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Mix Feedback Pwitty Pwease
Hello my trusted heavy mix genius fam!
I’ve been working on a new song, and have taken it about as far as I can — and was hoping you could give me any feedback, stuff that’s working, stuff that’s not working, ways I could improve this mix/production… It’s a bit different for me as I’m doing some “singing” on this one. I’d so appreciate your amazing ears on this my friends. Thanks in advance! – Jesse
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23 Replies
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Hey Jesse, Interesting, and in a good way. Firstly, I checked your waveform stats in my waveform stat checker. -14 LUFS, True Peaks of -.5 db. All good stuff. I do think the track is tonally a little dark to support the very personal, spoken word eeriness with a positive message. The intimacy of the vocal delivery is paramount to the effectiveness of the piece. We’re listening , but we might be halfway inside your head. I trust my headphones, Audio-Technica 70s with Sonarworks correction to flat phase, linear, but with the consequent latency which is a non factor for playback purposes. That said, I found a big improvement in the presentation when I put a sizable HF shelf on. All the intimate sibilance popped out, including the doubled vocals out on the sides. Now we’re definitely listening to you from inside your head. I would try cutting the intro (without vocal) and the space between the first and second verse in half. Undoubtedly, I can be accused of brevity and getting to the point in my silly songs so I have a prejudice. It may make your piece less radio friendly because of the time, but focus and concentrate your intent. Do you have any ducking tools to suppress the instruments when, and only when, the spoken word is in play and only in the frequency range where they overlap? The spoken word is the star but still connected to the support instrumentation. I think as is, the darkness slightly shadows the word. Keep churnin the stuff out! PT
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Paul! Thank you SO MUCH for taking the time to listen so carefully, I really appreciate that! I will definitely investigate your “high shelf” idea to bring out more of the intimate sibilance you noted. I wonder if you’d recommend just adding that shelf to the vocal buss or to the entire track on the master channel…? Or both? On my master channel I boosted a bit around 6k and 10k but only by about 1db each, so maybe I should try a bigger boost?
In terms of “ducking” tools I’m sure I probably do have some, but haven’t experimented too much with that. I know how to do side-chain compression in a very basic way, which I have already applied to the synth so it ducks a bit when the bass notes hit. I could maybe try side chaining compression for the vocals, too? If so, are you suggesting that I have the vocals trigger the compressor to have the synth and the other instruments “duck” when the vocals sing? I’ll try that!!! Just curious if there’s another “ducking” that concept you’d recommend I check out…
Thanks again for all of your input, it’s so helpful to get your ears on this!
Best Wishes,
Jesse
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Jesse, I applied a +8.83 dB shelf with the +6 db point at 2500 Hz across the entire track. It works wonders for the vocal but when I listen to the track without the HF shelf me thinks that the instruments work better without the shelf because the contrast of music to vocal / background to foreground is tonally more interesting. The HF shelf on the vocal pushes it into the foreground, into our attention while the music recedes slightly. That would negate the “need” for any ducker to my ear. Funny how the right tool in the right place prevents using yet another tool. Simplicity is good. With the HF shelf engaged, the high hat percussion at the ending jumped way too far forward so definitely just think of brightening the vocal. I did like the guitar much better with the HF shelf and I reacted to the pace of the guitar positively. Slow, methodical, discretely placed. If it were early in the process of this piece I would try forgoing the synth, which is way “busy” and using the guitar and maybe a slow moving pad or strings as the propulsion mechanism. The open space the guitars provide compliment the vocal more so than the density of the synth. I love that section of the song. All that said, these are only my observations. I throw them into the ring because you asked. Like I said to Dana, I have a lot of stories, some of them are even true. 🤠 I have a lot of opinions also, some will ring true, others fall by the wayside for more important reasons than my viewpoint. I do thoroughly enjoy the exploration. PT
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Thanks Paul! I really appreciate all of your creative and thoughtful input! It helps to get your perspective on things, both sonically and from a production/orchestration point of view as well! – Best, Jesse
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Jesse!! This is so cool and beautiful and unique – never heard anything like this, vocally, from you before – thanks so much for sharing here!
And thanks @detective for sharing your thoughts here as well!
@JLEW I’m gonna stew on this for a bit, but one thing that jumped out to me, mix-wise, is that your guitar solo sounds more “mono” than I was wanting. There is plenty of stereo candy going on in the track for sure at that point, but the lead guitar solo and its reverb all felt mono and I was hoping the sky and clouds would part into a vast, magical, shimmery, stereo, verb-y solo moment. Haha. Just my immediate thoughts FWIW.
