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Mix Review
Hi, I think I finished producing my song. Drums could be a little tighter but tried my best. Wanted to get some feedback on the mix. Doesn’t sound as full as I’d like, but usually doesn’t. Here is a song that I love the way it sound. Not sure how they get songs to sound like this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fcmFH5OvdtA
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11 Replies
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Patrick,
This is a sweet song, I’m happy to hear that you expanded the arrangement. In fact, I was wanting to hear the “band” more. Your mix leads with the vocal upfront, never allowing the band to be equally important (to my ear) so I did this to your song to give the band’s contribution its due. See if it sounds/feels different in a good way to you.
PT
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sounds really good. what did you do? and how long have you been mixing?
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Patrick,
I’m glad you dug it and were inspired to better your supposed final mix. Careful though, while pursuing perfection one can run the risk of never getting stuff released into the world. As a listener, I’ll take sentiment now versus perfectly-polished someday maybe. Though, as a creator, I’m also guilty as fuck.
So what did I do? … excellent question. I got inspired by the tenderness and the delivery of the song so I started asking myself what have I got to work with here? It’s a prayer, and your first intended listener may think it’s all cringe for a generation or so until he or she understands. So, let’s make this thing as beautiful as it can be. With the vocal out front that far it felt like a lecture rather than encouragement. With the supporting instruments back that far in the mix, the kid would metaphorically miss out on the wisdom of the village. I’m guessing you chose the kick drum to represent a heartbeat in the instrumental opening. I chose to bump it up a smidge to let the listener get it in the first couple measures. I chose to taper the bass guitar’s sustain to allow the cymbal swell and the tom fills to be uncovered, and be briefly featured going into the chorus. I tried to give the bass line a little lope rather than the repeating whole notes. Subtle stuff but it helps the song breathe dynamically. I chose gentle intensity over bombast. My intent was the polar opposite of that Alice Cooper song, Dead Babies. What a knucklehead!
To Dana’s question … Yes, both separation software to create stems and mastering on the 2 buss.
Patrick, I did run your mixed song through some AI separation software to extract the drums, bass guitar, vocal, and the AC Gt/strings/KBs into 4 stereo stems. That allowed me finer control of the mix. Neve console strip emulation and judicious use of tube saturation and EQ on all input channels to help them sound natural and intimate. Your vocal had all the closeness and breathy quality to be intimate but the “band” needed to match that level of goodness. All according to my ears of course. (We should have a Mix Protege specific acronym to say that shortcut style.)
My ST buss output channels had yet another Neve output channel emulation with a tube saturator and tape deck emulation native to my Cakewalk software and then a mastering chain inserted. I used a mid-side compressor to give the middle a 90Hz shelf, just a couple two tree dBs to add some weight to the drums and bass that lived in the middle and then cleared out just a bit of sonic space for the vocal to occupy with a little cut at 400-600 Hz. I painstakingly clip gained your vocal line by line to have it sit closer to the band’s dynamic. That was work.
A little 4:1 compression to bind mix together, a limiter to say “That’s all folks!” and the tiniest bit of parallel process digital clipping to add realism.
It’s not the specifics mentioned here that are important, it’s the reasoning behind the moves. Let that be the takeaway.
PT
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did you tighten the drums at all? it feels tighter
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No, I did not move any drum hits in time but I did remove the very last side stick/snare to decouple the the soft landing of the last vocal phrases from hard time to suggest a musical retard .
PT
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i did another mix. i think its an improvement on my previous mix.
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This has really come along, Patrick! Such a sweet song, and fun to hear all the new production elements.
And @-PT, awesome work on the mastering (or did u use some of your AI magician tools as well? Do tell!). What you did sounds great, and really goes to show the kinds of effective, broad adjustments that can be made using the stereo mix alone. What I mean is, @Pat, is that your mix was feeling good (!), and often it’s a bit of mastering – by you or someone else – that can help get things sounding finished and competitive alongside songs by other artists you dig.
For me, some favorite mix finalizing tools are BX_Masterdesk_Pro, Fabfilter Pro-L2, The God Particle, and sometimes even the “Master” tab within Waves’ Maserati GRP.
I would prob still tighten up a few areas in the drums that feel a bit loose, timing-wise, against the track, but other than that this is feeling real nice, man! ⚡️
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Thanks, Dana. Do you have specific moment that feel lose? I tried my best to get everything lined up, but sometimes when you make one change, another feels too quick or too slow.
Anything sonically you would change? It still doesn’t have the presence and clarity of a pro mix. I guess that’s why they are pros… I love how the song, meet the moonlight, sounds. If I could get anything close to that I would be happy. Thanks.
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Drum timing: mainly at 2:09. The side-stick on beat 3 feels late. Once you scoot that forward the bar after it might need a little adjustment, but nothing too crazy.
Main acoustic guitar: overall there seems to be a bit of a phase issue between the two panned mics. The main sound on the left feels good – I would sweep around your IBP on the guitar mic that’s panned to the right to try to get it aligned with the guitar mic on the left. (do that step while listening in mono and once you think you’ve found the best, fullest guitar sound then check it in stereo to make sure you like your settings in mono and stereo). You could also try SoundRadix Auto Align, which is an amazing tool.
Vocal: really sounds great! – full body, sparkly top end👌. I would try a de-esser tho, and/or manually clip-gain down the S’s a bit so that you retain all that beautiful top end on the voice but without the piercing S moments. Not all of the S’s need this, but many of them do. Massey DeEsser is my go-to: quick, easy, and the blend knob allows me to mix in some of the original S, which helps things from getting to “lisp-y” sounding.
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Oh, and thanks for turning me on to “Meet the Moonlight“! Sheesh, yeah that sounds excellent. I’m a big fan of Blake Mills and Joseph Lorge, so no surprise there … I looked at the credits and was like, “ah, yeah no wonder!” Great reference for your song.
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Or are you saying the song just needs to be mastered?
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