Member Dana Nielsen
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@Bigchrizzle! This is such a great question and one I think about and tinker with all the time.
Here’s my general approach to fx while mixing.
- I always get my initial balance without reverbs / delays, and I let the dry mix “tell” me what it needs — for example, while I’m working on the dry balance my imagination is filling in various effects like a vocal tape slap effect or a delay throw on that lyric there, etc.
- After I’ve been mixing “dry” and my imagination has been consistently suggesting the same effects ideas over and over again, I’ll take a moment to manifest those ideas using various plugins on a series of stereo FX returns like Slap, Delay, Verb, Modulation, etc. This initial “FX manifest” doesn’t have to be 100% perfect, but it should at least be a quality representation of my imagined sound.
- I’ll play around, mixing with the FX, automating some of the special FX moments I’d imagined, having fun while doing some delay throws, reverse reverbs, maybe some kind of bone-dry vocal line when the band drops out before the last chorus …
- Then I’ll mute them all again and really focus on the dry mix, imagining “how could I make this mix radio-ready without any effects?”. I’ll really try to make the mix as engaging and exciting as possible with no reverb, delay, etc. This “back to dry” process forces me to work harder on what I would consider the essentials: balance and automation.
- Once I have a dry mix that really slaps, that I’m loving even without FX, then I’ll put headphones on and bring my FX return faders back up, little by little, adjusting to taste. Doing this part in headphones ensures I wont add more FX than needed – the FX are there to support an already rocking mix. And since I already designed the FX in step 3 and know they’re in the ballpark, this final step is really just about fine-tuning rather than exploration and discovery.
So in general I like to keep things fresh and stay inspired by toggling back and forth (usually for hours, sometimes days, at a time) between dry mixing and wet mixing. And the point at which I switch between those modes is when I feel I’ve started to lose steam or perspective and need to re-inject some inspiration into my process. ⚡️
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Homey! So exciting to hear this great track progress, and glad you took the plunge into melodyne – that software is incredible. Nuthin like it. And the vocal work you’ve done is definitely sounding more polished! Nice 👌
The mix sounds different than before – kinda thin and scooped out in everything but the bass and kick drum. When I checked the new mix against your original mix (and that Christine and the Queens ref) I was like, “ahhhh there’s all the body I was missing!”
Maybe you left sonarworks on while you bounced the file, or went too deep on a new mastering plugin? 🤷🏻♂️ I’m so curious! But regardless, it’s definitely comin along man! ⚡️
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Jesse!! What a great question.
Yeah, I love to “cover my bases” for mixing options later by capturing a great close mic’ed sound (mono or stereo) and supplementing with room mics, which can be balanced to taste later during mixing.
When placing the room mics (and all mics for that matter) I try to ensure that their signal is recorded in phase with the close mics — and also with each other, which you could check by soloing the room mics and flipping polarity on one of them to see if the sound gets better or worse. One advantage of XY stereo mic’ing and other ‘coincident pair’ mic setups is phase btwn the two stereo mics becomes a non-issue. With the capsules right on top of one another with a 90º angle, it’s near impossible for the phase btwn the two mics to be anything other than glorious.
Once your room mics are sounding good on their own, any phase discrepancies btwn the room mics and the close mic(s) can be adjusted by physically moving the room mics closer or farther from the close mic until all the mics blend together in a positive/additive way.
NOTE: when checking phase like this you always want to make sure all signals are playing back at roughly the same loudness. Even if you know you’ll likely bury the room mics at a low volume beneath the direct mic, you gotta turn up the rooms so they’re as loud as the direct mic(s) to hear the cumulative effect of flipping those polarity buttons in or out.
As for time-alignment of the room mics during mixing, that’s not something I do regularly at all. Once in a while I’ll scoot room mics earlier on the timeline (or later!) to get a desired effect, or if I like the room sound but sense that the mics were really placed farther away than I would have liked. (And, importantly, this trick would only work if there’s no bleed from other instruments in the room mics you’re moving, otherwise you’d screw up the room sound and phase relationship related to those other instruments).
Honestly, the only times I can recall doing radical time alignment on room mics like that is when I’m mixing live performances and the front of house mics or other ambience mics in the audience are creating too much of an echo effect against the direct stage mics because those mics were literally hundreds of feet away from the stage.
