. ( especially when listening at low volumes ) Maybe rein them in a little more or compress the lead vocal a tad more? - I don't know if this was all multi-tracked or what but it's lacking a little cohesivness and doesn't 'quite' sound enough like a band of emotionally charged musicians playing together. Maybe a little overall compression / reverb / EQ etc might help? - the mix seems a little light on the bottom. It would be nice to hear more bass guitar in particular. Maybe compressed so the notes sustain a little more and provide a more solid bottom. Possibly a little more low end 'omph' from the toms and piano would be nice and a hair more from the bass drum. - It would be nice to hear a little more energy in the chorus'. I know this is more of an arrangement/performance/production thing but maybe increacing the gain on the choruses or lowering the gain on the verses just a hair might help. Anyway, beautiful job by everyone involved. I've only listened to it so far on some 'good' computer speakers but I know them well and I've listened to the song about 20 times so far. Keep up the good work. I can only hope that my mixes will turn out to be as enjoyable to listen to as yours! Best of luck! John L Rice PS - who is the artist? "David Kalmusky" wrote in message ... Please, Please, do NOT.... .....don't say you don't like the girls voice, you don't like the song, that there is too much stuff going on, or not enough stuff, it's too sparce etc..... Those are Production details, which I am NOT looking for a critique on. I AM HOWEVER hoping to get some thoughts from some great professional ears that post in here on a frequent basis. It's a mushy, new country ballad, so many of you won't like the song, or the production right off the bat. There is however, lots of stuff going on.....and at times, not much at all. The track has... Drums (lots of drum room) Bass 3 Acoustics Whirlitzer Grand Piano Mandolin 4 electric guitars 9 piece string section Synth Pad 3 vocals I know mp3 is a horrible sonic representation compared to a hi-res mix, obviously take that into account, I don't have the bandwidth for the potential traffic generated by this post, for everyone to download a 38meg 44,100 16 aiff Basically, I'm going for an intimate sounding, warm, wide mix, and need to know if I'm getting there by leaving most things flat, and dry, except for the vocals. Intimate, and "organic" can easilly cross into "amateur" mode, and sound like a rough 2, lots of room, no rev on anything except for the vocals and steel guitar. All sonic thoughts, critiques, praise, dislikes, and advice are welcome. http://members.rogers.com/studio/Heart'sStillBreaking.mp3 -- David Kalmusky Visit the "DRAWER OF SHAME" if you dare, audio that should never be heard !!! http://www.kalmusky.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=40 Or... Post your crazy studio mishaps, and funny studio stories, in my "studio s HOSes forum" http://www.kalmusky.com/forum/forum.asp?FORUM_ID=6 |
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#19
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Please Critique this mix - there are some great respected ears in here -
SNIP
- it seems like some of the instuments are competing with the lead vocals at times, in particular the slide guitar, snare drum and grand piano. ( especially when listening at low volumes ) Maybe rein them in a little more or compress the lead vocal a tad more? That's what I like about the whole mass, general consensus thing, this is the 3rd comment on losing the vocal, I've since turned up specifically noted parts by 1.5db and yanked up the whole vocal, on top of that another DB, i'd like to not squash them if I don't have to, they were recorded through a neve pre and a manley limiter, that is enough squashing for me. but as per your post, I've yanked the vox on the choruses up another .5db - so thankyou for listening. - the mix seems a little light on the bottom. It would be nice to hear more bass guitar in particular. Maybe compressed so the notes sustain a little more and provide a more solid bottom. Possibly a little more low end 'omph' from the toms and piano would be nice and a hair more from the bass drum. Yes this has also been commented on, I don't want to take a thin mix in to be mastered, and "beefed up" I'd rather take a fat mix in, and roll it off in the mastering, i'll be looking into fattening the bass, kick, synth pad, room mic, piano in small incruments. - It would be nice to hear a little more energy in the chorus'. I know this is more of an arrangement/performance/production thing but maybe increacing the gain on the choruses or lowering the gain on the verses just a hair might help. Production wise, (which i didn't want to comment on, but I will)... her heart's still breaking, vulnerable, strings, we don't want to get too much into "Power balad mode" with this one, we still want some soft intimacies, we don't want all of that soft vulnarabillity to just wash away, and punch you in the face in the chorus, typically this is where the big, distort-o guitars come in, on this track, they never do, you might expect it, but they never show up, and I'm actually quite happy about it, i really discussed not lifting the chorus too - too much on this one, with the artist, maintaining some continuity with the vibe of the intro, and we are both happy. However - Great production trick / tip / tool, I have used it many, many times, even gone as far as lowering the verses 2.5 db, with a pretty quick sweep back up to 0db for the choruses, I totally know what you're getting at - and you're right, that would provide quite a lift. Anyway, beautiful job by everyone involved. I've only listened to it so far on some 'good' computer speakers but I know them well and I've listened to the song about 20 times so far. Thank-you, and the musicians and artist thank you, i'm sure, in spirit, and sentiment, thanks for a great post john, with some great contributions, thankyou for listening so many times, and so meticulously. I have changed the level of the vocal after reading your post, i agree with you on all points, thanks again for contributing. ___ David Kalmusky Visit the "DRAWER OF SHAME" if you dare, audio that should never be heard !!! http://www.kalmusky.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=40 Or... Post your crazy studio mishaps, and funny studio stories, in my "studio stories forum" http://www.kalmusky.com/forum/forum.asp?FORUM_ID=6 |
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#20
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Please Critique this mix - there are some great respected ears in here -
The tracking sounds great. It sounds like you didn't use a lot of eq, which I like, and hey, the vocals sound pitch corrected so that alone gets you halfway to country gold! Eeek ! this alarms me a wee bit. being completely honest, about 25% of the vocal has pitch correction implimented to tighen up the vocal and make it a little more "Pristene" however, in this day and age, where everything is comped from 3 passes, and is run, from a-z through auto-tune mode, I'm generally known for working with the vocalist on performance, breath, air, dynamics, and I'll sparingly, and selectively graph tune moments in what was already a stellar performance, as said before, to tighen up moments in the track, for that uphoric "perfect" thang. I've been hired on several ocasions, just to cut vocals with artists on their records, cause I'll spend all day with them, rather than all day with the auto-tuner. If you can hear it.... i've gon too far, and your detection of it is VERY important to me. let me know what words, and area's are pulling your ears into "tuner mode" I'd REALLY appreciate it. Although this is more of a Production thing, I'm convinced that a ton of producers, and engineers in nashville are so de-sensitized to the auto-tuner, that they actually can't hear it any more, i've sat in the control room, many MANY times, thinking to myself, "you're kidding...right?" to hear it go out as a final, and land on CMT and the radio, and I honestly think, after day in, and day out, their ears have become immune to it, I fear that my theory may be true, in which case, I'm not excluded from immunity to hearing it. let me know what you hear. David, I think your use of auto tune is very tasteful and my comment about "pitch correction" was more of a friendly jab at the country genre than your production. I think that these days a country song, or pop song for that matter, sounds unique if it DOESN'T have Auto Tune on it. I would leave it like it is personally but to answer your request here are the places that I noticed it most. 1st Pre Chorus - The falsetto "waiting, anticipating." In the 2nd Pre Chorus I could hear it all the way through "never known and now I'm waiting, anticipating" The place that it is most detectable is in the Chorus in the higher voices of the harmony "Time brings healing" That sounds like the plug in was set to auto instead of using graphical mode. Again I don't think that there is a problem. I can hear it because I use Auto Tune a lot and I guess I have a keen ear for it. Most everyone will just think it sounds like country music which is , I think, what you're going for. It's interesting that you like to go the vocal coach route and take your time on getting the pitch right in the performance. I've tried that and many other ways of getting the best performance out of a singer but I must admit, these days I prefer to get the most energetic, soulful performance I can get without being really critical about pitch and then going into graphical mode and fixin' it up later. Whatever ends up sounding good in the end works, I guess  |
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#21
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Please Critique this mix - there are some great respected ears in here -
Nicely done. I did anticipate that the song was going to leave me
"unresolved" and since this was your intention, you made it work perfectly. The mix is really nice. However, "organic" or "intimate" intention should be true to "real world" listening situations. I wanted to hear the strings section in an appropriate room. I haven't had the chance to listen to a 9 piece string section in a living room. (To dry for my taste.) So, my perspective of the strings section on the recording were out of context. I visualize them in a nice wooded room with warm ambience. Might add dimension to the mix (which I thought it was lacking). Try this with the instrumentation, where are the acoustic guitars? In the back of the room? Front of the room? Sitting next to you? On the beach around the campfire? Same with drums. The Vocalist. Does she move in the mix. Foster and Barbra Streisand and the song "Somewhere" is a good example. You said it yourself, "mushy ballad". 25 instruments with vocals is hard to fit in a 300 seat club. Hardly, intimate. Not trying to make it hard on you but just driving my point. Perspective and concept is really tough to hang on to when your mixing. It takes objectivness and self control. You damn near got it my friend. I'm sure you get the idea.....you seem to have a nice touch already. I just wanted to give you an opinion to chew on. Anyway, this is was fun. You did a nice job and it always helps when you have great talent to work with. Good luck, Steve David Kalmusky wrote in message ... Please, Please, do NOT.... .....don't say you don't like the girls voice, you don't like the song, that there is too much stuff going on, or not enough stuff, it's too sparce etc..... Those are Production details, which I am NOT looking for a critique on. I AM HOWEVER hoping to get some thoughts from some great professional ears that post in here on a frequent basis. It's a mushy, new country ballad, so many of you won't like the song, or the production right off the bat. There is however, lots of stuff going on.....and at times, not much at all. The track has... Drums (lots of drum room) Bass 3 Acoustics Whirlitzer Grand Piano Mandolin 4 electric guitars 9 piece string section Synth Pad 3 vocals I know mp3 is a horrible sonic representation compared to a hi-res mix, obviously take that into account, I don't have the bandwidth for the potential traffic generated by this post, for everyone to download a 38meg 44,100 16 aiff Basically, I'm going for an intimate sounding, warm, wide mix, and need to know if I'm getting there by leaving most things flat, and dry, except for the vocals. Intimate, and "organic" can easilly cross into "amateur" mode, and sound like a rough 2, lots of room, no rev on anything except for the vocals and steel guitar. All sonic thoughts, critiques, praise, dislikes, and advice are welcome. http://members.rogers.com/studio/Heart'sStillBreaking.mp3 -- David Kalmusky Visit the "DRAWER OF SHAME" if you dare, audio that should never be heard !!! http://www.kalmusky.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=40 Or... Post your crazy studio mishaps, and funny studio stories, in my "studio s HOSes forum" http://www.kalmusky.com/forum/forum.asp?FORUM_ID=6 |
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#22
