Mix submission - Two Bare Hands, Venue Studios

[venuestudios]

Nice to see a live mix in a mix contest. Thanks for providing out the tracks!

• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• 5
• 6
• 7
• 8
• 9
• 10

[venuestudios]

does not seem like this created the player for the song, just a link. Dragged and dropped in the text area per the instructions so hopefully people can hear it.

[BigAlRocks]

I fixed it. For some reason, it didn’t put the proper spacing between your text and the link.

[venuestudios]

Thanks much!

[vtr]

[venuestudios]

I am confused, is that my mix with you doing something to it? I must be missing something…

[takka360]

It shouldn’t be touched as this is the official thread for competition mixes.only .

[venuestudios]

VTR, if that is your submission it should be in a separate thread.

[vtr]

Oh shit… this is a competition? had no idea… sorry, thought it was ‘bash this’ - deleted post…

[venuestudios]

No worries.

[vtr]

I even voted… duh Ive been very tired this week Let me know if I can help…

[Tesgin]

Okay, so let’s get started with this contest stuff, shall we? I haven’t really gotten going with my mix, but will try to submit over the weekend.

In the meantime, we’re to give feedback on mixes as well. So here’s my first participation in the contest.

Startin’ with you, Kent!

Hey, I like what you did here. I like the instrument balance. The synth-thingy in the beginning is placed nicely. Good dynamics and energy. One of the things I like the most is that you didn’t cut out the background noise. You captured the “crowd” noise nicely. I love how the crowd noise builds just a little after 2:00. Just an all 'round fun mix. The vox sit nicely above the mix. Drums carry.

Two suggestions that I think would improve your mix tons. One is that it sounds muddy to me. My hunch is that cutting the low-mids a bit would help, and esp with the vox a boost somewhere around 3K or so would add some clarity, and maybe some air around 10K? 12K? Not sure, you’d just have to play with it.

The other thing is that the voc track needs editing. There’s a lot of stuff going on with sibilance and plosives that IDK can even be fixed with a de-esser or dynamic eq. I haven’t hardly started with my mix yet, but I think that track just needs to be edited. Listen to the first 12 seconds and you’ll see what I mean.

Thanks for posting. Good job.

[takka360]

I think this is a pretty good mix overall but what i dont like is the vox.They seem pretty muddy and very roomy sort of like a verb that hasn’t been high past.Good kick sound .

[venuestudios]

Leaving the room mics higher in the mix will always add a reverb sound to the vox, but that is a conscious choice of course. There are little tricks you can do to reduce that but in the end you either live with it or drop the room mics. You can guess which I do!

[takka360]

Yes but the problem is it muddied you mix

[Jonathan]

Kent…I like the overall balances, particularly on the drums. The 1/5 two note guitar thing sounds really good too. Interesting how (I think) you used the room mics to balance the frequency distribution and how that helped the cymbals have a nice even shimmer. That was a challenge in this mix. I like what it did. It may have made the hi-hat a little clanky-er in some spots, but overall I don’t think the ‘muddiness’ necessarily kills the vibe. My argument would be ‘who cares’? The balance is still there.

[venuestudios]

I spent a good amount of time with just the room mics, making them a separate stem and sending out through an analog chain. In my experience the room mics are always a big challenge. You need them to get the live feel but don’t want them as they are never right, never sound complete and always screw up the stereo field in some way or another.

[venuestudios]

by the way Jonathan, what are you monitoring on these days?

[Jonathan]

Hey man. Sm9’s for music. LSR 4328’s for cinematic and broadcast when 5.1 is needed.

Here’s the whole room (but this pic was taken before I had the JBL’s up and running lol). There’s 14 full size GIK monster traps spread around the room, but you can’t see them in the picture. 6 are hanging from the ceiling.

Crane Song Avocet 2a as the master monitor D/A converter…Still part of what I’d consider ‘monitoring chain’. The three white units at the bottom are chained together to pass audio together in 5.1 configuration.

[venuestudios]

The space came out great! I can remember you working through getting the room set up. I came close to getting the Crane Song stereo controller but ended up with a Antelope Satori. Very similar features.