This is a song I mixed about a year-and-a-half ago when I was a paid member at Graham and Joe’s Dueling Mixes. I feel like I’ve learned a lot since then and am much better at mixing, so I remixed this song for fun. This song I believe, is written by Graham Cochan. Performed and arranged by him.
BTW, seems fittin’ since I’m using his song, to give a plug for dueling mixes. This was a great experience for me and a wonderful community. They have a 14-day free membership. I highly recommend them.
Anyway, here’s my most recent remix (completed today!) of Out of Myself. All tracks were provided by dueling mixes, unmixed. The challenge for me on this was the drums, cuz they weren’t well-recorded. Very muddy and lacking clarity. I think I’m liking how they turned out though. Please let me know what you think.
Hope it’s okay to reach out in this thread again? Didn’t get any feedback, but would love to hear what y’all think.
Thanx. I’m not doing anything with this song (not going into an album or anything). I just enjoyed the song and remixing, and trying to get better at this.
I’ve been wanting to go back and de-do some mixes too. Neat idea.
Listening as I write:
The bass/low end has some resonance that’s making it kind of boomy. It’s nicely present but could be tightened up some.
I like your vocal treatment!
Good acoustics!
The lead might be a little loud.
Good job on the drums - they sound just fine to me! I like your snare sound, nice and snappy.
Maybe the lead on the Outro section could be brought more forward. (Around 5:30)
Woah! Another guitar, now it’s too loud at 6:00!
Nice job on this. So the above notes are just picky minor things because I think it sounds pretty good! I’m thinking on something Andrew said about one of my mixes one time, and I’ve heard in a few tutorials as well. As the song plays through, think of THE element that needs to be highlighted and make sure and do that with automation or muting or whatnot to draw the listener’s attention to it. I think specifically of the long cool Outro section here where the guitar parts kind of trade off. It’s a great place to really “build” into the final solo. As it is now, that last guitar is kind of shocking when it comes in. (Great sound on that guitar BTY! Love the nastiness!)
Sure is clean. Not much for a lot of instruments competing. It’s a little loud when he goes high?
I see it is 5 minutes long. ha ha I made it to the 143 mark. sounds like you nailed it.
Thanks, Mike, for the thoughtful critique. Much appreciated.
So…
By tightened up, are you thinking EQ, or more stereo spread? “Boominess” says maybe a little cut around probably 100-150?
Yeah, I was pleased with the vox and guitars. Thanks for the kudos there. I especially appreciated your comments on the drums, cuz I found them to be tough cuz they were so poorly recorded: poorly EQ’d and a lot of bleed. I did a lot of EQ, esp on snare and bass, tightened up with compression, and then leaned heavily on the balance between thr room and overhead.
Great comments on the automation piece, and the loud guitar entry toward the end. Easily fixed. I’ll retool that and repost.
Thanks again for the time you spent on this. Excellent critique.
Definitely EQ. 100-150 seems about right, but I’d just grab my favorite parametric EQ and hunt around until I find it. I’m still not super great at identifying EQ ranges like that.
In re-listening, the first verse vocal when he is singing quietly could come up some. The drums sound great to me. If anything, the snare could use a little more punch to really accent that beat. Could groove.
Some multiband compression could be nice as well. one band up until around 100-110 and a next band going as far as your mud goes, sometimes up until 400. And then a bit more limiting if needed. This helps me get the low end pretty tight in dense metal mixes. Control it, and bring it back up
Btw, very nice mix mate ! Was just jumping in on the approach suggestion
Listening on HD650 now, so I can’t tell what it would do on my big speakers bass wise, but I don’t hear much wrong with the bass, so it would indeed be very subtle changes if you do some. I’d definitaly try that multiband/limiter thing, just to see what happens.
Man, Vaughan, I just don’t understand how you are able to do so much without having the original tracks. I feel like I just wanna be able to look over your shoulder and LEARN. Very nice.
So I’ve been relaxing tonight outside on my porch, playing some more with this mix. Here’s my updated mix (sorry, I finished this before I saw your mix, Vaughan).
I did a bunch of things, per @miked’s and @DeRebel’s suggestions. Biggest thing I did was EQ the bass: a roll-off at 60, and little bumps at 176 and 500, and a 2 dB boost at 3K to get a little string and fret noise. Added a touch of RBass to get some more harmonics.
I also added a teeny bit of verb to the main vocals.
