Member Dana Nielsen
MemberForum Replies Created
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Awesome, Paul! Sounds great, and that is soooo cool about Ozone vocal automation WITHIN a stereo file – those izotope folks are straight-up wizards.
Really nice work on the mix (and post-mix magic-rebalance AI master??? Who knows what to call these new processes… haha). I’d love to hear a bit of the audience reaction before or during the fade-out. Even if the audience is only coming thru the stage mics it’d be cool as a listener to feel that raw, live crowd energy! Just a thought.
Great stuff!
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Patrick! Welcome, man! I know you’ve been here a while but stoked you decided to share this audio with the community for some creative feedback and ideas. 🙌
Love the piece and the playing and I really dig the sound of this piano – it’s an upright, right? I’m also curious how you mic’ed it as there are so many fun (and sometimes daunting) ways to mic an upright. Just curious – I think you did a nice job keeping things in phase and capturing the stereo width.
My main thoughts are:
- The mix feels overly loud, overly compressed. I would try dialing the compressor and/or limiter back a good bit so that you have a healthy “appropriately loud for a piano” signal, but without audible compression and set your mastering limiter (if using) so that your master fader meters still show a nice amount of movement (i.e. dynamic range).
- Feels a bit left-heavy. This may be due to the range of the performance (hands were playing in the center-left portion of the keyboard), and that all makes sense and nothing wrong with that, especially if the song/performance moves around into the higher (right side) of the keyboard at some point so things feel balanced by the end of the piece. If, however, the whole solo piano performance stays in that center-left part of the keyboard and there are no additional overdubs added to fill out the rest of the stereo spectrum, I’d typically be inclined to turn up the right channel (or turn down the left) until I’m generally getting an equal volume out of the left and right speakers respectively. That way as a listener I don’t end up feeling fatigued in one ear, or off-balance somehow. These are personal creative philosophical decisions tho, and certainly a case could be made that “no, man, I want the recording to represent the natural stereo state of the instrument as it was played!” and that’s cool too.
- Tonally, i think there’s room to add a good bit of top end. Try a simple, broadband, Pultec EQP-1A (or similar) 10k boost and see if you can bring out some of the shimmer-y sparkly top end.
I look forward to hearing how this mix develops! Keep it up, man!! ⚡️
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So freaking creative and awesome, @JLEW! Felt too difficult to write out my thoughts so fired up the cam for some live feedback. Take it or leave it, as usual. Love what you’re doing, brother!
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This reply was modified 9 months, 1 week ago by Dana Nielsen.
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This reply was modified 9 months, 1 week ago by
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Duuuuuude! This is so beautiful and awesome! I love it and so stoked and thankful for your share, man. Here are my spontaneous unedited notes I wrote while listening:
– lil compressed
– kick sound – esp in the beginning and non-chorus parts – might be better w some low pass so it’s not so tick-tick-y
– gorgeous bgvs!!
– lead vocals could be a bit louder and sparklier. Also could be a bit more stereo w a touch of verb or echo
– yeah kick is defs pumping the buss compressor too much for me.
– So good!!! Love this song and vocals and acoustic elements, nylon guitars, whistles, etc. and the low end bass feels booty-ful!
– I think for me it’s just something about the kick sound feeling too “electronic” or EDM or too clicky on the top end, and the pumping it’s forcing on the overall mix is making the rest of the mix feel small. Personally, I would prob swap out the kick for something that has the punch and consistency and power and depth of an Elec Kick, but one that’s perhaps a bit rounder or darker so it blends easier with the organic vibes of the song. That and a little sparkly fairydust on the lead vocal, plus a bit more volume on the lead vocal and maybe a dash of stereo flavor on the lead too so it .. you know .. sounds “more expensive” 😉
You rule, brother! Hearing this gem on the heels of “Believe In You” …. All I can see in my head while listening is this:
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As @-PT mentioned, excellent questions, sir!
- I tend to stick to one main set of nearfield speakers I really know and trust (my ATC 45’s are large enough to be considered mid-field, tho I position them at near-field range)
- I always have a subwoofer and it is ALWAYS on a separate button on my Avocet monitor controller. It stays off 99.9% of the time but it’s nice to be able to push the “sub” button and hear what might be flopping around down there needing finer tuning. Or sometimes I turn it on and crank the system up super loud for “club mode.”
- I always have (and depend on) a set of crappy Radio Shack Realistic speakers placed way out of the sweet spot on the other side of the room, pushed together so they’re mono. This inexpensive yet essential setup gives me the feeling of “listening from another room” which is always revealing, and it also gives me a sense of what my mix will sound like on laptops and small budget systems.
- Of all the fancy studios around the world I’ve worked in, I have yet to encounter “mains” that I like to listen to. I’m fairly certain their only purpose is to excite label reps who drop by during sessions.
This forum discussion has pix of my Realistic speakers as well as my old beloved 5″ Yamaha nearfields I started my career on (and mixed a #1 album on 😲). It also details my 4-step process to declutter any mix. In fact … I turned that 4-step process into a handy pdf but never shared it … until now! Mua hah ha ha haaaa. I’ll attach it here for the time being as a fun little Easter Egg. Enjoy!
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Whelp … I didn’t realize my video capture settings got changed to the “1998 AOL Dial-up Modem” preset 🤦🏻♂️ but hopefully the audio commentary will make up for the lackluster pixelated video quality, lol.
Wanted to touch on your excellent questions with a quick vid reply while I consider making a more in-depth video about this topic.