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Please Critique this mix - there are some great respected ears in here -
In article ,
says... Nicely done. I did anticipate that the song was going to leave me "unresolved" and since this was your intention, you made it work perfectly. The mix is really nice. However, "organic" or "intimate" intention should be true to "real world" listening situations. I wanted to hear the strings section in an appropriate room. I haven't had the chance to listen to a 9 piece string section in a living room. (To dry for my taste.) So, my perspective of the strings section on the recording were out of context. I visualize them in a nice wooded room with warm ambience. Might add dimension to the mix (which I thought it was lacking). Try this with the instrumentation, where are the acoustic guitars? In the back of the room? Front of the room? Sitting next to you? On the beach around the campfire? Same with drums. The Vocalist. Does she move in the mix. Foster and Barbra Streisand and the song "Somewhere" is a good example. You said it yourself, "mushy ballad". 25 instruments with vocals is hard to fit in a 300 seat club. Hardly, intimate. Not trying to make it hard on you but just driving my point. Perspective and concept is really tough to hang on to when your mixing. It takes objectivness and self control. You damn near got it my friend. I'm sure you get the idea.....you seem to have a nice touch already. I just wanted to give you an opinion to chew on. Anyway, this is was fun. You did a nice job and it always helps when you have great talent to work with. Good luck, Steve Hey Steve, great post, and great thoughts, as a producer, I constantly do all of this, and was fairly meticulous about the perspective on each of the instruments and parts, perhaps this is the point of the whole post, that as a mixing engineer, I'm not able to get it across, I need to hear the room around things, infact everything, it's a huge part of what i do. The Drums and bass were recorded together in a 900 square ft room, with a hard wood floor, and carpeted back wall, the back of the room 8ft high, the front of the room 16 ft high, the bass amp in isolation, in a dead chamber, the main drum room where the bass player stood, and the drummer performed had several room mics placed in it, and were hot in the mix in contrast to the close proximity mics. The acoustic guitar was recorded in a den, 12 x 12 with a 130 year old hard wood floor, 2 wood walls, and 2 burlap walls, with 12 ft ceiling. The strings were recorded in an 1800 squre ft studio floor, carpeted, with maple walls, and a 21 ft ceiling, extremely paralelled with the acoustics of a small 300-500 soft seat theatre. The mandolin was recorded very close, in a dead environment, off the neck, keeping most of the bright tones, allowing the acoustic to contribute body and depth. The vocal, I wanted to always be close, recorded close proximity to a U-47 through a Neve strip, and Manley limiter, standing right beside me in the control room. Your post is very important to me, I am always fairly meticulous with this kind of thought into tracking music, I'm confident in my abillity to make those choices for the track, but curious in my abillities to bring it out in the mix, by your comments, i have failed to provide you with all of the environments i have created during recording, in my final mix.... and this, is exactly what this post is about. I spent 2 days writing and arranging string parts, and hired top call symphony guys to play the parts, directing them to over emphasize their vibrato, giving me a "1950's soap opera kind of drama" I really got that performance out of them, in an incredible huge, and dark / warm room, I REALLY want you to be able to hear that room around their performance, otherwise I'm not achieving my goals after meticulous thought, the fact that it sounds like the string parts are played in a livingroom, to me, makes them generic, sting parts that were or could have just been "Thrown Down" thanks for your post, i'll put some serious consideration into bringing more string room into the track, as long as it doesn't interfear with other perspectives i have created in the track. you know.... it is MP3 which is robbing a considerable amount of harmonics from the final mix... i really need to keep that into consideration as well. nevertheless (just thinking out loud at this point) thanks for your great post. Much appreciated. -------- David Kalmusky Visit the "DRAWER OF SHAME" if you dare, audio that should never be heard !!! http://www.kalmusky.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=40 Or... Post your crazy studio mishaps, and funny studio stories, in my "studio stories forum" http://www.kalmusky.com/forum/forum.asp?FORUM_ID=6 |
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#23
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Please Critique this mix - there are some great respected ears in here -
In article ,
says... Hi David, Thanks for the feed back and discussion. I actually listened to the song this morning once or twice before I went to work but I would of been a half hour late if I would have tried to respond. I figured I would be just repeating most of what others had already said but I liked the song so much I wanted to be apart of the discussion anyways! Right after I posted I got inspired to play around with it a little bit so I just spent the last two hours playing around and 'mastering' it. I realize that mastering converted mp3s is a little like turd polishing, but even in mp3 form this song is no turd . . . and I often ignore common sense so . . . . . http://www.imjohn.com/misc/DavidKalm...gJohnLRice.mp3 Now, I was just comparing the version you posted to the one I just did and I really can't tell much difference but . . .maybe that's somewhat of a good thing? It's funny though because I did a lot of different things. Maybe I'm to close to it at the moment. I'd appreciate yours and anyone else's comments as to if what I did was worth the effort or not and why. If there is interest I'll let you know what I did but I missed dinner and need to correct that situation. Thanks for the inspiration David and band! John L Rice PS - the bass sounded great on my 'actual' system. ;-) Hey John, thanks for taking so much interest, and playing with the file, yes... unfortunately mp3 is bad enough, let alone a 2nd generation conversion, i'm afraid it's lost too much harmonic content to really be certain of the clarity of the mastering curves you've applied. As well, for level purposes, I applied an L1 to the final that I posted, with no real gain reduction, but about as much level boosting that i could stand to listen too before i felt like i was begining to squash dynamics. With that as a start point for your mastering (which i would never do....I'll remove the L1 before I take it to be mastered) I can hear the punping and breathing of the dynamics limiting on your file, especially in the choruses, i'll bet without my L1, it'd be considerably less detectable, but compressing an already boosted, slightly limited file, already at the brink of dynamic detection, just pushes her, over the cliff ! the Eq'ing from what i could hear on a 2nd generation mp3 was really nice, nice choices in bottom end gain, and top roll of, or what ever it was that you did, it did make the whole spectrum a little warmer, and fatter. Thanks again, I'm glad to have provided some sonic experiments, I'm definately not going to master this stuff myself, I'll be taking it to George Graves at the Laquer channel ( U2, Peter Gabriel, etc...) and I'll do it with him, and his ears and gear, I'm just branching into mixing, I'm still at least another decade before I decide to master everything I produce and mix Thanks John, i hope you're enjoying dinner, i'm divorced, i missed too many dinners tweaking mixes... be carefull !!! David |
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#24
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Please Critique this mix - there are some great respected ears in here -
"David Kalmusky" wrote in message ... In article , says... Hi David, Thanks for the feed back and discussion. I actually listened to the song this morning once or twice before I went to work but I would of been a half hour late if I would have tried to respond. I figured I would be just repeating most of what others had already said but I liked the song so much I wanted to be apart of the discussion anyways! Right after I posted I got inspired to play around with it a little bit so I just spent the last two hours playing around and 'mastering' it. I realize that mastering converted mp3s is a little like turd polishing, but even in mp3 form this song is no turd . . . and I often ignore common sense so . .. . . . http://www.imjohn.com/misc/DavidKalm...gJohnLRice.mp3 Now, I was just comparing the version you posted to the one I just did and I really can't tell much difference but . . .maybe that's somewhat of a good thing? It's funny though because I did a lot of different things. Maybe I'm to close to it at the moment. I'd appreciate yours and anyone else's comments as to if what I did was worth the effort or not and why. If there is interest I'll let you know what I did but I missed dinner and need to correct that situation. Thanks for the inspiration David and band! John L Rice PS - the bass sounded great on my 'actual' system. ;-) Hey John, thanks for taking so much interest, and playing with the file, yes... unfortunately mp3 is bad enough, let alone a 2nd generation conversion, i'm afraid it's lost too much harmonic content to really be certain of the clarity of the mastering curves you've applied. As well, for level purposes, I applied an L1 to the final that I posted, with no real gain reduction, but about as much level boosting that i could stand to listen too before i felt like i was begining to squash dynamics. With that as a start point for your mastering (which i would never do....I'll remove the L1 before I take it to be mastered) I can hear the punping and breathing of the dynamics limiting on your file, especially in the choruses, i'll bet without my L1, it'd be considerably less detectable, but compressing an already boosted, slightly limited file, already at the brink of dynamic detection, just pushes her, over the cliff ! the Eq'ing from what i could hear on a 2nd generation mp3 was really nice, nice choices in bottom end gain, and top roll of, or what ever it was that you did, it did make the whole spectrum a little warmer, and fatter. Thanks again, I'm glad to have provided some sonic experiments, I'm definately not going to master this stuff myself, I'll be taking it to George Graves at the Laquer channel ( U2, Peter Gabriel, etc...) and I'll do it with him, and his ears and gear, I'm just branching into mixing, I'm still at least another decade before I decide to master everything I produce and mix Thanks John, i hope you're enjoying dinner, i'm divorced, i missed too many dinners tweaking mixes... be carefull !!! David Hi David, Thanks for the response. It's pretty pointless 'mastering' an mp3 but I've wasted my time in a lot worse ways. ;-) FWIW, working in Wavelab 4 I ( from what I can remember ) : dropped the overall gain -7 db ( for room to work with ) raised the choruses +1 db ( 2 db seemed too much ). I started the gain raise a couple beats prior to the chorus dropped the tail end by -1 db ( starting at about 3:10 ) UAD-1 Pultec EQ : +2 and -1 @ 30 Hz / +2 @ 5kHz width at 5 / -1 @12kHz UAD-1 LA-2A input at 45 / gain reduction at 25 UAD-1 RealVerb big warm room preset at 5% wetness. I rolled off the low end EQ and tweaked the reflections a little added a VST reverb starting at about 3:15 VST puncher soft or medium setting ( forgot which ) at 45% UAD-1 Pultec EQ +1.5 @ 10kHz raised overall gain by a little over +4 db to bring peak level up to -0.1 converted to 192 sample rate mp3 using LAME and high quality setting You know what would be really great. If it's at all possible if you could make the final mix for this one available to me so that I could try my hand at mastering it, and then when the actual album comes out I can compare what I did to what the actual mastering engineer did so I can learn a thing or three by comparison. ( I'd be happy to sign something etc ) Actually, it might be a fun concept for an alternative rec.audio.pro release. Make the wav file available, let a bunch of folks master it, then put everyone's attempts on the cd along with the released version. It could be titled "What made YOU think you knew how to master?" Anyway, thanks for listening and all the feedback. This thread sure has you busy! Best of luck! John L Rice PS - dinner was chicken breast boiled with onions, carrots and celery over white rice with a side of lima beans. YUM! |
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#25
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Please Critique this mix - there are some great respected ears in here -
OK, I'm probably nit-picking here, but I would drop back the vocals
