Feeling Disconnected (revisited)

Wanted to take a peek inside one of Andrew’s songs (also happens one of my favorites!)
Had some time today so did a quick morning coffee mix, balances are off but the vibe I am getting is good. What do you think?
rough concept v1

ps: @ColdRoomStudio Andrew those are a lot of tracks :sweat_smile:

v2c (bit more body and noise reduction )

v2d, (revisited) low end tightened, scaled back some reverb

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Very well recorded, the mix is perfect, and the vocals is upfront and center, which I like.
Love this.
And I love the guitar solo.
Lovely.
Rene

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Thanks Rene :slight_smile: definitely top notch production in this one.
You are too kind. The mix works for sure, but is barely scratching the surface of what it could be for a production like this. I will make a few more tweaks this weekend. Was mixing this while having a strong coffee and I think the “high energy” translated into the mix haha. Need to make a few more tweaks to the bass line to get it to be more prominent.

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Nice mix, Michelle!

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Even though im listening on my cellphone, I like the second mix better.

Why?

I hear more definition in the individual instruments. Perhaps another resolution instead of 44.1khz? I’d sure like to know!

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My first mix was a quick rough draft to get the feel of the song right. The second version does not have much changed with the mix other than some light eq work to add a little bit more body to it which helps weaker speakers. I do a bit of subtle EQ work with good earbuds after I finish mixing on studio monitors. Just enough to not break the mix on midfields but keep it good enough on buds.

Though this mix is not mono safe yet, it uses some haas tricks and might not translate very well on mono devices. Other than that, I generally render with 48k because I do a lot of video work and a bit of oversampling, but I dont think it helps low end listening devices that much.

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Not to steal any thunder from this thread, i have been doing finished mixes these days at 192khz with two versions at 24 bit and another with 32 bit float.

For my quasi audiophile purposes, this is a great archive medium.

I’m trying to implement the DSD format and take the audio task to another level, but… the condition$ have to be just right. :wink:
Thanks.

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no thunder here to be stolen but you could start a new thread on DSD. I have been curious about it.

As for me, i generally go by the recording. If the audio recording is 24 bit 96k I will generally render in the same format. If it is 24bit 44 then I will render 44. Less chance of artifacts.
For instance this song was recorded in 24bit 44 . Upsampling this to 192 might not be a good idea. It is not going to add any additional fidelity, it might make it worse.

I think it matters at the recording source, not necessarily at the mixing desk.

Though I will occasionally upsample to match a format but I have not found any advantages of doing so.

FluteCafe,
I listened to both mixes. The air conditioner (makes noise!) is running, and my ears are ringing a bit from working on my music last night, so perhaps take my comments with a grain of salt. Are those mp3’s playing, as opposed to 24 bit 44? Both sound great except an mp3-like swirly-ness to the audio. Or slight phaser/flanger effect sound happening?

there was a flutter somewhere in my chain, I toned it down in 2b

I’m lucky to get the vocals centered myself! I ought to go find the original to compare, but both of these sounded great. I don’t know if v2 was more stereophonic, but I did notice the separation and action more on the second listen and so I relistened to 1 and have decided I liked 2 more because I was getting more familiar with the song. It is so well crafted, and kinda catchy! I particularly like the ‘sorts’ ‘thoughts’ rhyme in the chorus.

The one concern about artifacts you have has always made me wonder. For years I was doing 48k and my collaborator Probity did 44k, and that I’m sure was the least of our mixing problems. I switched to 44k after a while just to be safer. And now that video and 48k might technically be noticable, all my videos will still have 44k mp3s in them. Nowadays I regard those swirly sounds as an accidental special effect and pretend to ignore them.

None of that here, Michelle! This mastering alchemy is turning silver to gold or platinum to gold rather than lead on Andrew’s song.

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you have videos? :face_with_monocle:
I would love to see one!
Most video softwares auto dither and resample sounds to their respective formats. Internet ready mp4 codec will automatically bundle 32bit, 48khz 192 kbps AAC sounds with your videos.

Which means if you want your sound to be “as is” and untouched by the video converters, you want to match those parameters. It is hard to record a 32 bit audio for most musicians, so as long as you provide a 24 bit, 48 khz audio file it will largely remain untouched by video converters.

On a side note I am considering this mix done for now and will revisit another day for a final polish to toms and the kick (some time pressing deadlines approaching!). Since most are liking it, I did a final noise ratio check and rendered the final mix as v2c

Well, here’s my Youtube Channel-

I’m not actually in very many, Michelle. I like We Ah Ooweah as it shows me with my long hair and shortest hair of my life.

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that was a fun video! and a very interesting take on haircut! :beerbanger:

Hi Michelle, this is the first time I’ve had a chance to listen to your mix on my studio system properly.
I like most things about it, except for the snare sound. There are 3 issues that I hear with the snare sound:

  • It is boxy in the mid range (needs some 400hz sucked out)
  • The reverb on the snare is quite loud, with a long decay time, and is not gelling with the fast-paced, busy nature of the song
  • It is just too loud and dominates the mix too much.

As I mentioned to you in the PM, I usually use samples to augment (but not replace) the live snares and kicks in my mixes. Here’s an example of what I did with the drums in my mix of this track:
Drums without samples:

Drums with samples:

As you can hear, the samples are triggering a lot of the ambience, as well as adding a bit of cut to the snare, and weight to kick, but the fundamental tone is there in the drums to start with.

Nice work on your mix!

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thanks! Yes I didnt use any augmentation, I likely will when I revisit it. Not happy with the reverb tail but it is a preset in a rush, and will dial back on it. I might tighten the low end a bit as well when I go back to it. Thanks so much for the details! :beerbanger:

I controlled the reverb some and cut out the boxiness from snare some.
tightened the low end, any better?
v2c

Yes, quite a big improvement. For my taste, I’d suggest using less bottom snare and get the snare to “pop” a little more.

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FluteCafe,
Now listening to your latest mix. It seems to sounds better, but going by memory. And my hearing is not 100% consistent from day to day. Now I have to listen to the older mix now that the air conditioner is not running and I haven’t thrashed my ears much recently. Now listening to your v2d for comparison: yeah your latest mix sounds quite a bit better than this mix to my ears. I think you definitely improved it!