Mixing help?

[Therese]

Hi
I was wondering if anyone could help me with mixing a two track (vocal and guitar) song. Since I'm just a beginner at mixing and don't have any nice plug-ins, I just really wonder how good the song could sound if somebody who knew a little more could take a look at it. This is perhaps a little too much to ask, but I thought it was worth a try, if someone has some spare time and nothing to do

[flommer]

Are you going for the more intimate "person singing, playing the guitar, and sitting right in front of you" kind of sound?

Or maybe a more "produced" sound where there is more separation between the vocal sound and the guitar..

[Therese]

Well I guess a intimate sound probably would be more in the mood of the song

[guitar486]

Sure, I'm always down to mix someone else's music. I too am a learning mixer/recording engineer however I have been getting much better at mixing through the last 6 months of learning under a professional. If you .zip the session folder with audio files, session file(s) ect and upload it to yousendit.com or any other of those type of sites (I actually like depositfiles.com and filesovermiles.com) and send me the link I'll gladly give it a go. Email me at guitar486 @ gmail (dot) com

[Murt]

There are some decent plugins that come with pro tools 8 (and 7.4). There's nothing wrong with the standard Digi compression/EQ/Delay plugins. Try a little bit of compression on the guitar track to keep it even. You can insert the compressor directly on the guitar track but be gentle / subtle with the compression you apply. Go for a standard Acoustic guitar preset for now. Same with the Vocal, use a standard Vocal preset and see how that sounds. Sometimes its nice to double the vocal and bring it in just under the original vocal (volume wise) and maybe use a hint of delay on the doubled vocal to give an ethereal feel to it. There are lots of tips that people will hopefully share with you. Maybe pan the vocal at the centre (neither left nor right) and pan the acoustic slightly left and the doubled acoustic slightly right (for the doubled acoustic you could just duplicate the acoustic track for now and maybe apply a little delay/chorus to that also). Come on guys, don't be afraid to help a budding engineer out.

[Therese]

Great! I'll send it to you. I am really tired of trying out things that I'm pretty sure is making the song sound worse. Thank you :)

[Therese]

I'll try the things you suggested Murt :)

[RiF]

Upload the single tracks somewhere and post the link here, Therese, and we'll see what we can do. I am pretty sure that some people will do mixes you can learn from.

[Therese]

I could do that, however it is just an amateur song, and I'm a little embarrassed so I would like to limit the number of people who hears it the way it is now. If anyone wants to try to mix it I could send it to them, any help would be appreciated

[guitar486]

We've all heard songs at their infant stages and can see past that. Don't worry about it!