Mixing help?

[RiF]

Cool. I will give it a try as soon as I get home tonite. The vocals and the guitar are on individual tracks and not already mixed together, yes?
You have PT 8, right? So I will be using stock PT 8 plugins only, so you can see what I (or others) actually did.

[RiF]

Wow!! What a fantastic voice!!!! I got goosepimpels right after the first bar and they did not go away. Mix and more comments later nonight.

[RiF]

So here's my first quick mix of your song, Therese, and my comments about what I did and why (if you're interested):

* GUITAR *
Equalisation (Digi EQ III 7-Band)
- A high pass filter @ about 66 Hz filters out all the unwanted low-end.
- A dip at 400 Hz get's rid of some boomyness
- I added a fair amount (8-9 dB) of high end at 4 KHz to add sparkle to the guitar sound.
Compression (Digi Dyn3)
- a 4.6:1 compression and a -21 dB threshold evens out the guitar levels and makes it sound more consistent.
Fx
- The guitar gets a lot of reverb through the Reverb send.
- The "Gtr Fx" sends some of guitar signal to the "Gtr Widener" aux track. This aux track has a AIR Stereo Width plugin inserted which widens the guitar signal in the stereo image.

* VOCALS *
Gating (Digi Gate)
- I used a gate to softly mute unwanted noise in the pauses between singing.
Equalisation (Digi EQ 3 7-band)
- For female vocals, I really like having a steep (24dB/Oct) high pass filter set to pretty high frequencies (320 Hz here) to filter out all low-end. This makes the voice very intimate and "pro" sounding ;-)
- A dip at around 800 Hz is always a good idea, because these frequencies do not sound very good in vocals.
- The high shelf at 7 KHz adds some air.
Compression (Digi Dyn3)
- I like very heavy compression on vocals, so I did some 8:1 compression with a fairly low threshold. My UAD's LA-2A would fit better here, but I will stick to stock Digi plugins.
Fx:
- Some reverb is added by using the Reverb send, but less than for the guitars to let the vocals be "in front" of the guitars. I headed for a rather dry vocal sound.
The Reverb is D-Verb using a Medium Plate (Vocals = Plate Reverb) with a LP filter @ 9 KHz to make it sound darker and less obvious.
- The Vox Fx send goes to the "Vox Fx" aux which uses a AIR Distortion plugin to add some grit (like in "poor man's analog saturation" ;-)) to the vocals. Very subtle, but another thing I like...;-)

* MASTER BUS *
- A Digi Dyn3 compressor is used to glue the whole track together.
- The Maxim-Limiter adds some loudness and cares about overshoots (which we don't have here, it's a simple mix). You used Maxim on the single tracks: Stay away from it on single tracks or and remember to deactivate it while recording, because it adds a delay to the signal and you will sing/play out of time.

And I added a fade to the end of the guitar track, trying to hide the noise at the end.

How do you like the mix? Any questions (feel free to ask)? Did you sing it? The vocal performance is amazing and the recording is very OK, too. But never put away the guitar right at the end of a recording (klicki-di-klacki-noise), you never know if it was the magic take!

A mixdown MP3 and the PT 8 project file can be found here:
http://drop.io/RiFDUCTherese2

It have been fun mixing this song and I am glad you decided to upload it publicly,
RiF

[Therese]

I would love to hear the mix, but I couldn't find it at the link..?

[Therese]

I found it! Your much better at this than me! I love it :)
All the input and comments are great too I want to learn. I agree with the Maxim experimenting I've tried, not good, have noticed some weird effects from it on one of the other songs I think. It is my song the singing and all, I'm glad you liked it and I will try to remember to hold on to the guitar a little longer :) Thank you so much!

[tha]-[acksaw]

Originally Posted by RiF

Wow!! What a fantastic voice!!!! I got goosepimpels right after the first bar and they did not go away. Mix and more comments later nonight.

I'm with Rif. Amazing voice. Chills, chills and more chills! Very nice Therese!!

Originally Posted by Therese

I would love to hear the mix, but I couldn't find it at the link..?

Its working now! And I gotta tell ya Rif, dood. That's a SICK mix for on the fly. I likey very much. You did some AMAZING things with that.

Not that I don't love the rough acoustic/vocal deal. It works with the song for sure. But, I really think this song would really be amazing with a full band arrangement.

I have a drummer coming over in 2 hours to lay down some grooves for me. I might just let him take a crack at laying down a foundation for this song.

Do we have a bass player in the house?

I think a few of us DUCers could pool our skillz and collaborate on a big arrangement for this song. Any thoughts on that Therese?

Some drums would be great! Would need to retrack the acoustic. Maybe add a Grand Piano, or a nice Rhodes with a little tremolo would be shweet. Bass is a must. Maybe even a little light Hammond Organ holding down the glue.

Any cello players? Mandolin? Pedal Steel?

Come on guys. The first all DUC band! And Therese would get a nice multitrack session for this song. Could be fun.

I'm willing to start it off with some Drums. And I'm willing to do the lions share of the editing, if need be.

Thoughts?

Nick

[guitar486]

I would love to be a part of this production if I can help in any way. I'm also willing to do any editing required and I play guitar so maybe I could throw in some compliments to your original track. Love the voice. Haven't done anything with it yet but I did give it a listen. Very busy today so I might not give it a mix until tomorrow but we'll see.

[Therese]

I really like the idea! It would be great to hear it with some other instruments! :)

[tha]-[acksaw]

Originally Posted by Therese

I really like the idea! It would be great to hear it with some other instruments! :)

Sweeeeeeeeet!! I'm gonna see what I can put together here. No guarantees, but I'm gonna give it the ole one two college combo.

Originally Posted by guitar486

I would love to be a part of this production if I can help in any way. I'm also willing to do any editing required and I play guitar so maybe I could throw in some compliments to your original track. Love the voice. Haven't done anything with it yet but I did give it a listen. Very busy today so I might not give it a mix until tomorrow but we'll see.

Killer man! