What a Difference a Mix Makes...

[Bang]

Here I am posting links to a song that I REMIXED at my studio for an extremely talented band called Blind By Noon ( www.blindbynoon.com ). The purpose of this post is to show what a great difference a mix can make.

This first mix is the ORIGINAL MIX. I DIDN'T DO THIS ONE. I REPEAT. THIS IS NOT MY MIX.

www.blacklinerock.com/music/JayOld.mp3

Here is my remixing of the song (updated with the final mix on 11/2/04). I remixed it through a Midas Venice 320 with no outboard gear except a custom SSL like compressor. I had to do A LOT to the mix, including numerous processes on the vocal tracks to get them more shiny and polished. Take a listen and tell me what you think:

www.blacklinerock.com/music/Jay5hp.mp3

The files are not level matched so you might want to tinker with the old volume switch when A/Bing.

Thanks for listening,
Steve
www.bangrecording.com
www.blacklinerock.com

[djui5]

Nice work......yours is distorted though...kinda like hitting a L1 a little too hard...if you know what I mean..

It's a lot bigger sounding...and a ton punchier....clearer.......more defined...etc etc...

Lovely!

[Bang]

I just re-encoded my mix with the LAME MP3 encoder and now it seems as if any distortion has vanished. Try it again,
Steve
www.bangrecording.com
www.blacklinerock.com

[bassmac]

Sounds great.

Can you tell us about the snare and vox processing?

[djui5]

Originally posted by Bang
I just re-encoded my mix with the LAME MP3 encoder and now it seems as if any distortion has vanished. Try it again,
Steve
www.bangrecording.com
www.blacklinerock.com

nice mix...

[Bang]

Originally posted by bassmac
Sounds great.

Can you tell us about the snare and vox processing?

The vocals were one hell of a challenge.

They sounded like they were recorded with a dynamic mic because they had no sheen or brilliance to them and were quite dull and boxy. There was also a LOT of them. I had three chains of vox, one for the main lead vocal, a stereo pair for the lead chorus vox, and a stereo back up vox chain. For the most part, it took two LA-2A plugins, a Pultec EQ Plugin cranking 10khz, and on the lead vocal a plugin, something I've never once used in a mix before, an "aural activator" plugin by DSP FX. I ran two Waves De essers in each chain, one after the second compressor, one on the last insert of the chain. To compare the vocal before and after was night and day.

The snare I multed to two channels and gated each. I put one through a dbx 160A and I cranked the upper mid eq and a bit of shelf on my Midas EQ. Then I found a snare hit from another song I recorded and added that in via drumagog. The original snare and sample were equal in the mix. I'll also say that there were no overhead mics.. every cymbal was mic'd individually.. Not an easy mix but well worth it in the end.

Steve
www.bangrecording.com
www.blacklinerock.com

[bassmac]

Cool - you certainly made lemonade from lemons.

Thanks for sharing.

[Bang]

I appreciate it!

An interesting thing about this tune is that the guitars are all POD XT. I was amazed at this because I think they sound pretty damn realistic.

Steve
www.bangrecording.com
www.blacklinerock.com

[NeoVXR]

great, but if you look for an idea, the dist. guitars in the old version have a certain beauty, within the "old" context. maybe just for the git tracks alone you go a little step backwards?
I remember from your other postings there was a certain taste with guitar sound and I recognize it here. personally for this project I would prefer the older sound, but make it just fit into the richer spectrum. you drastically changed the STYLE of the guitar sound, while I perceive the vocals and the snare as a brilliant salvage job. much better!
(sometimes it is possible to enhance everything but one important track. then either retrack or step back with the overall sound until it can compete. remember the snare got robot power... starring the show now..)

[Bang]

Thanks for the comments. I agree that the guitars in the first mix had a good character, but for my tastes, they were too dull and boring and didn't have any sizzle and punch. Thats what I wanted to do in my mix. They were also very narrow and didn't stand out of the mix at all. I automated them to really fly out in parts where I felt it sounded good. I think they also needed to sound crisper then they do in the first mix. Thanks man,

Steve
www.bangrecording.com
www.blacklinerock.com

[retrograde]

The new mix is much more open and focused. Good work. From a taste perspective though, I have to agree with Neovxr on the original guitar sound. To me that it seems suited to the song.

