Mix Practice - looking for a fresh ear and advice

[brianellefson]

So by day Im a musician/songwriter, but I'm really working on my mixing skills - not to record other bands, but to mix my own stuff. I feel like I've plateaued on this song at the moment and just can't take it up a notch. Looking for some advice from experienced audio engineers.

For the sake of full disclosure, this song was recorded using a BLUE Mouse and a Neumann TLM 103 on acoustics and VOX, SM57 on electrics, a UA M610 pre, a GAP Pre 73, and mixed using plugins on Logic 9.

Any constructive advice would be really really appreciated. Thanks a lot!

PS - HATING the cymbals on this right now.

[brianellefson]

Bump.

Im dyin' here.

[RDFiorentino]

I enjoyed the mix, except the cymbals... How did you treat them? Is the hi-hat miked or is it being heard from the OHs? Snare could be turned down a little bit, even though it sounds really nice.

[alexvdbroek]

Sounds good. Just turn the drums down IMHO. It will make the other things more present then also. The guitar provides alot of rhythm so I dont think the song will be affected too much.
A.

[brianellefson]

Originally Posted by RDFiorentino

I enjoyed the mix, except the cymbals... How did you treat them? Is the hi-hat miked or is it being heard from the OHs? Snare could be turned down a little bit, even though it sounds really nice.

Thanks for taking the time.

The HH in the verses and the ride on the choruses are both sampled, but the crash cymbals are real. At the time I was recording this, I hated the tails on sampled crash cymbals so I used real ones. While I was mixing this, I think I just used some EQ and light compression on all of that stuff.

I think you guys are right ... I need to bring the drums down in general. Plus, I wanna try some different EQ on the crashes to sweeten them up. They sound kinda dirty to me.

Thanks again for taking time to respond. I really appreciate that.

[rdaop]

I think you are burying your voice too much in the mix. I'd also like to hear you play with reverbs or delays a little bit more and add some more dimension to it. It's kind of all sitting at the front of the speakers.

[Sim]

Mixoff?

[brianellefson]

Mixoff? Sure. How do I upload the tracks. This would be a good learning experience for me to see how other people do things.

[Sim]

drop box or Yousend it. I don't know if your looking for help though or wanting someone to mix for you? Mainly because mix offs can become nothing to do with helping the thread starter and just about people trying to out mix each other. So if you do just keep people focused on helping you out...
and not their ego.

[Sim]

Just noticed the drums putting some ghost notes in and lowering the velocity may make the snare sound a little more like a drummer playing it. I think the mix is really good except the drums as they're vst and I'm a drummer, it really sticks out to me. I might be able to record some for you if I have time on thursday.

[Paul Gilland]

Its a great song, and that is way more than half the battle.

Recording wise: The kick is louder than some heavy metal records so I would lower that, the snare lacks air & high end sparkle to my ears and I would definitely rerecord the cymbals with real ones and bring them up in the mix.

It's a great song - I would be proud!

[brianellefson]

Hey guys ... thanks SO much for the feedback. Really appreciated. I started a new thread and included links to the rough tracks if you wanna check em out and practice a mix on them. I'd really appreciate anything that comes of it. I'm working on my mixing skills. I wouldn't consider myself great at it yet. I'm primarily a musician and songwriter so the technical stuff is still a work in progress (actually, it's ALL a work in progress - even things I think I may already be good at).

Anyway, if you wanna check it out ... it'd be much appreciated. -Brian

PS - yeah, the drums on the song came from a Boss Dr Rhythm. Sucks, I know, but it's what I had at that time. And since I recorded onto a Boss BR1200 12-track at the time, I had to make stems of the drums - couldn't have individual tracks for all of them. BUT, the funny thing is the song went on to be on ABC on a tv show called Cougar Town, which kinda cracks me up now ... from Boss BR1200 to a tv show. Since then, I've upgraded to an iMac running Logic 9 with 24 bit 44k quality ... HUGE improvement over the Boss.

MIXOFF - electric guitar, organic pop rock

[brianellefson]

Originally Posted by Sim

drop box or Yousend it. I don't know if your looking for help though or wanting someone to mix for you? Mainly because mix offs can become nothing to do with helping the thread starter and just about people trying to out mix each other. So if you do just keep people focused on helping you out...
and not their ego.

HA. Yeah, I get that. I'm interested in both, honestly. I don't mind the ego if I'm learning something from them. And especially if somebody takes something of mine and puts a twist on it that I wouldn't have thought about. That'd be a good learning experience. The song has been finished and out there for a bit now. Just trying to become better at mixing. So whatever it takes.

[Sim]

Cool put it forward for mixoff then if you want to get something out of it as in to mix your own music better just make sure people post screen shoots and explain what they've done technically, rather than just chucking a mix and saying here you go look at me aren't I the best.