First GS Mix Critique...*Tough* Mix

[over-man]

I keep going back and forth on these two mixes: one minute they sound great to me, the next...not so much.

It was a tougher project than I thought it would be, combining dozens of Reason tracks with live drums, bass, guitar and vox. The style is also a little twist on what I usually do, its a mix of pop/electronic/rock.

I can certainly provide more details on how I tracked if anyone is interested, the semi-slutty equipment used, etc., but for now I'd love to receive some constructive criticism. Tear it apart, just don't make me cry.

I've uploaded 192k mp3s, and included a link their MySpace, where you can listen to what they sound like after being crushed by the L2007 and MySpace's player... Thanks everybody!

http://www.myspace.com/innercitykids

[Theo Desktop]

Just listened to both tracks once and my initial impressions are that "Sunny" is a much more cohesive mix than "Oceans".

The bass guitar in "Oceans" sounds a bit thin to my ears and the electric guitars seem a bit too loud in the mix to the point where they sound separated from the rest of the instruments and drown them out. It's all about relations in a mix and I think when the guitars come in the bass and drums sound rather small.

The vocals definitely need to come up a bit (in both songs) and I think more judicious use of the pitch correction/vocoder effect would go a long way. This style of music can have a lot of effects on the vocal, but at some point we need to hear the singers real voice (I can't even tell if it's female or male ).

It's an interesting style, for sure, and I think it could benefit from having a bit more going on production wise, especially on the vox and rhythm section. It sounds fairly dry and I'm assuming it hasn't been mastered? Overall, I think it sounds good, though.

Theo

[pjplayer]

the first song is the most interesting thing i've heard posted on gearslutz. there's definitely a fight going on between the guitars and drums and the rest, which i actually think is no bad thing, but the previous poster is correct about the guitars being too loud. i'd keep the vocals low.

the second song is really rather poor in comparison, the vocal effects begin to lose their charm and despite some interesting instrumentation the song really wants to be a searing alt rock anthem, the world really needs another one of those.

they've obviously got a lot of ideas, i'd strongly recommend they ditch the straight-ahead rock elements and make the loud guitars more interesting to fit with the synths. the singer will soon be embarrassed that they liked the over-auto-tuned effect, but the willingness to experiment is an encouraging sign.

[over-man]

Thanks for the comments guys, I definitely agree with most of what you're saying. I need to go back on the avantone and adjust some levels, eq too. The guitars are too up front on Oceans, they're also quite dry. Maybe a touch of verb?

The vocals are interesting. If it was up to them, there might actually be *more* auto-tune going on...a matter of taste I suppose. The singer wanted to track with auto-tune on live in his cans, so he sang, shifting pitches as was his want. Never tracked like that before, wasn't sure how it was going to turn out. I can still adjust the amount, but when the effect is too low, it starts to get pitchy in a weird way.

These were written by two 16 year olds, and they are certainly willing to experiment with styles and branch out in different directions. I don't particularly like the alt-rock thing they have going on in parts of these two songs, which was very different than anything I'd heard them do before, and they won't likely go in that direction in the future either. The electronic pop elements seem to suit them much better.

These tracks have not been mastered yet. Hopefully they'll scrounge up the cash to have a real job done, or I may have to do it myself. Thanks guys, keep it coming!

[allencollins]

Originally Posted by over-man

I keep going back and forth on these two mixes: one minute they sound great to me, the next...not so much.

It was a tougher project than I thought it would be, combining dozens of Reason tracks with live drums, bass, guitar and vox. The style is also a little twist on what I usually do, its a mix of pop/electronic/rock.

I can certainly provide more details on how I tracked if anyone is interested, the semi-slutty equipment used, etc., but for now I'd love to receive some constructive criticism. Tear it apart, just don't make me cry.

I've uploaded 192k mp3s, and included a link their MySpace, where you can listen to what they sound like after being crushed by the L2007 and MySpace's player... Thanks everybody!

MySpace.com - Inner City Kids (NEW SONGS TODAY!) - PLANO, Texas - Electronica / Indie / Crunk - www.myspace.com/innercitykids

Sounds good. Kinda like Star Castle from the 70's. Pretty tight band.
Id fatten up the drums maybe some limiting and some 50 -100 hz oomph
Needs more explosivness. good gtr tone good vocal

[dbbubba]

I have no comment about the auto-tuned vocals except to say that those are the most auto-tuned vocals I have EVER heard!
Move over Sean Kingston!!!!

The robot, grid adjusted, sample replaced drums sound like bad drum machine programming. Bad parts, over-played and then tweezed to death.

The first cut is interesting to a degree, but only because it is so bizaar sounding.

The second cut is just a mess.

How anyone can say that it sounds like ANY '70s group is INSANE!

Are you from Germany?
Is that Kraftwerk rockin' out?