Would a longer deep-dive “reference mix” video be interesting or helpful to anyone else here? Please rate your level of interest using ear emojis, lolol.
👂👂👂 = VERY interested!
👂 = kinda interested
🦻 = i’m in, as long as there are captions -
Oooh ooh ooooh! I love these questions so much and have so much to add – gonna circle back in the next day or so w some thoughts and suggestions as well as my own process and tools for referencing.
I also look fwd to reading replies and suggestions on this topic from others here in the MP fam! Please chime in y’all with any of your fav tips, thoughts, and/or additional questions! ⚡️⚡️
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Haha – Fairy Dust plugin… gonna add that to my to-do list!
Yeah, for vocal processing I always have these aux input chains set up and readily available (pro tools templates, track presets and workflow included in the Prep School course):
- Slap
- Delay
- Reverb
- “Dolby” (silky top-end aux using something like Waves Aphex Aural Exciter. Years past I used a modified hardware Dolby-A unit, which is in my garage collecting dust since going full ITB with my mixes, but the track name remained)
- “Dim D” (stereoizer type processing using something like UAD Dimension D or Gem Mod by Overloud)
I certainly don’t always use ALL of these FX returns on my vocals, but they’re there for me to try out at any time, and I find I can pretty much get whatever sound I’m going for using a combination of these elements.
Can’t wait to hear your next mix update!! And great BGV arranging, @Nate, you bad boy!!
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Whether you're here to level up your own prep process, or because you're interested in prepping mix sessions for me - you've come to the right place. PREP SCHOOL is now in session!
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Nice, @Pat! This is sounding clearer, cleaner, less compressed, and less “loud”. Nice work!
I think you could still bring up the right-channel fader to even out the stereo image so that the volume is more or less equal coming out of the left speaker and the right speaker. (Right now I feel like the balance is left-heavy).
Here are two ways I address left-right balance issues on stereo sources like pianos or drum overheads:
- Adjust gain using a fader: if you recorded your piano onto two mono tracks, one for the mic on the left side and one mic for the right, then you can simply push the Right channel fader up to make the right side louder.
- Adjust gain using a mono Trim plugin: if you recorded your piano into your DAW using a single “stereo audio track” you might be scratching your head like, “but Dana… there’s only ONE PIANO FADER!” 🎚️🤔 If you’re using Pro Tools, just add a mono Trim plugin and unlink the left and right channels within the plugin so you can adjust each channel independently. Pro Tip: This is also a great way for flipping the polarity (i.e. “phase”) between the left and right channels of a stereo track.
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Great advice, Paul, on the detailed headphone listening – always a smart move and great for catching those pesky rumbles and unwanted ambient sounds. I hadn’t noticed these things on my studio speakers at low volume, but that’s also why headphones are such a helpful microscopic/QC check! 🎧
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Jeremy! Awe, that’s awesome that a) this vid was timely, and b) you’re as keen on references as am I! “Beatles cuz .. Beatles” 😂
Love that you have your hotkeys set up to reference your fav tracks in Ableton, that’s super slick. The only thing I’m always careful of when my reference tracks and my current mix share the same set of outputs is that I never want my reference tracks to flow through my master bus processing. Know what I mean? So if your mix is coming out a master fader with a bunch of limiters and eqs and that master fader is assigned to physical outputs 1-2, and your refs are also coming out 1-2 when solo’ed, I’m always triple-checking that the master bus inserts are bypassed and/or not effecting the reference tracks using the same outputs. Dig? (I’m sure you’re already on top of this, but thought I’d mention this easy mistake we’ve all made for sake of anyone else reading). 🕺🏻
PS – also, so stoked u dug the Ari podcast – thanks for listening!! 🙏🏻
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Hahaha, touché!
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Ooh, yeah, the double-compressor combo-punch of the 1176 AND LA2A is a lot of fun! Especially when the singer has a huge dynamic range (whispery soft verses into ripping loud choruses). These days, when tracking live with compressor(s) on the front end of the signal path before digital conversion, if I need that double-comp scenario I’ll reach for a lightning fast Distressor to do the heavy lifting and then a CL1B after that for some final slow ‘n’ gentle smoothing.
NOTE: lest I give the unintended impression that I’m constantly double-compressing things on input I should mention that, for me, this technique is fairly uncommon. 99% of the time I’m fine using 1 compressor on the input chain. But in the right situation the double-up is perfect!
And H-Comp – nice! I forgot about that oldie but goodie … gonna bring that back into rotation!
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What an amazing mastering experiment! I bet that was super fun to hear all those options. The variety of “flavors” or styles you get back from different mastering engineers who’ve all been given the same stereo file is always so fun to hear — especially when you as producer or artist or mixer, etc, are so deeply connected to- and invested in- the current sound of that source file.
And then on top of the obvious sonic differences from each mastering engineer, you must also consider the workflow, communications, etiquette, deliverables, quality control, and personality of those you’re considering.
I always remind myself that there are many people who do what I do and do it reeeeally well, especially in a competitive, creative, entertainment-hub like L.A. So I do my best to ensure that the operations and personal interactions side of my business is as good as can be. Cause sometimes (read: often!) that can be one more benefit that tips the scale in your favor. (i.e. “well, engineers A and B both delivered incredible sounding work I’d be happy with forever. But engineer B was a lot more fun to work with and communicated everything clearly. Let’s go with B!”)
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What is this “willpower” you speak of? … I’ve heard of that but don’t really know what it is. 🤔😂