Geoff

[Bang]

I just posted in the original post the final mix of the song. Here is the link again:

www.blacklinerock.com/music/Jay5hp.mp3

The "hp" means that I put a hi pass filter on the mastering compressor. Here is the same mix without the hi pass.. which I believe is at 100Hz.

www.blacklinerock.com/music/Jay5.mp3

Thanks for listening.. hope you dig it.

Steve
www.bangrecording.com
www.blacklinerock.com

[NeoVXR]

steve,

guitars and everything - much better now!
also the snare fits better.
but the bridge is quite loud, you might try it softer and more transparent.

for the HP, it is the other way, you exchanged the files
the "hp" file sounds better to me.
you might try to start at 240 Hz and do 1/2 or 1/3 of the reduction.
for testing, I drew a line that had -1 at 20 Hz, ending at 240. was nice, but not sure if its heavy enough.

[GPl]

Great job! Like the song too. PODXT?

Ok, I just finished up something(my own song for a comp). The original guitars(5 tracks in all) were on POD. I looped those and got this nice little zip in the change up, but at the time was considered bad. We re-tracked everything again with amp/mics and when all was said and done, the original tracks with the POD/looped won over. Now I beleive it was the fact the original had more character/feel to it.

But the sound in the end was definately there. Still, I like mic'n amps which is what I should have origianlly. I'm sure those first few takes would have had the same character to it.

Nice work Bang.

[dim light]

Bang I dig what you do! Great work.

[Beezoboy]

One thing I have notcied is a slight pumping in the guitars. Do you have them ducking the kick? Or maybe have them all subbed and compressing the sub? Maybe its just the mastering. I don't know. It just bothers me.

Good job other than that.

[Bang]

The mastering engineer used some crappy opto compressor and its the kick drum thats pumping everything. I'm going to remaster it myself. He made the kick too prominent, he didn't set the attack and release right so that it doesn't pump. Stay tuned for my master. I'm also going to do a mid side eq which will bring the vocal out a bit more.
Steve
www.bangrecording.com
www.blacklinerock.com

[gpcramseysoral]

When I listened, the guitar and vox were (imo) the main unbeatable improvements. Yet for some reason I kept wanting the vocal to have more movement. Not like a panning thing, more like a sharper attack (with say a SPL "transient designer") and more present tail on the reverb. Particularly during the verses. I feel this would have worked really well since you created so much separation between the guitar and the vox. In turn the vox would have had more contrast between the attack/sustain and decay as well as the guitar tracks.
Yet and still this is your interpretation of a mix, not mine. I'm just pointing out some ideas for the sake of creative exchange. All and all it gave me some tremendous ideas on how to make a mix sound bigger as well as placement.

[Bang]

This vocal track must have been recorded with a dynamic mic.. it was pretty damn difficult to get it to where it is. I don't think there is much more that can be done with it, minus re recording it with a better mic. I dig it. I've heard big time label releases that sound worse to me. The track the band went with is the vocal UP mix which had the vocal a little louder then in this mix. Also, I feel the biggest improvement from old mix to new is the drums but I'm biased because I'm a big drum guy. They were not even in the ballpark of useable in the old mix imo. Thanks for your comments...
Steve
www.bangrecording.com
www.blacklinerock.com

[Bang]

Here are three masters that I did of the three final mixes. Thanks to Blind By Noon for letting me post.

www.blacklinerock.com/music/JayMix4.mp3

www.blacklinerock.com/music/JayMix5.mp3

www.blacklinerock.com/music/JayMix6.mp3

each of these mixes has different track levels mainly, one's a vocal up, a snare up, and an "even" one.

Remember, listen to the original mix in the first post to hear what these tracks sounded like, this wasn't an easy mix! Great band though.

Steve
www.bangrecording.com
www.blacklinerock.com