For day to day studio room mics and whatnot tho, I will definitely throw a time adjuster plugin or Little Labs IBP or SoundRadix Auto-align on there and do some sweeping micro timing adjustments if I feel like I can get the phase relationship tighter. And importantly, this method a) is only delaying the signal by samples or milliseconds, not seconds; b) does not move things earlier, only later in time, which is why I tend to use these plugins on the close mic/DI as opposed to the room; and c) will keep your audio clips at their original position on the timeline, which I’m always in favor of when it comes to time-alignment. Otherwise I’m libel to accidentally move some clips more than others and/or forget the specific offset I used when moving them, etc … all sorts of potential gremlin nightmares arise haha.
Ok that answer got a little long! Hope this all makes sense and is helpful, you rockstar!
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Cammy! This is such a gem of a song and performance, and love the recording too, nice work!
I listened to your references and I think you are spot on in the sounds and production, and I don’t think it would take much work to get the vocal and rest of mix sounding like those refs. If you feel like DM’ing me a lead vocal stem and an instrumental stem (w the bgvs in it too) maybe I can crank out a quick vid for you and the MP fam here on how I would get it there.
Mostly just taming a bit of low-mid “honk” in the voc with some multiband compression, then some voc wide-band compression, a healthy dose of silky top end (neve, pultec, NTI/maag are a few favs). Then a healthy dose of gentle limiting across the whole mix to get it loud and competitive, without wrecking the natural vibes, just like the refs.
Side Note: at 2:04 there’s a weird pitch rub going on in the band (maybe a tom ringing strangely against the chord being played by the band? Not sure, but maybe you’ll hear it).
Great work on this, Cammy! Is this you singing and/or playing as well?
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OMG @Nate – this is utterly gorgeous and amazing. This whole song, production, mix, EVERYTHING is so. freaking. incredible, you animal!!!
Shoutout to @JLEW who captured my feelings exactly in his first and last paragraphs, so a big phat “DITTO” to what he said.
Here are my verbatim notes I wrote while listening for the first time. As always, take or leave. AND, these are all just musings of my overactive brain, lol. NONE of these thoughts is important AT ALL in any kind of “youuuu should really fix this, Nate” type of way, haha.
2:34 – lose the kicks in “maybe someday” for a nice little dropout
choruses – main “wow” filter juno-ish synth pokes out too much to my ears against the rest of the exquisitely balanced track. It’s possible the level is ok but the stereoizing is making it feel too wide making it pop out too much? [I mostly noticed this in the 1st and 2nd chorus, less so later]
4:12 – breath and noises before choir – I would clipgain those waaay down so the breath level matches the perspective of the outgoing lead vocal – meaning keep the breath the loudness of what your lead vocal singer would sound like in the full chorus mix for a smoother transition.
piano outro – piano might be a bit too loud overall in keeping with the perspective of the massive size of the chorus before it? Or, if u keep it that level, I might try lowering the mechanical thumps and noises, which caught my attention and pulled me out of the trance for a sec as the chorus ended. I know that hyper-macro-lens-thumpy-mechanicals are all the rage in neo-classical Olafur Arnalds upright piano pop trends, lol, and that’s cool, and I love hearing the hammers lift as the final sound of the record!! But my experiment would be seeing if there’s a way to ease into the thumpy mechanics more slowly while keeping the “notes” of the piano at a constant volume. Does that make sense? Like piano sound like this = and thumpy mechanics like this <. Maybe that’s possible with hi-pass automation and/or some RX-ing to turn down the thumps in the front half of the piano outro?
Lastly, I’m so sorry for the loss you experienced which inspired this song. You really nailed that feeling, that emotion, and I can’t think of a better way to honor that relationship than you’ve done here with this magnificent work! 💜
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So hoooooky, bruh!! Another freaking jam, man! Here are allll of the thoughts that occurred to me while I listened (not just the specific thoughts you requested – sorry, I can’t help myself! Take w a grain of salt ..)
2:38 – dying to hear the uh-uh-uh-uh vocal hook here in the breakdown
2:56 – when this post-breakdown chorus comes charging in I want something new to amp up the energy even more, like 16th-tamb and/or triangle pattern, and/or new perc-y loop element
3:14 – same note here as 2:56: bring in something new once the lead vocal ends and the track becomes instrumental party jam. Another new rhythmic element that we haven’t heard before. Could also introduce a new harmonic element too if u wanna go nuts … huge grand piano octave “bass bombs” holding whole notes, or deep e-gtr power chord whole notes
3:17 – uh-uh-uh-uh-uh vocal answer
3:20 – opportunity for a lead vocal tag/refrain of the title, verbed out, “we are animals”
3:26 – uh-uh-uh-uh-uh vocal answer
3:29 – we are animals (with dotted-quarter feedback delay, fading into track fade)
Other general notes (as always, take em or leave em!):
- love the low end
- feel like the mix overall could be brighter and a bit more aggressively poppy mastered
- Do u have a reference mix you’re using for this song? One song that just popped into mind that has a similar breezy summer essence and feel-good chords w synthy poppy textures is “iT” by Christine and the Queens (this link will work even if u don’t have Tidal): https://tidal.com/browse/track/83130513?u
- I found myself getting pulled out of the trance of the music on several little occurrences of minor vocal tuning or vocal alignment discrepancies btwn the two lead vocal doubles, like when an S or a T are flamming. Your vocals always have a very honest, natural, endearing quality that draws me in and makes me feel like I’m getting a true unfiltered treat straight from the source! And I would never steer you away from that essence!!! That said tho, if I were mixing/producing this track I’d prob give those leads a lil 15% nip-tuck in the ol’ pro tools melodyne machine to nudge them ever so slightly toward pop-polish.