about 1db. Bring up the drum kit about 2db.(not the cymbals) add some snap to the snare boost about 2-3db on 2.5-8k(somewhere in there, hard to tell on my computer speakers and mp3). I agree with the others, I think it sounds real good, the singer is fine, actually quite good. The pedal steel goes on a bit much and the harmony on the vocal is too distractingly long, it should be a little more back and used more sparely in that pre chorus section. Like I said, all minor stuff I'm suggesting here. Aaron Householter studio1117 |
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#26
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Please Critique this mix - there are some great respected ears in here -
In article ,
says... Hi David, Thanks for the response. It's pretty pointless 'mastering' an mp3 but I've wasted my time in a lot worse ways. ;-) FWIW, working in Wavelab 4 I ( from what I can remember ) : dropped the overall gain -7 db ( for room to work with ) raised the choruses +1 db ( 2 db seemed too much ). I started the gain raise a couple beats prior to the chorus dropped the tail end by -1 db ( starting at about 3:10 ) UAD-1 Pultec EQ : +2 and -1 @ 30 Hz / +2 @ 5kHz width at 5 / -1 @12kHz UAD-1 LA-2A input at 45 / gain reduction at 25 UAD-1 RealVerb big warm room preset at 5% wetness. I rolled off the low end EQ and tweaked the reflections a little added a VST reverb starting at about 3:15 VST puncher soft or medium setting ( forgot which ) at 45% UAD-1 Pultec EQ +1.5 @ 10kHz raised overall gain by a little over +4 db to bring peak level up to -0.1 converted to 192 sample rate mp3 using LAME and high quality setting You know what would be really great. If it's at all possible if you could make the final mix for this one available to me so that I could try my hand at mastering it, and then when the actual album comes out I can compare what I did to what the actual mastering engineer did so I can learn a thing or three by comparison. ( I'd be happy to sign something etc ) Actually, it might be a fun concept for an alternative rec.audio.pro release. Make the wav file available, let a bunch of folks master it, then put everyone's attempts on the cd along with the released version. It could be titled "What made YOU think you knew how to master?" Hey John, It's a little alarming, distributing un-finished material, it was probably fairly stupid of me to make this mp3, but I've always been a bit of a trouble maker, I doubt any A&R geeks troll through R.A.P. (and if they do, I just got into trouble number 2) I gained confidence in the mix, and changed some elements of the mix, as per the groups contributions, really, I might do it again, now that I think of it, a great mass consultation of ears, before you go to press with it, is really a great resource to have available, and 10 years ago, would have really been impossible. I'm going to be really careful though, obvioustly, with the versions of files I make available, in this day and age, every kid with an mp3 encoder, and t-racks, squashes the hell out of your music, and puts it on Kazaa, so it's not really a quality control issue anymore, it is however, a matter of being sure that all files that land public, are finals, the tweaks to this mix, that I have made, from R.A.P's contribution, won't generally be audible to the public (also another reason for the "No Production comments" ranting, this is a final, and no major modifications will be taking place. Fire me off an e-mail in a week (I'm on the road for the next 7 days) I should have the final tweaks finished, and an L1 removed version for you to play with, we will have a little agreement that you won't distribute, upload, release, or associate credits to the project, I'll consider it research, and reference on the project, "Another take on the Mastering" I'll tell you what I like to hear, because one of the hardest things about mastering, is interpreting the clients sonic requests, not just making it sound good using "default" practices that you have developed. I am not one of these guys that needs the whole mix in your face, I started in this business recording on Analog 2" mastering to 1/4" and listening to the final product on vinyl, dynamics, dynamics, dynamics ! I hate hearing limiting compressors, beyond how I have used compression in my mix, I never want to hear the whole 2 mix dip, I use compressors, in my mix, on sub groups, and individually, as an effect, and a tone sculpting tool, to allow the room that most things were recorded in, to breathe a bit through the track, I don't want it all squashed together, my mixes are always hot enough to be heard, I'd rather turn the stereo up a little bit, with a more dynamic mix, than have everything average 0db. I love bottom end, I miss bottom end, everybody started rolling off things tighter and tighter at some point, to compensate for the electronic industry having "super Bass Boost" on everything, but most people these days (in country music) over compensate, over brighten, and over squash, for me... the hip hopster's aren't going to be playing my records in their boom box cars, and if their girlfriends do, then I want my bottom end to compete with Mistah - boom-bastic. I generally like to tell who's mastering to master around the vocals as a guide, I spend allot of time and effort, making sure the vocals have a glassy, smooth, present 12-20k without any harshness, or as little as possible, in the 1 - 8k range, I don't want to lose this air, or this glass too much, careful with the roll offs ! Those are my mastering thoughts, old George will fire everything through a quarter million worth of old analog gear, and signal path, and barely tweak the settings on anything, an inch is a mile. drop me an e-mail in 8 - 9 days if you can remember, and I'll see where I'm at with the final on this one. Anyway, thanks for listening and all the feedback. This thread sure has you busy! Yeah, and I'm supposed to be mixing !! Best of luck! John L Rice PS - dinner was chicken breast boiled with onions, carrots and celery over white rice with a side of lima beans. YUM! Dinner for me was 4 coffee's and 2 cigarettes I need to meet another girl to keep me in shape ! -- David Kalmusky Visit the "DRAWER OF SHAME" if you dare, audio that should never be heard !!! http://www.kalmusky.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=40 Or... Post your crazy studio mishaps, and funny studio stories, in my "studio stories forum" http://www.kalmusky.com/forum/forum.asp?FORUM_ID=6 |
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#27
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Please Critique this mix - there are some great respected ears in here -
David Kalmusky wrote in message
Hey David, Someone said, "If you want it to be subtle, make it obvious." I just did some tracking in a really nice room and had the room mic too far away from the drums. This was disappointing because if have had good results from the previous recordings. I just made a mistake and I can't use the "room" as much as I would like. The interesting thing about using room ambience (especially a nice room) is that the general public response is very positive. Most people are attracted to the music and tend to listen as well as enjoy the song. Psychological? Yeah....... dry recordings make for uneasy listening. We live in ambience etc; So, I use it as my best friend when I can. As artists usually have subjective tendencies (lol), sometimes we lose selfcontrol when we are in a creative or producer mode. Forgeting I have heard the song 200 times (golf metaphor, forget your last shot/s) and listen for the first time. If that fails I call my friend up (who's very good at this) and have him listen, then tear me apart......fun isn't it? BTW I listened to the song on my computer speakers; where your time and efforts MUST shine through for me to take your song to a more controlled environment. What you're doing is what song writing, recording, and producing is all about. Very cool..... Steve Hey Steve, great post, and great thoughts, as a producer, I constantly do all of this, and was fairly meticulous about the perspective on each of the instruments and parts, perhaps this is the point of the whole post, that as a mixing engineer, I'm not able to get it across, I need to hear the room around things, infact everything, it's a huge part of what i do. The Drums and bass were recorded together in a 900 square ft room, with a hard wood floor, and carpeted back wall, the back of the room 8ft high, the front of the room 16 ft high, the bass amp in isolation, in a dead chamber, the main drum room where the bass player stood, and the drummer performed had several room mics placed in it, and were hot in the mix in contrast to the close proximity mics. The acoustic guitar was recorded in a den, 12 x 12 with a 130 year old hard wood floor, 2 wood walls, and 2 burlap walls, with 12 ft ceiling. The strings were recorded in an 1800 squre ft studio floor, carpeted, with maple walls, and a 21 ft ceiling, extremely paralelled with the acoustics of a small 300-500 soft seat theatre. The mandolin was recorded very close, in a dead environment, off the neck, keeping most of the bright tones, allowing the acoustic to contribute body and depth. The vocal, I wanted to always be close, recorded close proximity to a U-47 through a Neve strip, and Manley limiter, standing right beside me in the control room. Your post is very important to me, I am always fairly meticulous with this kind of thought into tracking music, I'm confident in my abillity to make those choices for the track, but curious in my abillities to bring it out in the mix, by your comments, i have failed to provide you with all of the environments i have created during recording, in my final mix.... and this, is exactly what this post is about. I spent 2 days writing and arranging string parts, and hired top call symphony guys to play the parts, directing them to over emphasize their vibrato, giving me a "1950's soap opera kind of drama" I really got that performance out of them, in an incredible huge, and dark / warm room, I REALLY want you to be able to hear that room around their performance, otherwise I'm not achieving my goals after meticulous thought, the fact that it sounds like the string parts are played in a livingroom, to me, makes them generic, sting parts that were or could have just been "Thrown Down" thanks for your post, i'll put some serious consideration into bringing more string room into the track, as long as it doesn't interfear with other perspectives i have created in the track. you know.... it is MP3 which is robbing a considerable amount of harmonics from the final mix... i really need to keep that into consideration as well. nevertheless (just thinking out loud at this point) thanks for your great post. Much appreciated. -------- David Kalmusky Visit the "DRAWER OF SHAME" if you dare, audio that should never be heard !!! http://www.kalmusky.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=40 Or... Post your crazy studio mishaps, and funny studio stories, in my "studio stories forum" http://www.kalmusky.com/forum/forum.asp?FORUM_ID=6 |
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Please Critique this mix - there are some great respected ears in here -
In article , std1117
@swbell.net says... OK, I'm probably nit-picking here, but I would drop back the vocals about 1db. Bring up the drum kit about 2db.(not the cymbals) add some snap to the snare boost about 2-3db on 2.5-8k(somewhere in there, hard to tell on my computer speakers and mp3). I agree with the others, I think it sounds real good, the singer is fine, actually quite good. The pedal steel goes on a bit much and the harmony on the vocal is too distractingly long, it should be a little more back and used more sparely in that pre chorus section. Like I said, all minor stuff I'm suggesting here. Aaron Householter studio1117 Thanks Aaron, the general concensous in here so far, on several occasions some poster's lost the lyrics, the vocals, since, have been actually boosted, 1.5db in the choruses, it's the country music thang, to make sure you can hear every sylable I suppose. The drum kit sub group was also boosted recently, 1.5db on the choruses, and dropped 1db in the verses, so your feelings there were paralelled by others. as far as the Eq goes, many in here have listened on good near field, and big studio cabs, and sonically are pleased with the track, and kit, the computer speakers might not be representing the snare properly, it is a little dark / warm / punchy, but that's what we were going for thanks for your great comments. -- David Kalmusky Visit the "DRAWER OF SHAME" if you dare, audio that should never be heard !!! http://www.kalmusky.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=40 Or... Post your crazy studio mishaps, and funny studio stories, in my "studio stories forum" http://www.kalmusky.com/forum/forum.asp?FORUM_ID=6 |
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#29
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Please Critique this mix - there are some great respected ears in here -
Thanks much David, I really look forward to giving it a 'real' go.