Seriously, because I don't know what I am actually hearing makes me confused about what the mix should sound like.

[FireMoon]

Songs have promise and the synths are nicely done and recorded... guitars... hmmmmm, more weight... the drums.....sort of limp along in the back ground not really doing anything for the song... There are parts that really should explode and push the track along, that at the moment, are just sort of ambling in because of the flatness of the drums..

Reminds me of Imogen Heap in places...

[mdme_sadie]

On the first one - to me it's missing a lot of bass, which is fine if you're into that early emocore sound (not what happened when it becomes goth/new romantic, but back when it was punk, Cap'n Jazz, early The Promise Ring, and later on Modest Mouse etc). I think the first one suffers from congestion in the upper mids-ranges, the vocals are pushed back too far too. It's all very fizzy. Which is fine if that's what you want, but looses a lot of definition through all fitting int he same frequency range and the leading instrument being pushed so far back.

On the second one, the bass is better, but the bass and guitar parts don't mesh in several places, leading to some nasty dischords, also the guitar sounds to me really grate there, they should be pushed back IMO and maybe the sound changed somewhat to be less trebley.

I think your vocalist is scared of their own voice too much, listening to the phrasing underneath the autotune I think the vocals could actually be quite decent, instead of using autotune they should invest in some vocal lessons and learn how to control their voice by themselves, then push up the vocals till they're squirming in their seat, that's when it's loud enough :D. I also think that you should show us the tracks without the loudness/treble boost "mastering" going on. They sound overcompressed in places with blattering effects without it sounding big and loud, so the effect is lost, especially on certain guitar passages on the second song.

Overall I do think you've got some cool stuff going on, so if you take any input from what I've said then remember to take it with a pinch of salt, because what I'd push for and what you'd push for could be 2 totally seperate things.

[Empire Prod]

Oceans has a lot of potential. Pay the money to have an experienced engineer record it after you have reworked the arrangement and spiced up the verses as well as the bridge. The chorus is cool and if you rework the song I could hear it doing something. As it stands, it is pretty far away from being "radio ready". Just go somewhere and do it right. You have some cool ideas!

[over-man]

Originally Posted by dbbubba

The robot, grid adjusted, sample replaced drums sound like bad drum machine programming. Bad parts, over-played and then tweezed to death.

There are a lot of Reason drums in here, but the real drums weren't quantized at all, I kept those live. The drummer just played over the loops the band already had. Balancing all of these was one of the hardest things, but they really wanted to preserve those electronic elements.

Originally Posted by dbbubba

Seriously, because I don't know what I am actually hearing makes me confused about what the mix should sound like.

You hit the nail on the head.

With so many different things going on, and just the way the songs are written, it was hard to pick a direction and make all the transitions sound somewhat natural. I'm looking for that compelling mix...

[dbbubba]

It's weird to me because I have to listen to all of the most contemporary stuff out with headphones on.
I get to hear it over and over again each weekend.

A lot of new generation mixes are just strange too me.

I never know if things are meant to be quirky or if the were poorly recorded, mixed, edited!
I just can't tell!

I had to listen on cheap, plastic, computer speakers because I am reconfiguring my network at the house.
I should have my studio computer back on the internet tomorrow, so i'll listen again.
I have a fairly decent monitoring rig.

[chrispick]

My opinions:

Vocals need to be pushed up on both tracks.

Unconventional drums beg for unconventional treatment. Be bolder here. How would, say, Tony Visconti approach them? Or Brian Eno? Or Nigel Godrich?

Rock guitar interjections do seem incongruent. Best to either emphasize the electronic elements or work to fuse the rock and electronic styles into something more unified and original.

Ignore GS arrangement criticisms. That's for you and the band to hash out according to your own aesthetic predilections.

The great thing is you don't have to abide by staid mix precedent. You can give in to intuitive choices because it's relatively new territory, stylistically (although not as weird, original and far out as I think some here take it to be).

[over-man]

Originally Posted by allencollins

Sounds good. Kinda like Star Castle from the 70's. Pretty tight band.
Id fatten up the drums maybe some limiting and some 50 -100 hz oomph
Needs more explosivness. good gtr tone good vocal

Allen,

Thanks for the compliments, now I'm only half as afraid of you as I was before. I even used your much hated Royer 121, but it was paired with an i5, so maybe thats what saved it.

As it was, I really did need both of the mics. Neither one by itself sounded very impressive. It was one of the first times I was actually a bit disappointed with the sound of the Royer.

Originally Posted by dbbubba

Are you from Germany?
Is that Kraftwerk rockin' out?

Actually, I think the singer is Mexican!

Originally Posted by mdme_sadie

I think the first one suffers from congestion in the upper mids-ranges, the vocals are pushed back too far too. It's all very fizzy. Which is fine if that's what you want, but looses a lot of definition through all fitting int he same frequency range and the leading instrument being pushed so far back.

