I have re-visited this older song, hopefully tightened things up a bit and ready to park it again.
The bass part was very kindly played by Mathieu @Kakeux, all other bits by me.
if you could just lend me your ears for any particular ‘jumping out’ things with the mix, would really appreciate it! And yep, I know my drums are um… yeah… but I simply couldn’t face re-writing them so it’s just a question of trying to make the best of it (pulls wry grin).
How many Rivers?
How many rivers must I cross? I’m tired and I want to lie down,
How many rivers must I cross? Gotta keep the feeling going
You stand in the doorway, your arms outstretched, I touch you I can feel your pain,
I’m a pale ghost dancing in the moonlight. I’m a pale ghost dancing away
Dance the way the rivers run, Dance the way the rain falls down
Dance the way the sun wakes up and dances in your heart
How many rivers must I cross? It doesn’t seem to get any easier
How many rivers must I cross? Gotta keep the feeling going
You stand in the doorway your eyes full of fire
exploding all around you I’m a pale ghost dancing
over the walls up the chimney,
I’m a pale ghost dancing away
Some relatively minor tweaks, thanks so much for all of your help!!
love the song! Love the piano and the bass. I didnt mind the drums. They werent taking anything away from the beauty of the song. This song has a bond theme vibe going on. ( I may be biased as I am working on a bond song Orchestral remix myself ) . I can literally hear the strings and brass swell up on this track but dont mind me
To be critical, nothing is jumping out; however, to polish it, the vocals could use some saturation and a cleaner delay, as the delay is phasing (warping) a bit, unless it is the result of the tasteful dissonance track you have going quietly in the back mixing with the sibilance of the vocal delay which is surfacing as a result. You could try tweaking the predelay and attack of the reverb if any. But nothing is really amiss.
So this is an Emma Blues? Diggin it!.. For some reason the title had me expecting a cover of “Many Rivers to Cross” - I should have known better!
Anyhoo… The mix… It sounds pretty good to me. How does the bass translate on small speakers? Can you still hear it? Listening on my studio speakers, it struck me as being a little “way down there” without many harmonics pushing up into the low mids and mids… but I haven’t listened on small speakers yet - just a feeling.
One other thing…The mix leans to the left with the piano dominating in the lower register. I really have no problem with that - I’m not super picky about symmetrical soundstages - But I do like to set up things to counterbalance one another on the soundstage, even if they are very differing elements… I was thinking: How about trying your harmonies off to the right to counterbalance the piano? It might just be interesting!
Nice work!
Whoah dude- What a blast from the past! How’s it going Mathieu? Still making grungy, punky, melodic folk? Good to hear from you!
So this is an Emma Blues? Diggin it!.. For some reason the title had me expecting a cover of “Many Rivers to Cross” - I should have known better!
Anyhoo… The mix… It sounds pretty good to me. How does the bass translate on small speakers? Can you still hear it? Listening on my studio speakers, it struck me as being a little “way down there” without many harmonics pushing up into the low mids and mids… but I haven’t listened on small speakers yet - just a feeling.
One other thing…The mix leans to the left with the piano dominating in the lower register. I really have no problem with that - I’m not super picky about symmetrical soundstages - But I do like to set up things to counterbalance one another on the soundstage, even if they are very differing elements… I was thinking: How about trying your harmonies off to the right to counterbalance the piano? It might just be interesting!
Nice work!
Whoah dude- What a blast from the past! How’s it going Mathieu? Still making grungy, punky, melodic folk? Good to hear from you!
@FluteCafe Thanks heaps Michelle. Yeah I faffed around with the vocal processing for ages and it is mixing with the other keyboard track but I found a real fine line between yes and no, if that makes any sense? I did cut the frequencies on the reverb but am guessing that is what you are likely hearing. Love the Bond reference… it’s an older recording and I really have no objectivity with it at the moment so great to hear your thoughts! I did love the idea of brass but I don’t have the right software and hate crummy vst brass sounds… it’s like that next learning curve that I haven’t ventured into.
@Kakeux Mathieu! Yay
How cool to hear from you! Would LOVE to hear some more of your sounds, c’mon, dive in. Heaps of us come and go from here, you would be very welcome to post some songs!!
My family are all okay, it has been SUCH a weird year. We are essentially covid-free down here. It pops up from time to time but with strict border controls it means we can mostly get on with life, in a form of dance… I still putter around in my studio from time to time and stray songs encourage me to keep going.
@ColdRoomStudio Thanks heaps Andrew! Yep some great points ta… it was the trying out on different systems that confounded me with the bass… trying to keep a richness without too much boom… will tweak a little more but think I have exhausted my possibilities. And yes, I was confusing myself with the panning balance… had done some weird stuff with panning automation and when I removed it all, there is a gap there that I will have a play with. Thanks!!