John L Rice "David Kalmusky" wrote in message ... In article , says... Hi David, Thanks for the response. It's pretty pointless 'mastering' an mp3 but I've wasted my time in a lot worse ways. ;-) FWIW, working in Wavelab 4 I ( from what I can remember ) : dropped the overall gain -7 db ( for room to work with ) raised the choruses +1 db ( 2 db seemed too much ). I started the gain raise a couple beats prior to the chorus dropped the tail end by -1 db ( starting at about 3:10 ) UAD-1 Pultec EQ : +2 and -1 @ 30 Hz / +2 @ 5kHz width at 5 / -1 @12kHz UAD-1 LA-2A input at 45 / gain reduction at 25 UAD-1 RealVerb big warm room preset at 5% wetness. I rolled off the low end EQ and tweaked the reflections a little added a VST reverb starting at about 3:15 VST puncher soft or medium setting ( forgot which ) at 45% UAD-1 Pultec EQ +1.5 @ 10kHz raised overall gain by a little over +4 db to bring peak level up to -0.1 converted to 192 sample rate mp3 using LAME and high quality setting You know what would be really great. If it's at all possible if you could make the final mix for this one available to me so that I could try my hand at mastering it, and then when the actual album comes out I can compare what I did to what the actual mastering engineer did so I can learn a thing or three by comparison. ( I'd be happy to sign something etc ) Actually, it might be a fun concept for an alternative rec.audio.pro release. Make the wav file available, let a bunch of folks master it, then put everyone's attempts on the cd along with the released version. It could be titled "What made YOU think you knew how to master?" Hey John, It's a little alarming, distributing un-finished material, it was probably fairly stupid of me to make this mp3, but I've always been a bit of a trouble maker, I doubt any A&R geeks troll through R.A.P. (and if they do, I just got into trouble number 2) I gained confidence in the mix, and changed some elements of the mix, as per the groups contributions, really, I might do it again, now that I think of it, a great mass consultation of ears, before you go to press with it, is really a great resource to have available, and 10 years ago, would have really been impossible. I'm going to be really careful though, obvioustly, with the versions of files I make available, in this day and age, every kid with an mp3 encoder, and t-racks, squashes the hell out of your music, and puts it on Kazaa, so it's not really a quality control issue anymore, it is however, a matter of being sure that all files that land public, are finals, the tweaks to this mix, that I have made, from R.A.P's contribution, won't generally be audible to the public (also another reason for the "No Production comments" ranting, this is a final, and no major modifications will be taking place. Fire me off an e-mail in a week (I'm on the road for the next 7 days) I should have the final tweaks finished, and an L1 removed version for you to play with, we will have a little agreement that you won't distribute, upload, release, or associate credits to the project, I'll consider it research, and reference on the project, "Another take on the Mastering" I'll tell you what I like to hear, because one of the hardest things about mastering, is interpreting the clients sonic requests, not just making it sound good using "default" practices that you have developed. I am not one of these guys that needs the whole mix in your face, I started in this business recording on Analog 2" mastering to 1/4" and listening to the final product on vinyl, dynamics, dynamics, dynamics ! I hate hearing limiting compressors, beyond how I have used compression in my mix, I never want to hear the whole 2 mix dip, I use compressors, in my mix, on sub groups, and individually, as an effect, and a tone sculpting tool, to allow the room that most things were recorded in, to breathe a bit through the track, I don't want it all squashed together, my mixes are always hot enough to be heard, I'd rather turn the stereo up a little bit, with a more dynamic mix, than have everything average 0db. I love bottom end, I miss bottom end, everybody started rolling off things tighter and tighter at some point, to compensate for the electronic industry having "super Bass Boost" on everything, but most people these days (in country music) over compensate, over brighten, and over squash, for me... the hip hopster's aren't going to be playing my records in their boom box cars, and if their girlfriends do, then I want my bottom end to compete with Mistah - boom-bastic. I generally like to tell who's mastering to master around the vocals as a guide, I spend allot of time and effort, making sure the vocals have a glassy, smooth, present 12-20k without any harshness, or as little as possible, in the 1 - 8k range, I don't want to lose this air, or this glass too much, careful with the roll offs ! Those are my mastering thoughts, old George will fire everything through a quarter million worth of old analog gear, and signal path, and barely tweak the settings on anything, an inch is a mile. drop me an e-mail in 8 - 9 days if you can remember, and I'll see where I'm at with the final on this one. Anyway, thanks for listening and all the feedback. This thread sure has you busy! Yeah, and I'm supposed to be mixing !! Best of luck! John L Rice PS - dinner was chicken breast boiled with onions, carrots and celery over white rice with a side of lima beans. YUM! Dinner for me was 4 coffee's and 2 cigarettes I need to meet another girl to keep me in shape ! -- David Kalmusky Visit the "DRAWER OF SHAME" if you dare, audio that should never be heard !!! http://www.kalmusky.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=40 Or... Post your crazy studio mishaps, and funny studio stories, in my "studio stories forum" http://www.kalmusky.com/forum/forum.asp?FORUM_ID=6 |
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Please Critique this mix - there are some great respected ears in here -
You must have a hard time sitting down with balls big enough to master
someone's mp3, particularly when they don't know whether they like the mix or not! g -- Roger W. Norman SirMusic Studio Purchase your copy of the Fifth of RAP CD set at www.recaudiopro.net. See how far $20 really goes. "John L Rice" wrote in message ... "David Kalmusky" wrote in message ... In article , says... Hi David, Thanks for the feed back and discussion. I actually listened to the song this morning once or twice before I went to work but I would of been a half hour late if I would have tried to respond. I figured I would be just repeating most of what others had already said but I liked the song so much I wanted to be apart of the discussion anyways! Right after I posted I got inspired to play around with it a little bit so I just spent the last two hours playing around and 'mastering' it. I realize that mastering converted mp3s is a little like turd polishing, but even in mp3 form this song is no turd . . . and I often ignore common sense so .. . . . . http://www.imjohn.com/misc/DavidKalm...gJohnLRice.mp3 Now, I was just comparing the version you posted to the one I just did and I really can't tell much difference but . . .maybe that's somewhat of a good thing? It's funny though because I did a lot of different things. Maybe I'm to close to it at the moment. I'd appreciate yours and anyone else's comments as to if what I did was worth the effort or not and why. If there is interest I'll let you know what I did but I missed dinner and need to correct that situation. Thanks for the inspiration David and band! John L Rice PS - the bass sounded great on my 'actual' system. ;-) Hey John, thanks for taking so much interest, and playing with the file, yes... unfortunately mp3 is bad enough, let alone a 2nd generation conversion, i'm afraid it's lost too much harmonic content to really be certain of the clarity of the mastering curves you've applied. As well, for level purposes, I applied an L1 to the final that I posted, with no real gain reduction, but about as much level boosting that i could stand to listen too before i felt like i was begining to squash dynamics. With that as a start point for your mastering (which i would never do....I'll remove the L1 before I take it to be mastered) I can hear the punping and breathing of the dynamics limiting on your file, especially in the choruses, i'll bet without my L1, it'd be considerably less detectable, but compressing an already boosted, slightly limited file, already at the brink of dynamic detection, just pushes her, over the cliff ! the Eq'ing from what i could hear on a 2nd generation mp3 was really nice, nice choices in bottom end gain, and top roll of, or what ever it was that you did, it did make the whole spectrum a little warmer, and fatter. Thanks again, I'm glad to have provided some sonic experiments, I'm definately not going to master this stuff myself, I'll be taking it to George Graves at the Laquer channel ( U2, Peter Gabriel, etc...) and I'll do it with him, and his ears and gear, I'm just branching into mixing, I'm still at least another decade before I decide to master everything I produce and mix Thanks John, i hope you're enjoying dinner, i'm divorced, i missed too many dinners tweaking mixes... be carefull !!! David Hi David, Thanks for the response. It's pretty pointless 'mastering' an mp3 but I've wasted my time in a lot worse ways. ;-) FWIW, working in Wavelab 4 I ( from what I can remember ) : dropped the overall gain -7 db ( for room to work with ) raised the choruses +1 db ( 2 db seemed too much ). I started the gain raise a couple beats prior to the chorus dropped the tail end by -1 db ( starting at about 3:10 ) UAD-1 Pultec EQ : +2 and -1 @ 30 Hz / +2 @ 5kHz width at 5 / -1 @12kHz UAD-1 LA-2A input at 45 / gain reduction at 25 UAD-1 RealVerb big warm room preset at 5% wetness. I rolled off the low end EQ and tweaked the reflections a little added a VST reverb starting at about 3:15 VST puncher soft or medium setting ( forgot which ) at 45% UAD-1 Pultec EQ +1.5 @ 10kHz raised overall gain by a little over +4 db to bring peak level up to -0.1 converted to 192 sample rate mp3 using LAME and high quality setting You know what would be really great. If it's at all possible if you could make the final mix for this one available to me so that I could try my hand at mastering it, and then when the actual album comes out I can compare what I did to what the actual mastering engineer did so I can learn a thing or three by comparison. ( I'd be happy to sign something etc ) Actually, it might be a fun concept for an alternative rec.audio.pro release. Make the wav file available, let a bunch of folks master it, then put everyone's attempts on the cd along with the released version. It could be titled "What made YOU think you knew how to master?" Anyway, thanks for listening and all the feedback. This thread sure has you busy! Best of luck! John L Rice PS - dinner was chicken breast boiled with onions, carrots and celery over white rice with a side of lima beans. YUM! |
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#31
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Please Critique this mix - there are some great respected ears in here -
Well, the possibility of losing distribution control certainly exists as
