Re: [LAU] [OT] Help with mixing and mastering?

On Fri, May 08, 2009 at 08:42:25PM -1000, david wrote:
> James Stone wrote:
> > On Fri, May 08, 2009 at 11:12:54AM -0700, Mark Knecht wrote:
> >> James,
> >> Welcome and best of luck with what you're doing. IMO his is
> >> completely the right place to ask questions like this.
> >>
> >
> > Thanks Mark!
> >
> >
> >> 2) Learn to use busses and in general limit yourself to a single
> >> reverb. Try to leave a LOT of headroom in your indivdual track
> >> recordings as it will reduce the number of limiter and compressors you
> >> find yourself using overall. Using multiple reverbs will eventually
> >> lead to a muddy sound as every instrument starts acting like it's in a
> >> different room. Busses are easy in Ardour, albiet FAR more capable
> >> than they really should be. That said, you need them and once you
> >> learn to use them for things like reverb you'll probably be better
> >> off.
> >>
> >
> > I had a quick mess around with a bus with TAP reverb, and only 1
> > reverb.. It gave the track a more "live" sound to my ears - more
> > real maybe, but lacking some of the dynamics of a studio
> > recording.. any idea where I am going wrong?
> >
> > How about compression? Is it OK to run 2 compressors in parallel
> > like the C* and Satan Maximizer, or is it just a waste of
> > resources?
> >
> >> way you want your mix to sound. You don't say much about music style,
> >> which is cool, but I suggest that one answer doesn't fit Animal
> >> Collective, Particle, McCoy Tyner and John Mayall, all being bands
> >> I've listened to in depth this week. Maybe you're doing something
> >> non-pop/rock and some sort of strange reverb setup makes it work. If
> >> that's the case then by all means do WHATEVER works!
> >
> > Well, our first studio track, which was recorded by a student
> > engineer in a semi-proper studio on protools, then mixed and
> > mastered by a professional engineer is here:
> >
> > http://www.last.fm/music/kitten+cake
> >
> > mp3 here:
> >
> > http://drop.io/dont_call_her_baby (password: kc09)
>
> That's a very nice sound. Good recording quality - very clean, nice
> separation between instruments. Duly added to the playlist!
>

Very nice. I can however hear the compression pumping, i.e. on the kick drum. Maybe you were going for that sound (i.e. DJ rare-groove vynil), but it sounds really prominent to me. Maybe it's bleed-through from the kick to other tracks which have compression on them which is causing that effect. I like the creative use of reverb in the first verse.

I felt like I wanted to hear the choruses and bridge "leaned into" a bit more, and have the dynamics pick up there.

Your singer has a fascinating and unique voice; reminds me a bit of the singer from Portishead, but has her own take on it.

-ken
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Received on Sat May 9 20:15:04 2009