This sounds right, and its not exactly what I want. Its definitely lacking clarity, and some of it is probably from the guitar/bass arrangements too. Back to the Avantone.

Originally Posted by mdme_sadie

I also think that you should show us the tracks without the loudness/treble boost "mastering" going on. They sound overcompressed in places with blattering effects without it sounding big and loud, so the effect is lost, especially on certain guitar passages on the second song.

Overall I do think you've got some cool stuff going on, so if you take any input from what I've said then remember to take it with a pinch of salt, because what I'd push for and what you'd push for could be 2 totally seperate things.

There isn't anything on the 2 bus at all, no compression/eq. The guitars also have no compression, but the bass does. Some of the drums have individual buss compression, but it does sound like I need to look again at the mix between dry/compressed tracks.

[dbbubba]

I will add that for me, music that is created with elements that are recorded in a heavy over-dubbed and highly EQ'd, synthesized, modified, tweaked style are WAYYYYY harder to make "musical" than music that is created by a group playing live or close to live.

It is harder to make a bunch of synth and drum machine/loop tracks "speak."

The further you get from traditional arrangements, the harder it is to make things sound "musical."

I assume that the reason is that our musical minds have heard stuff sound a certain way for so long and tweazing/massaging sounds that are a bit "eccentric" into that mold is difficult.
It is for me!

[bcgood]

AT fest 2000

Definitely does not sound like the 70's thank God!

Keep working though I'm sure all of y our hard work will pay off. Digital is just so flat to me in this case, it really is hard to give more specific feed back with this one...

[chrispick]

For reference, you might want to check out stuff by "The Postal Service." Might give you some ideas.

The Postal Service

MP3 samples there. Listen to "The District Sleeps Alone Tonight."

[over-man]

Originally Posted by dbbubba

It's weird to me because I have to listen to all of the most contemporary stuff out with headphones on.
I get to hear it over and over again each weekend.

A lot of new generation mixes are just strange too me.

I never know if things are meant to be quirky or if the were poorly recorded, mixed, edited!
I just can't tell!

I had to listen on cheap, plastic, computer speakers because I am reconfiguring my network at the house.
I should have my studio computer back on the internet tomorrow, so i'll listen again.
I have a fairly decent monitoring rig.

Danny,

Thanks for taking the time to listen and comment, I've read a lot of your posts just trying to soak in some of your experience. I'm just down the road in Carrollton, would love to meet you sometime!

I feel like the raw tracks I have sound pretty solid, they're just not coming together right. Lack of experience is certainly one factor though... I ran most of the Reason tracks through a UA 610 or Neve clone along with some guitar pedals and judicious use of re-amping, which livened things up, but I think the real drum tracks are sitting funny right now.

5 hours of sleep, then I have to tutor high school kids for 4 hours before doing a live sound gig all day for my friend's cover band...in an equestrian center. Good
times!

I won't be able to reply until late tomorrow night, but thanks for all of the help everyone, I really appreciate it. I'm mixing all day Sunday, so we'll see what I can do with it then.

[over-man]

Originally Posted by bcgood

Keep working though I'm sure all of your hard work will pay off. Digital is just so flat to me in this case, it really is hard to give more specific feed back with this one...

Yeah, I knew eventually someone would say this, and I hear what you're saying, but I'm really trying *not* to blame the equipment before I blame myself. I just want to push the limits of the gear I have at the time, and I feel like I'm not at that point. Its kind of like when I play hockey; I'm a goalie, and I never blame my team when a goal goes in, I always tell myself there was something I could have done to stop the shot, and to some extent, its true... It certainly made me a much better player anyway.

That's not to say I couldn't benefit from a real console, or analog summing at the very least. A lot of my troubles are related to width/depth, but alas...someday.

[over-man]

Originally Posted by chrispick

For reference, you might want to check out stuff by "The Postal Service." Might give you some ideas.

The Postal Service

MP3 samples there. Listen to "The District Sleeps Alone Tonight."

Nice! I just got a Postal Service cd today, haven't even listened to it yet, and I've never heard the band either. That might be my reference on Sunday. That was another problem , I didn't have a good reference for this band...couldn't think of anything.