soon as you have it available just one time on the web. You'll never know where it actually ends up now. Next time, maybe put out a few sections in question, or a 1 minute piece or something that won't put the whole song up for grabs. Of course, it's hard to critique a mix with a smattering of music, too. -- Roger W. Norman SirMusic Studio Purchase your copy of the Fifth of RAP CD set at www.recaudiopro.net. See how far $20 really goes. "David Kalmusky" wrote in message ... In article , says... Hi David, Thanks for the response. It's pretty pointless 'mastering' an mp3 but I've wasted my time in a lot worse ways. ;-) FWIW, working in Wavelab 4 I ( from what I can remember ) : dropped the overall gain -7 db ( for room to work with ) raised the choruses +1 db ( 2 db seemed too much ). I started the gain raise a couple beats prior to the chorus dropped the tail end by -1 db ( starting at about 3:10 ) UAD-1 Pultec EQ : +2 and -1 @ 30 Hz / +2 @ 5kHz width at 5 / -1 @12kHz UAD-1 LA-2A input at 45 / gain reduction at 25 UAD-1 RealVerb big warm room preset at 5% wetness. I rolled off the low end EQ and tweaked the reflections a little added a VST reverb starting at about 3:15 VST puncher soft or medium setting ( forgot which ) at 45% UAD-1 Pultec EQ +1.5 @ 10kHz raised overall gain by a little over +4 db to bring peak level up to -0.1 converted to 192 sample rate mp3 using LAME and high quality setting You know what would be really great. If it's at all possible if you could make the final mix for this one available to me so that I could try my hand at mastering it, and then when the actual album comes out I can compare what I did to what the actual mastering engineer did so I can learn a thing or three by comparison. ( I'd be happy to sign something etc ) Actually, it might be a fun concept for an alternative rec.audio.pro release. Make the wav file available, let a bunch of folks master it, then put everyone's attempts on the cd along with the released version. It could be titled "What made YOU think you knew how to master?" Hey John, It's a little alarming, distributing un-finished material, it was probably fairly stupid of me to make this mp3, but I've always been a bit of a trouble maker, I doubt any A&R geeks troll through R.A.P. (and if they do, I just got into trouble number 2) I gained confidence in the mix, and changed some elements of the mix, as per the groups contributions, really, I might do it again, now that I think of it, a great mass consultation of ears, before you go to press with it, is really a great resource to have available, and 10 years ago, would have really been impossible. I'm going to be really careful though, obvioustly, with the versions of files I make available, in this day and age, every kid with an mp3 encoder, and t-racks, squashes the hell out of your music, and puts it on Kazaa, so it's not really a quality control issue anymore, it is however, a matter of being sure that all files that land public, are finals, the tweaks to this mix, that I have made, from R.A.P's contribution, won't generally be audible to the public (also another reason for the "No Production comments" ranting, this is a final, and no major modifications will be taking place. Fire me off an e-mail in a week (I'm on the road for the next 7 days) I should have the final tweaks finished, and an L1 removed version for you to play with, we will have a little agreement that you won't distribute, upload, release, or associate credits to the project, I'll consider it research, and reference on the project, "Another take on the Mastering" I'll tell you what I like to hear, because one of the hardest things about mastering, is interpreting the clients sonic requests, not just making it sound good using "default" practices that you have developed. I am not one of these guys that needs the whole mix in your face, I started in this business recording on Analog 2" mastering to 1/4" and listening to the final product on vinyl, dynamics, dynamics, dynamics ! I hate hearing limiting compressors, beyond how I have used compression in my mix, I never want to hear the whole 2 mix dip, I use compressors, in my mix, on sub groups, and individually, as an effect, and a tone sculpting tool, to allow the room that most things were recorded in, to breathe a bit through the track, I don't want it all squashed together, my mixes are always hot enough to be heard, I'd rather turn the stereo up a little bit, with a more dynamic mix, than have everything average 0db. I love bottom end, I miss bottom end, everybody started rolling off things tighter and tighter at some point, to compensate for the electronic industry having "super Bass Boost" on everything, but most people these days (in country music) over compensate, over brighten, and over squash, for me... the hip hopster's aren't going to be playing my records in their boom box cars, and if their girlfriends do, then I want my bottom end to compete with Mistah - boom-bastic. I generally like to tell who's mastering to master around the vocals as a guide, I spend allot of time and effort, making sure the vocals have a glassy, smooth, present 12-20k without any harshness, or as little as possible, in the 1 - 8k range, I don't want to lose this air, or this glass too much, careful with the roll offs ! Those are my mastering thoughts, old George will fire everything through a quarter million worth of old analog gear, and signal path, and barely tweak the settings on anything, an inch is a mile. drop me an e-mail in 8 - 9 days if you can remember, and I'll see where I'm at with the final on this one. Anyway, thanks for listening and all the feedback. This thread sure has you busy! Yeah, and I'm supposed to be mixing !! Best of luck! John L Rice PS - dinner was chicken breast boiled with onions, carrots and celery over white rice with a side of lima beans. YUM! Dinner for me was 4 coffee's and 2 cigarettes I need to meet another girl to keep me in shape ! -- David Kalmusky Visit the "DRAWER OF SHAME" if you dare, audio that should never be heard !!! http://www.kalmusky.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=40 Or... Post your crazy studio mishaps, and funny studio stories, in my "studio stories forum" http://www.kalmusky.com/forum/forum.asp?FORUM_ID=6 |
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#32
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Please Critique this mix - there are some great respected ears in here -
Funny how people view things differently. I thought that, other than well
recorded strings, their place was too prevalent in the mix. Again, a personal observation but in conjuction with the song's tone and lyric content, I probably would have liked them sounding like they were floating over a field, rather than shooting out from around the singer's head. But David didn't want production critique, so I held off. And it's not really a critique anyway, just a personal point of view. Instrumental space is pretty busy but it's still there, however dimensionally it sounds a little like everything is in your face EXCEPT the vocal. Not that the vocal isn't there and easily listenable (not as discernable as a jazz vocalist would want it), it just seems like it's competing with the instrumentation rather than being complemented by the instruments. I've listened to the song about 15 times now and "unresolved" is probably a good word but to me it's in the emotion, not the production. Being one who works in a lot of jazz, and from just my impression of the emotion of the song, again on a personal basis, I'd rather see a darker piano part than such a bright one. I assume it's a Yamaha (certainly sounds like one), but something along the line of a Steinway B or Baldwin might have ended up adding the darkness it seems to need. Might fatten up the bottom end a little rather than playing with the bottom end via EQ. Then again, it could muddy it up also. To work a darker piano in one may actually have to rewrite the piano part so as not to compete for sonic space. Overall I really like the piece. I would probably have preferred the vocal to have been a one pass that was correct rather than comping a piece and doing pitch correction, but that's a minimal gripe. Seems these just a tad too little cohesion in some of the vocal sections emotion wise, as if something has been done a couple of times and put into place, rather than emotionally being in place. Maybe I'm not making myself clear, but it's not really a complaint, just an observation that initially struck me. But I view things strangely anyway. My wife cut Black Coffee, and I tried and tried to get her to really represent what the words said the emotion was. You know, lady sitting around the hovel smoking cigarettes, drinking coffee, waiting and wondering if her man was coming home. Almost every version of that song is the same lamenting expression, when in fact, I think we all know that there's not one woman out there that wouldn't be exponentially getting more ****ed as the minutes ticked off on the clock. Again, basically all just bull**** on my part. The song works as is and probably will spill over the radio in a wash of emotion, and when one looks at it that way, what's to say? I don't have a 5X7 truck radio speaker, but when I mono it, things do seem to snuggle a little more into position. -- Roger W. Norman SirMusic Studio Purchase your copy of the Fifth of RAP CD set at www.recaudiopro.net. See how far $20 really goes. "Steve" wrote in message om... Nicely done. I did anticipate that the song was going to leave me "unresolved" and since this was your intention, you made it work perfectly. The mix is really nice. However, "organic" or "intimate" intention should be true to "real world" listening situations. I wanted to hear the strings section in an appropriate room. I haven't had the chance to listen to a 9 piece string section in a living room. (To dry for my taste.) So, my perspective of the strings section on the recording were out of context. I visualize them in a nice wooded room with warm ambience. Might add dimension to the mix (which I thought it was lacking). Try this with the instrumentation, where are the acoustic guitars? In the back of the room? Front of the room? Sitting next to you? On the beach around the campfire? Same with drums. The Vocalist. Does she move in the mix. Foster and Barbra Streisand and the song "Somewhere" is a good example. You said it yourself, "mushy ballad". 25 instruments with vocals is hard to fit in a 300 seat club. Hardly, intimate. Not trying to make it hard on you but just driving my point. Perspective and concept is really tough to hang on to when your mixing. It takes objectivness and self control. You damn near got it my friend. I'm sure you get the idea.....you seem to have a nice touch already. I just wanted to give you an opinion to chew on. Anyway, this is was fun. You did a nice job and it always helps when you have great talent to work with. Good luck, Steve David Kalmusky wrote in message ... Please, Please, do NOT.... .....don't say you don't like the girls voice, you don't like the song, that there is too much stuff going on, or not enough stuff, it's too sparce etc..... Those are Production details, which I am NOT looking for a critique on. I AM HOWEVER hoping to get some thoughts from some great professional ears that post in here on a frequent basis. It's a mushy, new country ballad, so many of you won't like the song, or the production right off the bat. There is however, lots of stuff going on.....and at times, not much at all. The track has... Drums (lots of drum room) Bass 3 Acoustics Whirlitzer Grand Piano Mandolin 4 electric guitars 9 piece string section Synth Pad 3 vocals I know mp3 is a horrible sonic representation compared to a hi-res mix, obviously take that into account, I don't have the bandwidth for the potential traffic generated by this post, for everyone to download a 38meg 44,100 16 aiff Basically, I'm going for an intimate sounding, warm, wide mix, and need to know if I'm getting there by leaving most things flat, and dry, except for the vocals. Intimate, and "organic" can easilly cross into "amateur" mode, and sound like a rough 2, lots of room, no rev on anything except for the vocals and steel guitar. All sonic thoughts, critiques, praise, dislikes, and advice are welcome. http://members.rogers.com/studio/Heart'sStillBreaking.mp3 -- David Kalmusky Visit the "DRAWER OF SHAME" if you dare, audio that should never be heard !!! http://www.kalmusky.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=40 Or... Post your crazy studio mishaps, and funny studio stories, in my "studio s HOSes forum" http://www.kalmusky.com/forum/forum.asp?FORUM_ID=6 |
