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May I have your feedback again my friends?
Hi Friends!
I’m hoping that you all can give this a listen and give me any feedback about this new track I’m working on. I am specifically asking for feedback about the mix because I’m not going to be producing or adding any other sounds to this recording. I wanted to kind of leave this one raw and untouched.
A little background – I recorded this track live on my rowboat in the middle of a lake. I brought my audio interface, my laptop, and my acoustic guitar. I used two microphones to record the guitar. One small diaphragm condenser mic, which I pointed around the 12th fret and a second DPA, mic, which I pointed more on the body of the guitar. Additionally, I had my iPhone recording video in front, which I was able to mix in as a “room mic”. So in total, I’m kind of working with three mics. The microphones also did a good job of capturing the sounds of the ducks, loons, and birds flying around. I think they might’ve even picked up a fish jumping too haha.
I did my best to try and make the guitar feel natural and balanced, and used a few new tricks I learned here at mix protege. I’m really curious how this hits you. As always, thanks in advance for lending me your ears and thoughts.
Best,
Jesse
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19 Replies
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Hey Jesse!
Love this approach to capturing your song and vibe! Inspiring. The naturescape sounds amazing.
Too me the guitar might have a little too much high-mid freq’s somewhere: the fret slides and some of the notes hurt my ears a bit.
Outro – For my tastes, I might consider less hawk/crow squawks at the end, maybe fade those out as the guitar rings out, maybe even into reverb. It’s a nice twist at the end of an otherwise serene moment.
Pretty stuff!
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Yo! Thanks so much, Jeremy! I’m glad to have your feedback on the EQ, and I will definitely check those frequencies out again. I also thought about drenching those birds in reverb as the song faded too, so cool that we’re on the same page with that as well. I’m gonna give that a try. It was definitely a very cool moment when those birds started going at it right as I finished the song. I definitely need to keep that in there hahaha!
Thanks again, man!
Best wishes,
Jesse
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Jesse!! Boy, you really riled up those birds at the end with your stunning performance! 😂
Soooo beautiful, man. I love it!! Giving me some Pat Metheny Charlie Haden “beyond the missouri sky” vibes, which I’m a huge fan of.
As Jeremy mentioned, the guitar squeaks caught my ear. Personally I’d keep the top end the way you have it and would use izotope RX to reduce the volume of the fret noise. I typically do this manually using the attenuate or replace tabs within the “spectral repair” tool – however, there is also a “guitar de-noise” module which does a pretty good job automatically.
And dude … the low end on the guitar is massive!! I love it mucho!!
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oh, and I love the long fade at the end! Really lets me enjoy the space you were in and confirms that your environment was intentional and is of equal importance to the record.
I did, however, find myself wishing there was a bit more “nature sound action” on the right speaker. Seems like most of the bird and creature activity occurred on the left side of the image. And hey – that’s probably exactly how it was when you recorded it! If that’s the case, no need to adjust nature! lol. I only bring it up in case that panning was accidental or something. Otherwise, disregard.
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Thanks so much, man! I really appreciate this feedback from you and Jeremy and will get right on it!
One quick question about RX – I currently have my three mics going to a guitar bus, which is all getting processed together. Would you recommend dragging the bus audio into RX (pre-master) and doing the edits first and then dragging that back in to the session and applying my mastering chain? Or would it be OK to just take my current master as it currently is, and bring that into RX and export it as my new RX’d master version of the track? Just curious what you would do in this case?
Thanks again, man. I filmed this one too I can’t wait to share the video with you all so you can see the space. It’s incredible.
JLew
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Awesome! Can’t wait to see the video!
If you want, send me your raw consolidated stems (the tracks that are getting routed to your guitar buss). I’ll see if I can make a vid showing my method for multi-track RX’ing and guitar de-squeaking.
https://www.dropbox.com/request/IANIcxUN2UmfPJ5PtNBt
(I’ll text u a password – that way this link won’t be accessible by someone reading this post a year from now lol)
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Sweeeeet! Just uploaded! Eagerly anticipating watching your RX magic! Thanks, Homie!
3 raw stems
JLew
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I rx’d it a little to attenuate the squaks a bit. Nothing over the top but i think its less abrasive now. Should I go for even more?
RX is one of the coolest tools ever. pure magic.