You are such a badass! 💜 And I’ll try to swing back around later with any other ideas. Keep it comin’ brother!
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Dana!! Thanks man!!! I recorded the guitar live thru my amp w/ some extreme reverb pedal settings but I guess the lushness doesn’t actually translate as stereo imaging because it’s recorded as mono! Thank you – I’ve just learned an important lesson!
I just tried applying some lush stereo verb and echo to the guitar solo and boy does that help make it sound more big, beautiful, full, and stereo haha. And surprisingly not too wet! (although I think my threshold for verb is much higher than most 🤣) I’ll try to bounce that section and add it to this thread so you can hear the difference.
Thanks for pointing that out to me – I’ve probably listened to that solo several hundred times while mixing and it never felt quite right, and now it does 🙂
Love,
JLew
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I can’t wait to hear the new “stereo super-solo”!!!! ⚡️
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Sorry I’m so late to the party!
Very beautiful track. And, as Dana said, very unique… I think generally speaking too.
Everything sounds great to my ears. The only note I had was the voice felt a little hot and crispy in my headphones. Not sure if it’s just a volume thing or a 5k-10k shelf thing. I might throw reverb on the vocal in the last section just to differentiate. Just a production thought.
I’d ship it from there and make a whole album of this stuff for us if you don’t mind. 🙂
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Yo Jeremy! Thanks so much man! I appreciate you listening and giving me feedback. I made a few revisions and will share the final version with y’all soon! Thanks for all your help and support!
Best,
Jesse
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Very cool Jesse, super unique and really brings me to a place. Wyoming winter to be exact, gazing at the Teton mountain range, panoramic views and the snow falling. I envision this in a snowboarding film!
I do concur with what the gents are saying about adding some sparkle to the vocal bus. Also some different qualities to the end vocal such as fx + delays could take up the listening experience. I was secretly wanting another belting layer vocal tucked way back in the mix for the last chorus build. Maybe too much but I’m an XL fry kinda guy lol.
Just some thoughts but really beautiful man. Keep sharing these!!!!
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Yes!! Love this sense of place imagery, Alex!!
And, it’s interesting you mention additional vocal — I had the same thought, tho didn’t mention it in my previous post, that it would sound cool with a (female?) vocalist singing the lyrics in the background while @JLEW is speaking them. 💜
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Yeah! Interesting – I shared this song with Phillip and he had a similar thought about the singing too!
You better be careful though…I HAVE heard you sing opera before 😉
Love,
JLew
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Hahahaha – Dana “Pavarotti” Nielsen here at your service! And love that @phillipbroussard had similar feedback. Can’t wait to hear your latest updates to the piece!
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Great Minds…..
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Yo! Thanks so much Alex! I appreciate your feedback and insights! I agree with them all! It’s interesting that you commented about the winter and the snow, I actually made a music video for this out in the woods during a snow storm! I’ll try to share it with you guys soon. Wishing you all the best!
Jesse
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You got it man! Awesome, please share the vid when you complete it. That’s crazy I totally think we are on a wavelength.
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Look at this fantastic decent human right here!! ⚡️💜🙌
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Hell YES! Thanks for sharing Dana.
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Yo Dana! Thanks for sharing the video! Sorry I’ve been a little off grid! Thanks also to @Gage and @detective for all the feedback and for your support! I’m learning so much from you guys and everyone on here! ❤ – JLew
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I think Dana’s suggestion of an additional vocal at the ending is a great springboard to the conversation of the songwriter’s intent. Our discussions might benefit from the binary of love it / don’t comment at all to a more nuanced one where the songwriters defend their choices and probably get previously unthought of variations into the work Admittedly, works in progress is a more practical time to try this. -PT
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Good points, Paul!
My hope is that the Member Spotlight will continue to be a safe, encouraging, gentle space for constructive comments, ideas, and high fives, with the overarching caveat that the work belongs to the submitting member and it is their choice alone to “take it or leave it” any advice or thoughtful comments from other members.
…. plus the additional overarching caveat that we’re all figuring out this member spotlight space together as we go 😂💜.
When submitting to the Spotlight we can also feel free to clarify our interests and expectations if helpful. Are we sharing here to celebrate a finished piece (i.e. high fives only🫸 ✋), or seeking mix/production advice, songwriting/arranging advice, or something else? No wrong answers here – just food for thought!
🎚️♾️
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Well said, and with the details and caveats that i was reaching for. Far be it from me to give compositional advice to the likes of Nate or Stuart who clearly have musical fluency. PT
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Jesse, That is strong! The visuals augment your musical vision and I retract all my previous comments except the vocal bus EQ. You should be proud of the gravitas of this project. -PT
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