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#33
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Please Critique this mix - there are some great respected ears in here -
Psychological impact. Good point, and maybe that's exactly what I'm having
the conflict with. It's like I want to get involved with the emotion of the song, but there's something grating on me enough to keep me from getting personally involved. I'm a spectator rather than someone that can find that emotion evident in myself when I listen. It's one thing to listen to someone lament over their problems, but it's a little more personal when you KNOW exactly what they are going through. Again, what do I know. I'm sitting in my basement studio listening to someone else's song instead of doing my own work! g -- Roger W. Norman SirMusic Studio Purchase your copy of the Fifth of RAP CD set at www.recaudiopro.net. See how far $20 really goes. "Steve" wrote in message m... David Kalmusky wrote in message Hey David, Someone said, "If you want it to be subtle, make it obvious." I just did some tracking in a really nice room and had the room mic too far away from the drums. This was disappointing because if have had good results from the previous recordings. I just made a mistake and I can't use the "room" as much as I would like. The interesting thing about using room ambience (especially a nice room) is that the general public response is very positive. Most people are attracted to the music and tend to listen as well as enjoy the song. Psychological? Yeah....... dry recordings make for uneasy listening. We live in ambience etc; So, I use it as my best friend when I can. As artists usually have subjective tendencies (lol), sometimes we lose selfcontrol when we are in a creative or producer mode. Forgeting I have heard the song 200 times (golf metaphor, forget your last shot/s) and listen for the first time. If that fails I call my friend up (who's very good at this) and have him listen, then tear me apart......fun isn't it? BTW I listened to the song on my computer speakers; where your time and efforts MUST shine through for me to take your song to a more controlled environment. What you're doing is what song writing, recording, and producing is all about. Very cool..... Steve Hey Steve, great post, and great thoughts, as a producer, I constantly do all of this, and was fairly meticulous about the perspective on each of the instruments and parts, perhaps this is the point of the whole post, that as a mixing engineer, I'm not able to get it across, I need to hear the room around things, infact everything, it's a huge part of what i do. The Drums and bass were recorded together in a 900 square ft room, with a hard wood floor, and carpeted back wall, the back of the room 8ft high, the front of the room 16 ft high, the bass amp in isolation, in a dead chamber, the main drum room where the bass player stood, and the drummer performed had several room mics placed in it, and were hot in the mix in contrast to the close proximity mics. The acoustic guitar was recorded in a den, 12 x 12 with a 130 year old hard wood floor, 2 wood walls, and 2 burlap walls, with 12 ft ceiling. The strings were recorded in an 1800 squre ft studio floor, carpeted, with maple walls, and a 21 ft ceiling, extremely paralelled with the acoustics of a small 300-500 soft seat theatre. The mandolin was recorded very close, in a dead environment, off the neck, keeping most of the bright tones, allowing the acoustic to contribute body and depth. The vocal, I wanted to always be close, recorded close proximity to a U-47 through a Neve strip, and Manley limiter, standing right beside me in the control room. Your post is very important to me, I am always fairly meticulous with this kind of thought into tracking music, I'm confident in my abillity to make those choices for the track, but curious in my abillities to bring it out in the mix, by your comments, i have failed to provide you with all of the environments i have created during recording, in my final mix.... and this, is exactly what this post is about. I spent 2 days writing and arranging string parts, and hired top call symphony guys to play the parts, directing them to over emphasize their vibrato, giving me a "1950's soap opera kind of drama" I really got that performance out of them, in an incredible huge, and dark / warm room, I REALLY want you to be able to hear that room around their performance, otherwise I'm not achieving my goals after meticulous thought, the fact that it sounds like the string parts are played in a livingroom, to me, makes them generic, sting parts that were or could have just been "Thrown Down" thanks for your post, i'll put some serious consideration into bringing more string room into the track, as long as it doesn't interfear with other perspectives i have created in the track. you know.... it is MP3 which is robbing a considerable amount of harmonics from the final mix... i really need to keep that into consideration as well. nevertheless (just thinking out loud at this point) thanks for your great post. Much appreciated. -------- David Kalmusky Visit the "DRAWER OF SHAME" if you dare, audio that should never be heard !!! http://www.kalmusky.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=40 Or... Post your crazy studio mishaps, and funny studio stories, in my "studio stories forum" http://www.kalmusky.com/forum/forum.asp?FORUM_ID=6 |
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#34
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Please Critique this mix - there are some great respected ears in here -
There is a very fine line between having big balls and no brains . . . .
maybe they're the same thing . . . . ;-) John L Rice "Roger W. Norman" wrote in message ... You must have a hard time sitting down with balls big enough to master someone's mp3, particularly when they don't know whether they like the mix or not! g -- Roger W. Norman SirMusic Studio Purchase your copy of the Fifth of RAP CD set at www.recaudiopro.net. See how far $20 really goes. "John L Rice" wrote in message ... "David Kalmusky" wrote in message ... In article , says... Hi David, Thanks for the feed back and discussion. I actually listened to the song this morning once or twice before I went to work but I would of been a half hour late if I would have tried to respond. I figured I would be just repeating most of what others had already said but I liked the song so much I wanted to be apart of the discussion anyways! Right after I posted I got inspired to play around with it a little bit so I just spent the last two hours playing around and 'mastering' it. I realize that mastering converted mp3s is a little like turd polishing, but even in mp3 form this song is no turd . . . and I often ignore common sense so . . . . . http://www.imjohn.com/misc/DavidKalm...gJohnLRice.mp3 Now, I was just comparing the version you posted to the one I just did and I really can't tell much difference but . . .maybe that's somewhat of a good thing? It's funny though because I did a lot of different things. Maybe I'm to close to it at the moment. I'd appreciate yours and anyone else's comments as to if what I did was worth the effort or not and why. If there is interest I'll let you know what I did but I missed dinner and need to correct that situation. Thanks for the inspiration David and band! John L Rice PS - the bass sounded great on my 'actual' system. ;-) Hey John, thanks for taking so much interest, and playing with the file, yes... unfortunately mp3 is bad enough, let alone a 2nd generation conversion, i'm afraid it's lost too much harmonic content to really be certain of the clarity of the mastering curves you've applied. As well, for level purposes, I applied an L1 to the final that I posted, with no real gain reduction, but about as much level boosting that i could stand to listen too before i felt like i was begining to squash dynamics. With that as a start point for your mastering (which i would never do....I'll remove the L1 before I take it to be mastered) I can hear the punping and breathing of the dynamics limiting on your file, especially in the choruses, i'll bet without my L1, it'd be considerably less detectable, but compressing an already boosted, slightly limited file, already at the brink of dynamic detection, just pushes her, over the cliff ! the Eq'ing from what i could hear on a 2nd generation mp3 was really nice, nice choices in bottom end gain, and top roll of, or what ever it was that you did, it did make the whole spectrum a little warmer, and fatter. Thanks again, I'm glad to have provided some sonic experiments, I'm definately not going to master this stuff myself, I'll be taking it to George Graves at the Laquer channel ( U2, Peter Gabriel, etc...) and I'll do it with him, and his ears and gear, I'm just branching into mixing, I'm still at least another decade before I decide to master everything I produce and mix Thanks John, i hope you're enjoying dinner, i'm divorced, i missed too many dinners tweaking mixes... be carefull !!! David Hi David, Thanks for the response. It's pretty pointless 'mastering' an mp3 but I've wasted my time in a lot worse ways. ;-) FWIW, working in Wavelab 4 I ( from what I can remember ) : dropped the overall gain -7 db ( for room to work with ) raised the choruses +1 db ( 2 db seemed too much ). I started the gain raise a couple beats prior to the chorus dropped the tail end by -1 db ( starting at about 3:10 ) UAD-1 Pultec EQ : +2 and -1 @ 30 Hz / +2 @ 5kHz width at 5 / -1 @12kHz UAD-1 LA-2A input at 45 / gain reduction at 25 UAD-1 RealVerb big warm room preset at 5% wetness. I rolled off the low end EQ and tweaked the reflections a little added a VST reverb starting at about 3:15 VST puncher soft or medium setting ( forgot which ) at 45% UAD-1 Pultec EQ +1.5 @ 10kHz raised overall gain by a little over +4 db to bring peak level up to -0.1 converted to 192 sample rate mp3 using LAME and high quality setting You know what would be really great. If it's at all possible if you could make the final mix for this one available to me so that I could try my hand at mastering it, and then when the actual album comes out I can compare what I did to what the actual mastering engineer did so I can learn a thing or three by comparison. ( I'd be happy to sign something etc ) Actually, it might be a fun concept for an alternative rec.audio.pro release. Make the wav file available, let a bunch of folks master it, then put everyone's attempts on the cd along with the released version. It could be titled "What made YOU think you knew how to master?" Anyway, thanks for listening and all the feedback. This thread sure has you busy! Best of luck! John L Rice PS - dinner was chicken breast boiled with onions, carrots and celery over white rice with a side of lima beans. YUM! |
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#35
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Please Critique this mix - there are some great respected ears in here -
You know I'm just kidding. Still....