Besides the bass, the biggest change was volume automation on vocals and some of the guitars and kbd.
I also did some spectral editing to get rid of some nasty sibilance on his esses at 20" and 33". I love that spectral editing for de-essing. I posted another thread somewhere on how I used it to de-squeak my AcG, but I like it for vocal stuff too. Kenny Gioia has a great tutorial on it here.
I also added a teeny bit of Vitamin to smooth out the mix bus a bit.
What you did was really cool, seriously you are getting there, I wasn’t very technical, I just pushed the cool stuff in the midrange on the Neve 73 until the guitars sounded cool, tilted the EQ to lift the dirt, bring out the presence… and let it hit the tape emu and a limiter probably, all gooey vintage stuff thats great at midrange balance and tonal tidiness.
I dunno, I guess if you bring 5 more peeps to Florida, I will do a weekend class on it… by the beach, on the Gulf somewhere hot yet cool, hopefully.
okay, I didn’t do any of this stuff, but here is an idea… you can try it at least.
YOU made a cut at your AWESOME kick fundamental @ 50-60 Hz… BUT WHY, didn’t you look to cut INSTEAD at it’s naturally dirty 1st harmonic @100 - 120Hz? then look for more potential disaster areas at 200- 240Hz and 420- 480Hz plus minor dirt at 90-100, 180, 380-400Hz… or wherever, feels right in that area.
If you can do math, this isn’t rocket science - but with low freqs, this OFTEN becomes a pattern. Hope that helps
Yeah, you seem to be able to pull off some pretty cool stuff with the Neve. That’s a Waves plug, right?
I feel so stupid asking this, but what do you mean by lifting the dirt with the tilt? I mean, I know what a tilt is, but could you explain the lifting the dirt thing?
I am trying to recall what you use for tape. Wasn’t it an Abby Roads thing? J37 or something?
Wow, I love it when you talk like that!
So, we’re talking the bass here, right? So, I just made those changes by ear. When you are talking “do the math” you’re totally out of my league. Could you explain the math? I understand you’re talking about harmonics, but why are you starting with 100 or so as the first harmonic?
I remember one of the Melda plugins has some feature where it let’s you automatically autofill the eq cuts bases on natural harmonics.
So, the idea is that you can create the illusion of a boost at, say, 100, by boosting also (or instead?) at multiples of 100? Is ithat right? And it’s the same with cuts?
Also, Vaughan, do you always do this manually? What about some of these bass harmonics plugins (MaxxBass, RBass, etc.)?
Lol, just kick drum… but clearly there is some crossover. I only get two tracks usually. I cant be choosy…
Im saying your FUNDAMENTAL has a BIG dirty great harmonic (or two) above it thats KILLING your clarity (to find it, double the freq, then sweep around and cut some of it), you wont be far away…
Yes, its ALL manual and virtually exclusively old school gear plug ins, for me. Except the TILT. just shift the tilt angle till the mud disappears, then ask for the bass to come back with EQ (nicely).
P.S. try NOT to mess with the bass guitar like this… notes will get loud and then disappear like crazy…
The Pulteq EQ paradigm is pretty much designed around how I like to EQ low end sounds like kick drum… I’m not taking credit for it, but I appreciate it for what it is.
I take the fundamental note of lets say 50-60 Hz and either isolate it or boost it because it sounds good… then I look to cut at 100-120Hz. If you work this out mathematically, you can decide that an EQ can have an EQ boost at one frequency then a cut at the harmonic above and below it, but on the EQ itself, the boost and cut of the PULTEQ are listed as the SAME frequency.
The boost /cut EQ curve on the Pulteq has already decided this is an awesome idea FOR SIMPLICTY, and invariably makes stuff sound good… once you trust it.
so I suggest that you just do it and trust that you might like it
oh. and check out the low mid I put back in on the chunkin guitar part @4.12 on the neve73. That’s how much low mid power you can gain back, if you don’t carry the excessive weight in the mud range. .
edit… sometimes turning everything to ELEVEN and then barely to a HALF on the volume control, will teach you how close you are to a BALANCE.
You know what? I wish Waves would make me a Tilt EQ that I could really, really love, it really is the coolest thing, and so simple. But if it had something like the Neve '73 eq flavor, it would be KILLER.
edit… and of course a PULTEQ style EQ to boot, the mother of all PULTEQ’s, that included a TILT EQ… now THAT would be a PLUGIN I could use.