Amazing music you’re crankin out, homey!! Thanks so much for sharing here with us!!
PS – @-PT is on a Motorcycle cross-country road trip without his computer and wants you and @JLEW and @Pat to know that he gets alerted that you two have posted here on MP and it’s eating him up inside not being able to respond to your recent posts to cheer you on and offer his sage wisdom!
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Can’t wait to put my ears on this in the studio tomorrow (mon), homey!
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This wikipedia article is pretty dang fascinating if you or anyone else is interested in further reading on the subject of microphones and polar patterns. I had no idea there were such things as laser, fiber-optic, and plasma mics!!! ⚡️🧑🔬🔭🎤
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microphone#Capsule_design_and_directivity
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Jesse! Great questions, and you’re right about the way cardioid and omni polar patterns pick up sound, with cardioid picking up sound from the front of the mic/capsule and omni picking up sound from the front, back and sides of the mic/capsule.
But … it’s important to understand that regardless the polar pattern, these mics output a mono signal. An omni mic WILL capture sound on all sides, giving you a non-directional representation of the room, for example; however, it will be a mono recording of the room … unless you use two or more mics and pan them anywhere other than center.
In the case of an omni mic when we listen to the recorded audio on a stereo playback system, the sound does come out of both speakers but equally so, thus it is mono. One mic – even when in omni, picking up sound from all sides – can never reproduce stereo sound. Gotta have 2 or more mics to recreate the stereo image you hear with your two ears 😉
Does that make sense? I’m realizing while typing just how odd and difficult these concepts are to write about. Much better to demonstrate with sound and/or video! 🤘
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Sweet, Patrick! These are sounding great on my laptop, albeit not the best playback system to really analyze stereo image. That said, on the laptop these sound clear and lively and are a lot of fun to listen to (lifted my spirits, man!). I’ll take a listen on my studio speakers for the stereo image soon.
I’ve been using that ozone imager more and more lately as well – super useful and easy to use, love it!
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So freaking awesome, you guitar-boating stud! Really fun to see the incredible space you were in, and to see a bit of your mic positions. I kept thinking while watching, “wow, where you live is so different from where I live.” Looks sooooo serene and peaceful!!
Fantastic work, homey!!!! Thanks for bringing us on your journey!
Will u do me a favor and also post this vid in your original thread so new visitors there can see your awesome progression and end result in one place? You rule, brother! Keep em comin!
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Is that your bullet hole in that cactus, Paul?? 😂
What an enjoyable SFX-and-tuba-laiden cover! Love the applause and ambulance, and the reverb tail ending was 👌.
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Yep, you nailed it! You’re totally on the right track, and all of your understanding is solid!
I haven’t heard the Lewitt so I can’t specifically comment on that mic. But one super helpful resource I love using to audition various mics is Audio Test Kitchen. You can put that Lewitt mic up against other mics in your virtual “mic locker” and seamlessly audition and compare the mics using a library of sound sources.
Plus it was founded by a legend among us here in our MP community (tho I don’t want to put him on the spot at the moment – perhaps a collab vid in our future would be fun 🤩)
Anywho, I use it all the time and recommend it all the time. It’s pretty damn cool, and quite a monumental undertaking to have sampled all these mics on all these sound sources with laser precision scientific accuracy for a true and trustworthy comparative sonic assessment!
audiotestkitchen.com
Audio Test Kitchen | Compare the sound of 300 microphones
Find the best microphone for you. Try microphones before you buy on the world's largest online microphone shootout. Listen to unbiased comparison recordings. Compare standardized frequency response graphs. Created by Grammy-winning engineers and renown scientists.
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Awe, that means so much, brother, thank you! I’m always so excited when u post stuff cause I know it’ll be amazing and I can’t wait to hear it!
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💜 thanks man!