-- Roger W. Norman SirMusic Studio Purchase your copy of the Fifth of RAP CD set at www.recaudiopro.net. See how far $20 really goes. "John L Rice" wrote in message ... There is a very fine line between having big balls and no brains . . . . maybe they're the same thing . . . . ;-) John L Rice "Roger W. Norman" wrote in message ... You must have a hard time sitting down with balls big enough to master someone's mp3, particularly when they don't know whether they like the mix or not! g -- Roger W. Norman SirMusic Studio Purchase your copy of the Fifth of RAP CD set at www.recaudiopro.net. See how far $20 really goes. "John L Rice" wrote in message ... "David Kalmusky" wrote in message ... In article , says... Hi David, Thanks for the feed back and discussion. I actually listened to the song this morning once or twice before I went to work but I would of been a half hour late if I would have tried to respond. I figured I would be just repeating most of what others had already said but I liked the song so much I wanted to be apart of the discussion anyways! Right after I posted I got inspired to play around with it a little bit so I just spent the last two hours playing around and 'mastering' it. I realize that mastering converted mp3s is a little like turd polishing, but even in mp3 form this song is no turd . . . and I often ignore common sense so . . . . . http://www.imjohn.com/misc/DavidKalm...gJohnLRice.mp3 Now, I was just comparing the version you posted to the one I just did and I really can't tell much difference but . . .maybe that's somewhat of a good thing? It's funny though because I did a lot of different things. Maybe I'm to close to it at the moment. I'd appreciate yours and anyone else's comments as to if what I did was worth the effort or not and why. If there is interest I'll let you know what I did but I missed dinner and need to correct that situation. Thanks for the inspiration David and band! John L Rice PS - the bass sounded great on my 'actual' system. ;-) Hey John, thanks for taking so much interest, and playing with the file, yes... unfortunately mp3 is bad enough, let alone a 2nd generation conversion, i'm afraid it's lost too much harmonic content to really be certain of the clarity of the mastering curves you've applied. As well, for level purposes, I applied an L1 to the final that I posted, with no real gain reduction, but about as much level boosting that i could stand to listen too before i felt like i was begining to squash dynamics. With that as a start point for your mastering (which i would never do....I'll remove the L1 before I take it to be mastered) I can hear the punping and breathing of the dynamics limiting on your file, especially in the choruses, i'll bet without my L1, it'd be considerably less detectable, but compressing an already boosted, slightly limited file, already at the brink of dynamic detection, just pushes her, over the cliff ! the Eq'ing from what i could hear on a 2nd generation mp3 was really nice, nice choices in bottom end gain, and top roll of, or what ever it was that you did, it did make the whole spectrum a little warmer, and fatter. Thanks again, I'm glad to have provided some sonic experiments, I'm definately not going to master this stuff myself, I'll be taking it to George Graves at the Laquer channel ( U2, Peter Gabriel, etc...) and I'll do it with him, and his ears and gear, I'm just branching into mixing, I'm still at least another decade before I decide to master everything I produce and mix Thanks John, i hope you're enjoying dinner, i'm divorced, i missed too many dinners tweaking mixes... be carefull !!! David Hi David, Thanks for the response. It's pretty pointless 'mastering' an mp3 but I've wasted my time in a lot worse ways. ;-) FWIW, working in Wavelab 4 I ( from what I can remember ) : dropped the overall gain -7 db ( for room to work with ) raised the choruses +1 db ( 2 db seemed too much ). I started the gain raise a couple beats prior to the chorus dropped the tail end by -1 db ( starting at about 3:10 ) UAD-1 Pultec EQ : +2 and -1 @ 30 Hz / +2 @ 5kHz width at 5 / -1 @12kHz UAD-1 LA-2A input at 45 / gain reduction at 25 UAD-1 RealVerb big warm room preset at 5% wetness. I rolled off the low end EQ and tweaked the reflections a little added a VST reverb starting at about 3:15 VST puncher soft or medium setting ( forgot which ) at 45% UAD-1 Pultec EQ +1.5 @ 10kHz raised overall gain by a little over +4 db to bring peak level up to -0.1 converted to 192 sample rate mp3 using LAME and high quality setting You know what would be really great. If it's at all possible if you could make the final mix for this one available to me so that I could try my hand at mastering it, and then when the actual album comes out I can compare what I did to what the actual mastering engineer did so I can learn a thing or three by comparison. ( I'd be happy to sign something etc ) Actually, it might be a fun concept for an alternative rec.audio.pro release. Make the wav file available, let a bunch of folks master it, then put everyone's attempts on the cd along with the released version. It could be titled "What made YOU think you knew how to master?" Anyway, thanks for listening and all the feedback. This thread sure has you busy! Best of luck! John L Rice PS - dinner was chicken breast boiled with onions, carrots and celery over white rice with a side of lima beans. YUM! |
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#36
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Please Critique this mix - there are some great respected ears in here -
In article ,
says... Well, the possibility of losing distribution control certainly exists as soon as you have it available just one time on the web. You'll never know where it actually ends up now. Next time, maybe put out a few sections in question, or a 1 minute piece or something that won't put the whole song up for grabs. Of course, it's hard to critique a mix with a smattering of music, too. True - excellent point, it was a little stupid of me.. you're absolutely right.... sections of a piece, even roughly edited..fading in and out of crutial sections.... great idea ! -- David Kalmusky Visit the "DRAWER OF SHAME" if you dare, audio that should never be heard !!! http://www.kalmusky.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=40 Or... Post your crazy studio mishaps, and funny studio stories, in my "studio stories forum" http://www.kalmusky.com/forum/forum.asp?FORUM_ID=6 |
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#37
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Please Critique this mix - there are some great respected ears in here -
g
Hey, if I had always refused to try to work with something or someone that was marginal and there was little hope of any real improvement I wouldn't of reached the level I'm at today. I'm going to take that as a personal compliment to myself. The rest of you . .. . . . have at me. /g John L Rice "Roger W. Norman" wrote in message ... You know I'm just kidding. Still.... -- Roger W. Norman SirMusic Studio Purchase your copy of the Fifth of RAP CD set at www.recaudiopro.net. See how far $20 really goes. "John L Rice" wrote in message ... There is a very fine line between having big balls and no brains . . . . maybe they're the same thing . . . . ;-) John L Rice "Roger W. Norman" wrote in message ... You must have a hard time sitting down with balls big enough to master someone's mp3, particularly when they don't know whether they like the mix or not! g -- Roger W. Norman SirMusic Studio Purchase your copy of the Fifth of RAP CD set at www.recaudiopro.net. See how far $20 really goes. "John L Rice" wrote in message ... "David Kalmusky" wrote in message ... In article , says... Hi David, Thanks for the feed back and discussion. I actually listened to the song this morning once or twice before I went to work but I would of been a half hour late if I would have tried to respond. I figured I would be just repeating most of what others had already said but I liked the song so much I wanted to be apart of the discussion anyways! Right after I posted I got inspired to play around with it a little bit so I just spent the last two hours playing around and 'mastering' it. I realize that mastering converted mp3s is a little like turd polishing, but even in mp3 form this song is no turd . . . and I often ignore common sense so . . . . . http://www.imjohn.com/misc/DavidKalm...gJohnLRice.mp3 Now, I was just comparing the version you posted to the one I just did and I really can't tell much difference but . . .maybe that's somewhat of a good thing? It's funny though because I did a lot of different things. Maybe I'm to close to it at the moment. I'd appreciate yours and anyone else's comments as to if what I did was worth the effort or not and why. If there is interest I'll let you know what I did but I missed dinner and need to correct that situation. Thanks for the inspiration David and band! John L Rice PS - the bass sounded great on my 'actual' system. ;-) Hey John, thanks for taking so much interest, and playing with the file, yes... unfortunately mp3 is bad enough, let alone a 2nd generation conversion, i'm afraid it's lost too much harmonic content to really be certain of the clarity of the mastering curves you've applied. As well, for level purposes, I applied an L1 to the final that I posted, with no real gain reduction, but about as much level boosting that i could stand to listen too before i felt like i was begining to squash dynamics. With that as a start point for your mastering (which i would never do....I'll remove the L1 before I take it to be mastered) I can hear the punping and breathing of the dynamics limiting on your file, especially in the choruses, i'll bet without my L1, it'd be considerably less detectable, but compressing an already boosted, slightly limited file, already at the brink of dynamic detection, just pushes her, over the cliff ! the Eq'ing from what i could hear on a 2nd generation mp3 was really nice, nice choices in bottom end gain, and top roll of, or what ever it was that you did, it did make the whole spectrum a little warmer, and fatter. Thanks again, I'm glad to have provided some sonic experiments, I'm definately not going to master this stuff myself, I'll be taking it to George Graves at the Laquer channel ( U2, Peter Gabriel, etc...) and I'll do it with him, and his ears and gear, I'm just branching into mixing, I'm still at least another decade before I decide to master everything I produce and mix Thanks John, i hope you're enjoying dinner, i'm divorced, i missed too many dinners tweaking mixes... be carefull !!! David Hi David, Thanks for the response. It's pretty pointless 'mastering' an mp3 but I've wasted my time in a lot worse ways. ;-) FWIW, working in Wavelab 4 I ( from what I can remember ) : dropped the overall gain -7 db ( for room to work with ) raised the choruses +1 db ( 2 db seemed too much ). I started the gain raise a couple beats prior to the chorus dropped the tail end by -1 db ( starting at about 3:10 ) UAD-1 Pultec EQ : +2 and -1 @ 30 Hz / +2 @ 5kHz width at 5 / -1 @12kHz UAD-1 LA-2A input at 45 / gain reduction at 25 UAD-1 RealVerb big warm room preset at 5% wetness. I rolled off the low end EQ and tweaked the reflections a little added a VST reverb starting at about 3:15 VST puncher soft or medium setting ( forgot which ) at 45% UAD-1 Pultec EQ +1.5 @ 10kHz raised overall gain by a little over +4 db to bring peak level up to -0.1 converted to 192 sample rate mp3 using LAME and high quality setting You know what would be really great. If it's at all possible if you could make the final mix for this one available to me so that I could try my hand at mastering it, and then when the actual album comes out I can compare what I did to what the actual mastering engineer did so I can learn a thing or three by comparison. ( I'd be happy to sign something etc ) Actually, it might be a fun concept for an alternative rec.audio.pro release. Make the wav file available, let a bunch of folks master it, then put everyone's attempts on the cd along with the released version. It could be titled "What made YOU think you knew how to master?" Anyway, thanks for listening and all the feedback. This thread sure has you busy! Best of luck! John L Rice PS - dinner was chicken breast boiled with onions, carrots and celery over white rice with a side of lima beans. YUM! |