[u b k]

i'm down with pretty much all that's been said so far, except for the observations that this sound is new. it's not, it's roughly 6 years gone and is actually a bit played out by now in electronic terms.

in any event, this kind of music is all about the production, so your job as the knob twiddler is to take these raw elements which are not delivered in a live, dynamic manner, and give them a voice that is compelling, jarring, novel, and effective.

element-wise, the drums are the weakest link in the chain, by far. you would do well to work distortion, saturation, and aggressive compression into the mix. the bass is way too light, the kick and gts. way too detached.

really, the thing that's undermining the whole effort is the lack of choices on your part as to what is spotlighted, what is supporting, and what is incidental. there really isn't a whole lot going on to my ears, i've heard much denser arrangements in much more standard pop songs, but without boldness when it comes to working the balances, things fight for attention. this can manifest as frequency issues, but eq is not the primary problem; faders and rides are the cure.

start with the bass, kick, and vocals, and listen to the whole song with just those 3 sounds. make them the foundation, and build everything up and around them. whatever you do, don't ever lose the foundation or the whole structure collapses.

from there, if you think in terms of melody as the heartbeat and rhythm as the propulsion, and always have one element (or group of elements if they're tightly interwoven) playing each role unequivocally at all times, you may start to see how the picture needs to be framed.



gregoire
del
ubk
.

[wm_b]

Oceans. Pretty interesting tune.

Synths at the beginning and throughout sound too clear. Guitars are too out front or just too out of tune, particularly on the chord that rings out right as the hyper-tuned vocal comes in.

The juxtaposition of dissimilar sources is very challenging. I always try to bring something of each source into the other. For synths, a guitar amp or amp sim on a more or less clean setting can humanize the tone and remove some of the "slickness". For guitars, it can help to "slick" them up by making them smaller (but not thinner) with deep high passes, selective highmid boost and compression. Additional time domain processing might also bring them into context with the synth tones.

The electronic drums and real drums suffer the same issue as the keys and guitars. The live drums sound too roomy but not in a good way. I would either try to really bring out the character of the room mic's almost to the point of being kind of outrageous or tighten things up with more close mic's if you've got them.

The basic thing that needs attention is bringing the real instruments into the same context as the samples and synths. Based on what I'm hearing with the guitars I would retrack them as they are not in tune with each other and that's unacceptable in a production with that kind of vocal treatment.

However, what do I know? I'm just a guy on the internet who rarely gives advice on how to mix.

Good luck,
William

[greatgreatriver]

It was fun listening to - I actually liked it - the auto-tune bit reduction on the voice is killing it for me though - the mix is rough and that's what I like. I would brighten up the snare a bit and bring some life to the mix - it's a little muddy like I mention earlier...

[over-man]

Originally Posted by u b k

i'm down with pretty much all that's been said so far, except for the observations that this sound is new. it's not, it's roughly 6 years gone and is actually a bit played out by now in electronic terms.

in any event, this kind of music is all about the production, so your job as the knob twiddler is to take these raw elements which are not delivered in a live, dynamic manner, and give them a voice that is compelling, jarring, novel, and effective.

element-wise, the drums are the weakest link in the chain, by far. you would do well to work distortion, saturation, and aggressive compression into the mix. the bass is way too light, the kick and gts. way too detached.

really, the thing that's undermining the whole effort is the lack of choices on your part as to what is spotlighted, what is supporting, and what is incidental. there really isn't a whole lot going on to my ears, i've heard much denser arrangements in much more standard pop songs, but without boldness when it comes to working the balances, things fight for attention. this can manifest as frequency issues, but eq is not the primary problem; faders and rides are the cure.

start with the bass, kick, and vocals, and listen to the whole song with just those 3 sounds. make them the foundation, and build everything up and around them. whatever you do, don't ever lose the foundation or the whole structure collapses.

from there, if you think in terms of melody as the heartbeat and rhythm as the propulsion, and always have one element (or group of elements if they're tightly interwoven) playing each role unequivocally at all times, you may start to see how the picture needs to be framed.



gregoire
del
ubk
.

Sage-like wisdom UBK, I've learned a lot from your posts and was hoping you might offer some advice. I'm still taking it all in, but I agree that the main problem is a lack of choices on my end "as to what is spotlighted, what is supporting, and what is incidental. " In hindsight I mixed too loudly and not enough on my avantone, and was way too concerned about getting a good guitar tone, a little piece of the puzzle, instead of the big picture.

I didn't mix today after working 17 straight hours on Saturday, including 11 doing live sound in a giant barn. The staging company laid 677 4'X4' panels over the dirt, and my allergies and exhaustion were too much today.

Again, I really appreciate all of the help everyone is offering, its adds that little extra motivation that can do a lot. I'll post the mixes after working on them for a few hours tomorrow. I'm basically going to start from scratch with vocals, bass and kick, and see what happens.

[over-man]

Its looking like I won't have anything polished enough to post today, but the Postal Service is serving as the best mix reference yet, and starting with vox, kick, & bass seems to work well for this genre. I typicallly start with drums, then add bass, guits, etc. with the vocals last, but its no wonder the drums got drowned out by the time I put everything on top this time...will keep you all posted.

[Battles]

I definitely hear some DeLonge influence here. The only thing I would suggest is to brighten up the mix a little bit. It lacks a little clarity and separation. Oceans has a lot of potential. Like the guitar tone.