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Jesse,
Yes, you have could go harder on the de squeak and still retain all the delicacy of your guitar playing. I would however, avoid de-squeaking the birds. I love the resonant low end that you captured. It adds a second deeper level to the calming and meditative intent of the piece.
Definitely yes to your feathered friends exiting stage right into the reverb.
Well executed!
PT
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Thanks, Paul!
Hope you’re doing great! Happy fathers day to you!
JLew
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Got the files loaded up in pro tools and sounding great. Which DPA mic is that and where did u place it? That’s got the incredible low end I’m hearing – love it!
I’ve also made some adjustments to the iphone track which balance the image of the ambience and guitar. Hoping to show yall in a vid on monday including also my RX process for multi-mic guitar squeaks 🤘
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ohhhhhhh!!! I can’t wait to see it!!!
That DPA is just the standard clip on one, often used for guitars, basses, violins, etc. I believe it’s the 4099. It belonged to Ike but it was broken and he gave it to me. I sent it to DPA for repair and they fixed it! It was clipped on to the body of the guitar down by the end pin/bridge. Sort of looking towards the sound hole about 6 inches away. The other mic was positioned looking more at the 12th fret. I was hoping that between them, I could get a cool mixture of sounds. I know we’ve discussed that situation before and you said usually it’s best to combine them into one mono track, but I ended up panning the fretboard mic a bit to the left and the DPA a bit to the right and putting the iPhone audio in the center, figuring I could get away with more stereo because the track only had guitar? Not sure if that was the right call? I didnt sem to be getting too much phasing issues when I panned them…
Can’t wait to see how you approached all of this!
Happy fathers day, bro!
JLew
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Sorry no vid yet, Jesse. I’ve been working with the folks at iZotope on a fix for something I discovered while making a vid for you… stay tuned.
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all good Homie! I can’t wait to see whatever you cook up as I’m sure it will be extremely educational and helpful. In the meantime, I’ve been having a lot of fun utilizing RX on my track, hopefully in a subtle way, mostly using the different types of spectral repair.
The RX plug-in is one of the most insane tools I have ever encountered. I feel like I’m just only scratching the surface of what it can do, but it’s so far beyond even just fixing issues with sound. I’m finding it to be an incredibly sophisticated, on demand dynamic EQ and even tone and note shaper.
For example, There were a couple of instances where I played kind of wimpy sounding notes and I was able to go in with RX and raise the gain on those notes — but only targeting the fundamental frequency and the first few harmonics, which really made the note i was trying to address sound a lot stronger. It’s such a deeper more fine tuned (and more time consuming haha) way of editing sound then just using clip gain, which if I understand correctly, would raise every bit of frequency content equally within the clip. Similarly, I’ve been attenuating certain frequencies that were bothering my ear, sort of using RX like a EQ, but only on certain notes, and very specific frequencies that I can see are out of balance with the rest of the harmonic frequencies of a note.
Finally, I’m realizing what a powerful teaching tool it can be to help train my ears to hear different frequencies because I can guess what frequency I think needs to be addressed but then so easily go into RX and see clearly what is actually happening with the sound.
I guess using a dynamic EQ or such is a much simpler process – but the RX can just get so granular it’s crazy! I’m totally floored!
Best,
JLew
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Yes, yes, and YES! I love that you are as mesmerized as I by the mind-warping phenomenon that is RX Spectral Repair. So insane to be able to see music and sound and the relevant harmonics! And it’s even more insane that we’re able to visually adjust the sound, not just look at it. I’m with you man – it’s magic.
The fine folks at iZotope came through with a temporary fix for me to use while they work on a more permanent solution. It seems I uncovered a bug they weren’t aware of. So this past week instead of making videos about RX for you and Mix Protégé, I made videos about RX for iZotope, haha. They were awesome and ON IT, which was very cool and helpful.
I saw that you already released your song and amazing boat video on Youtube, but if it’s cool with you can I still use your guitar tracks for demonstration purposes?
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Hey man!
That’s so cool! Yes of course – use and abuse anything of mine that you want haha
Love,
JLew
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💜 thanks man!
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“Alone On The Water” video for you viewing pleasure:)
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Woohoo, so glad to see this and your montage on the socials! Looks and sounds great, Jesse!
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