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#38
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Please Critique this mix - there are some great respected ears in here -
Don't get touchy on me now. I'm just not sure what one would accomplish in
using an mp3, convert to wave, apply some "fixin's", and re-convert to mp3. As a learning process, you can have at Broadway Billy's if you want. But that might be a little too easy since it ALL needs fixin'! g -- Roger W. Norman SirMusic Studio Purchase your copy of the Fifth of RAP CD set at www.recaudiopro.net. See how far $20 really goes. "John L Rice" wrote in message ... g Hey, if I had always refused to try to work with something or someone that was marginal and there was little hope of any real improvement I wouldn't of reached the level I'm at today. I'm going to take that as a personal compliment to myself. The rest of you .. . . . . have at me. /g John L Rice "Roger W. Norman" wrote in message ... You know I'm just kidding. Still.... -- Roger W. Norman SirMusic Studio Purchase your copy of the Fifth of RAP CD set at www.recaudiopro.net. See how far $20 really goes. "John L Rice" wrote in message ... There is a very fine line between having big balls and no brains . . . .. maybe they're the same thing . . . . ;-) John L Rice "Roger W. Norman" wrote in message ... You must have a hard time sitting down with balls big enough to master someone's mp3, particularly when they don't know whether they like the mix or not! g -- Roger W. Norman SirMusic Studio Purchase your copy of the Fifth of RAP CD set at www.recaudiopro.net. See how far $20 really goes. "John L Rice" wrote in message ... "David Kalmusky" wrote in message ... In article , says... Hi David, Thanks for the feed back and discussion. I actually listened to the song this morning once or twice before I went to work but I would of been a half hour late if I would have tried to respond. I figured I would be just repeating most of what others had already said but I liked the song so much I wanted to be apart of the discussion anyways! Right after I posted I got inspired to play around with it a little bit so I just spent the last two hours playing around and 'mastering' it. I realize that mastering converted mp3s is a little like turd polishing, but even in mp3 form this song is no turd . . . and I often ignore common sense so . . . . . http://www.imjohn.com/misc/DavidKalm...gJohnLRice.mp3 Now, I was just comparing the version you posted to the one I just did and I really can't tell much difference but . . .maybe that's somewhat of a good thing? It's funny though because I did a lot of different things. Maybe I'm to close to it at the moment. I'd appreciate yours and anyone else's comments as to if what I did was worth the effort or not and why. If there is interest I'll let you know what I did but I missed dinner and need to correct that situation. Thanks for the inspiration David and band! John L Rice PS - the bass sounded great on my 'actual' system. ;-) Hey John, thanks for taking so much interest, and playing with the file, yes... unfortunately mp3 is bad enough, let alone a 2nd generation conversion, i'm afraid it's lost too much harmonic content to really be certain of the clarity of the mastering curves you've applied. As well, for level purposes, I applied an L1 to the final that I posted, with no real gain reduction, but about as much level boosting that i could stand to listen too before i felt like i was begining to squash dynamics. With that as a start point for your mastering (which i would never do....I'll remove the L1 before I take it to be mastered) I can hear the punping and breathing of the dynamics limiting on your file, especially in the choruses, i'll bet without my L1, it'd be considerably less detectable, but compressing an already boosted, slightly limited file, already at the brink of dynamic detection, just pushes her, over the cliff ! the Eq'ing from what i could hear on a 2nd generation mp3 was really nice, nice choices in bottom end gain, and top roll of, or what ever it was that you did, it did make the whole spectrum a little warmer, and fatter. Thanks again, I'm glad to have provided some sonic experiments, I'm definately not going to master this stuff myself, I'll be taking it to George Graves at the Laquer channel ( U2, Peter Gabriel, etc...) and I'll do it with him, and his ears and gear, I'm just branching into mixing, I'm still at least another decade before I decide to master everything I produce and mix Thanks John, i hope you're enjoying dinner, i'm divorced, i missed too many dinners tweaking mixes... be carefull !!! David Hi David, Thanks for the response. It's pretty pointless 'mastering' an mp3 but I've wasted my time in a lot worse ways. ;-) FWIW, working in Wavelab 4 I ( from what I can remember ) : dropped the overall gain -7 db ( for room to work with ) raised the choruses +1 db ( 2 db seemed too much ). I started the gain raise a couple beats prior to the chorus dropped the tail end by -1 db ( starting at about 3:10 ) UAD-1 Pultec EQ : +2 and -1 @ 30 Hz / +2 @ 5kHz width at 5 / -1 @12kHz UAD-1 LA-2A input at 45 / gain reduction at 25 UAD-1 RealVerb big warm room preset at 5% wetness. I rolled off the low end EQ and tweaked the reflections a little added a VST reverb starting at about 3:15 VST puncher soft or medium setting ( forgot which ) at 45% UAD-1 Pultec EQ +1.5 @ 10kHz raised overall gain by a little over +4 db to bring peak level up to -0.1 converted to 192 sample rate mp3 using LAME and high quality setting You know what would be really great. If it's at all possible if you could make the final mix for this one available to me so that I could try my hand at mastering it, and then when the actual album comes out I can compare what I did to what the actual mastering engineer did so I can learn a thing or three by comparison. ( I'd be happy to sign something etc ) Actually, it might be a fun concept for an alternative rec.audio.pro release. Make the wav file available, let a bunch of folks master it, then put everyone's attempts on the cd along with the released version. It could be titled "What made YOU think you knew how to master?" Anyway, thanks for listening and all the feedback. This thread sure has you busy! Best of luck! John L Rice PS - dinner was chicken breast boiled with onions, carrots and celery over white rice with a side of lima beans. YUM! |
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#39
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Please Critique this mix - there are some great respected ears in here -
And, of course, you know the flipside. If you planned to put your mix out
here (and I'm not saying you did) then you'd pretty much know that it was going to get the treatment you wanted and won't go anywhere else, except perhaps to some people who's abilities to influence your client's future may reside. There's nothing wrong with taking a shot if it were a promotional move. And if it wasn't, then you may have gotten some reasonable information on protecting the song. But one wonders just how a person with your self professed experience would want this particular song up for comment. I mean, there's been tons of readily listenable music on the newsgroup, and we do the RAP CD somewhat every year, and this particular piece of music is basically decent to listen to if you're washing dishes or something similarly mundane, but I believe even Bil Vorndick would agree that, even though it has something, but it hasn't cooked enough. And believe me, I realize that I'm the ONLY one saying this. But somehow it doesn't encompass me in the emotion enough, and I'm not sure if it's a mix problem or an initial tracking problem. If you've felt the same way and have tried to work over it with pitch adjustments and comping, then you know what I mean. Others may not. ****, you may not. But I'm not just guessing, I'm certain that it could be a good song, it's just not there yet. But hey, I'm just a cellar dweller and I've been wrong before. -- Roger W. Norman SirMusic Studio Purchase your copy of the Fifth of RAP CD set at www.recaudiopro.net. See how far $20 really goes. "David Kalmusky" wrote in message ... In article , says... Well, the possibility of losing distribution control certainly exists as soon as you have it available just one time on the web. You'll never know where it actually ends up now. Next time, maybe put out a few sections in question, or a 1 minute piece or something that won't put the whole song up for grabs. Of course, it's hard to critique a mix with a smattering of music, too. True - excellent point, it was a little stupid of me.. you're absolutely right.... sections of a piece, even roughly edited..fading in and out of crutial sections.... great idea ! -- David Kalmusky Visit the "DRAWER OF SHAME" if you dare, audio that should never be heard !!! http://www.kalmusky.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=40 Or... Post your crazy studio mishaps, and funny studio stories, in my "studio stories forum" http://www.kalmusky.com/forum/forum.asp?FORUM_ID=6 |
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#40
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Please Critique this mix - there are some great respected ears in here -
David Kalmusky wrote:
In article , std1117 snip thanks for your great comments. Well, i´m a little late here...but as i really like the song, i "mastered" it as well (of course, to my personal taste, which in this case may very well be somewhat different to your idea, David, as far as i can judge it form the thread. Nevertheless, i think even if you should dislike it, it sure would help to even better define your ideas about the song). www.rotfilm.de/music The main thing i missed, when having listened several times to the song, was a certain "homogenic thickness", an acoustic unitiy (I´m not sure whether this expression hits the point, as i´m no native english speaker). The songs has without doubt its strengths IMHO in an superb sentimentality, a "breakiness", a credible, touching closeness; so, i understand all to well (and respect) your idea of "keeping it natural". The arrangement has a lot of arpeggiating instruments, but no "glue" in the background, that binds it all together, something, you can let yourself fall into.... Dont get me wrong, you did a beautifull work in arranging a tightlywoven, yet transparent arrangement; it represents perfectly the breakiness of the singers´ emotional situation - but i guess, thats how we judge it by selectively listening and reflecting. A normal listener simply wants attraction and feeling comfortable - if thats done musically artfull, most listeners dont care too much ;-). And i feel, that some "glueing" it all together could add to making it even more attractive. Now, as i only have the 2-track, i was restricted to do this mainly by means of compression and some room, which, of course, includes instruments, i would rather not send into reverb, like bass and kick, but anyway... Should a sad, thin emotion as well sound a little "sad" and thin? Or should even a sad emotion sound exciting, a little "blown up-jumping to the face", like it has become standard? I personally tend a little (!) more to the second idea. Its like comparing two pictures of unattractive, grey industrial complexes, one of them on glossy paper, the other on normal paper... even if the content is "dull", the media should not necessarily be, if we want attraction... but, as i said, i have full respect for the other standpoint as well. If it was in arrangement-phase btw and one wanted to avoid synth-pads for "glueing", to stay in the "acoustic frame", a dark hammond, maybe evolving in overtones along to vers/chorus, or a harmonium (spl?) comes to mind. But as we all bite our tounges, you haven´t read anything about that. ;-) I worked with Ozone2 and Wavelab on my PC-speakers, used +eq on the bass (could have been a little steeper, when listening now), dropped presence a little, and used all of the rest (multibandcompression, reverb, exciter, maximizer, and stereowidth) rather carefully - at least i hope i did. ;-). I definitely won some experiences by and enjoyed working on that beautiful piece of music. So i really wish you all the best with your song. It really deserves every success, and i would love to hear it soon on the air. bye Thomas |
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