Hopefully I’ve bashed enough in my limited time here to earn some return karma
This song is temporarily and terribly named Go Train Blues (the idea for it came about while riding the GO train in Toronto…). Hopefully the song is better than the title!
It’s an instrumental and I feel like I’ve taken it as far as I can right now. My buddy is playing mandolin and we are both playing the guitar and piano parts in different places. I’m on bass and the drums are just samples from Logic.
I just can’t get a feel for how to properly mix this song. I feel like if I take out some low eq on bass it ends up sounding, well, not like a bass. But if I don’t I feel like things are getting muddy. Same in general for all parts, I can’t seem to nail down a separation and balance that I’m happy with. Everything individually sounds clear and great tones but together… I dunno?
I’d be grateful for thoughts and comments, I really like this song and want to do it justice.
Listening thru the speakers on my laptop, I think this sounds good. Listening again with earbuds plugged into my laptop, again I think it sounds good. I like the song.
Listening on a cheap pair of Sony’s at work, but I think it sounds pretty nice. I don’t get the feeling of low end muddiness and each of the instruments is distinct and easy to listen to. The overall balance works pretty well for me. Nice tune!
I am wondering if you can shape the snare and kick sound.It is the kick drum. To me, the guitar work is really a great sound and it all works really well together. But the snare tone and kick seem to stand out to me. The song sounds very organic and the snare and kick sound drum machiney and sterile. The kick sounds more like it would be in a rock song. It is really the kick that stands out the most as sounding unnatural ish. Is there a way to tinker with that at all?
The first negative thing that stood out was the kick sound. It seems too clicky/ slappy. As WeGotLost said, that’s not the typical sound for this style. I’m not sure if this sound would grow on me but at first it did sound out of place, and it felt artificial.
The bass doesn’t sound bad…(I’m listen through my laptop speakers). You probably could create a bit more clarity by bringing out some higher mids or even high frequencies but I’m not sure there’s any real problem there. Maybe I would notice a problem if I was listening on my studio monitors but on my laptop things sounds pretty good.
Good job on this!
I’ll give you extra points for being a Torontonian and tolerating taking the TTC. I never use public transit.
Yep, there is definitely a need for more ‘outside kick’ ambiance and snare ‘room’ sound in this one - nice job on the acoustic instruments, though . You may need to suck a little more high mids from the drums ( or change the sounds) to let them sit back, while adding more ambiance to them, and then you can drive them a touch louder, without them ‘poking out’ - this is not a dense mix by any means. Go full width (pan) with your instruments if you can, too.
No, the only obvious thing that was questionable to my ear was the kick. I worded my statement improperly because I was assuming the possibility that there may be problems with the bass because you had mentioned it, but listening on my laptop I couldn’t assess whether there is a problem there or not. It sounds good through my laptop. I’ll give it another listen when I hook up my studio monitors and let you know what I hear through them.
I just listened to your song on my studio monitors Pirrie08.
I thought the bass sounded pretty good. I like that the overall mix of the instruments isn’t too bright. Sometimes added some high end can help to separate instruments a bit more and it seems like modern recordings/ mixes tend to lean in that direction. To my ears your mix is nice and suits the song.
Very nice instrumental. Gentle, melancholy and very enjoyable to listen to.
Hi Nice playing. The track gives me a feeling of reflection. I would save the drums for awhile and bring them in slowly…if at all?? This is movie material. Nice work
Thanks for the feedback! I find when I pan really wide it isolates things too much. Maybe I’m doing it wrong though. For this song I have bass, drums and piano centred, strings are just slightly right, mandolin is about 20% right and the acoustic line that plays with it is about 20% left. The main acoustic lead line is actually on 2 tracks - full left and full right with a slight time variation between them.
If I isolate something too far left or right I find it’s not blended any more and stands out from the crowd - i feel like that’s distracting somehow - maybe I just have to find more balance in general to pull it off…
Thanks for the feedback - I was considering not having drums in this song actually. This is part of a little series of acoustic instrumentals and I might just not use drums at all. Definitely something to consider! I’d love to get this into a movie… you don’t happen to have Spielberg’s number by any chance?? lol
alright, so just for fun i did a quick ‘adjustment’ to show how I’d probably like to hear it through my monitors… without fixing the drum sound of course, its kinda subtle, and just a little wider.
Well… that sure is going above and beyond! Thanks for that! I hear what you mean, subtle but a little more breathing room, I like it! I’ll definitely keep that in mind when I take another swing at it, I’m going to walk away for a few days and reset my ears on this one… I’ve been going in circles with it for too long now
Well, it actually wasnt that much effort - didnt even touch the drums. Can even send you the wav file if you want, its sooo much better than the mp3.
I was just looking to add some GLUE, CLARITY, WIDTH and SEPARATION… hmmm, that sounds kinda complicated but its not really.
But the balance is mostly all there already, so no biggie. If you also want the drums fixed, its prob pretty easy.
here it is, hitting mastering processing just 1db louder… mmm, NICE.
If anyone STILL feels the need to smash THAT mix with a heavier, fat-ASSING compression, go right ahead… I’m also good with that, too - but that’s about as far as I’d like to go, usually.
That sounds great!! Wish I had your skills, I really don’t know how you dialed in that sound! Especially without having the actual individual tracks, all I posted was an mp3. Every time I think I’m starting to get the hang of this stuff I am utterly humbled by you pros and the vast amount I still need to learn…
. You may need to suck a little more high mids from the drums ( or change the sounds) to let them sit back, while adding more ambiance to them, and then you can drive them a touch louder, without them ‘poking out’ - this is not a dense mix by any means. Go full width (pan) with your instruments if you can, too.