I meant to mention that I used @bozmillar 's The Wall rather than my go-to Voxengo Elephant limiter to faux-master the mix and was really pleased with how easy and translucent the sound was…
Yes I have gravitated to it recently for my orchestra and gentle stuff. Though I find that wall works better overall than the clipper even on rock mixes and the harder stuff. I got the wall on his recommendation for the orchestral mixes and glad I picked it up on the bf sale. Clipper is likely going to be on the backburner but I will learn it over time and find the best place to use it. It is a great plugin indeed as well.
I normally work with solid state plugins and dont normally like limiters that mess with my sound at the end but wall stands well and doesnt color the mix unless ofcourse you want it to.
Yes, it is a brand new purchase for me - I read his comments about orchestral application and thought I would have a play. It is really cool… suspect that I am going to use it heaps. Love the different listening options it offers and the straight forward utility. But most of all, that sense of transparency when I want it.
Other @bozmillar plugin I am eyeing right now is the pan knob. I want to link it to my visual app so I can pan and push things on my soundstage using a touch screen and map those commands to this pan knob. I notice it has the inverse square law option which I absolutely love in my pans. So I will give that a try.
Gave the Pan Knob at test try, its a decent plugin, mapped right away too. The plugin works well at pans above 70 degrees, where most daw pans start to get harsh. However, on finer pans (within 45 degrees), the difference is nearly imperceptible in a final mix with daw vs pan knob in a blind test.
These are two sound files one is panned in the daw and other is panned in a similar direction by pan knob. The angle is under 45 degrees and the differences are subtle but definitely there when you listen for it. The psychoacoustics are definitely at work, however likely hard to tell in a blind mix.
Daw panned
Pan Knob Panned (with cross over around 150 and -3 db law)
On harder pans (pans above 70 degrees), the differences are obvious so didnt really bother doing an A B test. I dont normally do hard pans in orchestral acoustics, dont really pan much at all as the samples are usually pre-panned but this will definitely work in mixes where extreme panning and super human width is needed.
Not much to say about the mix, I like that you haven’t overdone anything, it doesn’t sound too produced, which is what this song needs. To my taste (and to industry standards), the piano is a bit loud and the drums a bit soft, but it is probably a deliberate choice and it does set an interesting mood/point of view for the song.
There is something that feels a bit weird to me in the arrangement though. It doesn’t feel like the instruments are really playing together. What I mean is, I feel the piano and the vocals by themselves would sound great, the drums and bass together as well, but overall I feel like there are two groups of instruments/musicians that don’t really succeed in creating a unique alchemy. I’m not sure whether that makes sense to you… Anyway, I think that adding a guitar in the arrangement would allow the piano to play less of the rhythmic stuff and it would benefit the song and possibly create some of this unity I feel is missing.
Also, I think that you should use the sustain pedal on the piano when you play arpeggiated stuff, it makes the piano sound smoother and facilitates a better musical flow.
I love the lyrics, there is a Bob Dylan feel to them and they’re just beautiful.
@ColdRoomStudio the bass translates surprisingly well on my Avantone mixcubes, especially the lower notes.
Hi Ingo, thanks for listening… I am exploring nudging the bass up just a little…
@Lophophora Hi Jean-Marc, thanks for dropping by and your thoughtful response.
I am always guilty of trying to tuck the drums further back in the mix as I am embarrassed by my lack of skill. I did play around with louder/quieter piano and ended up with it quite ‘proud’ - just the way it seemed to end up. I do use the sustain pedal but when I get ‘in the zone’ anything can happen .
Interested in your comments about the different groupings and how they fit together. Your comment makes sense as the voice and piano were mostly a one-take recording and the drums and bass were edited closely together. Gluing everything ‘as one’ has its big challenges as you will know. Apart from sharing the same room reverb to all and just using my ears for eq tweaks, must say I just can’t think how else I could blend these sounds. I keep fluctuating between feeling happy that this is a new sort of funky sound picture for me to - o gawd, I am so hopeless at this stuff! My usual dull dichotomy!!!
This song has a bit of a haunting vibe. I could envision this being placed in a movie. Really nice!
I listened to this song yesterday, through my laptop speakers, at a low volume and wasn’t fully focused on listening closely because I was multitasking. I was thinking that something about the drums was fighting with the piano. Like they weren’t working optimally with each other. I think it’s just the kick drum, actually. With my tinny, thin sounding laptop speakers I can really hear the click from the kick drum, so that may have led me to noticing that. I think a few little adjustments to the placement of the kick drum would could help the groove a little bit. Otherwise, this is another excellent piece of work, Emma !
Thanks heaps Wicked, sorry for the delay in reply, life gets a bit crazier than usual at this time of year plus my internet has been down… yikes!
Yeah I agree with you about the kick… will have another look but to be honest, I spent so very many hours tweaking the blasted drums I suspect I have run out of patience with them. I need to push through my resistance but it is the time it all takes that puts me off…
Thanks again…
)…at my own pace.
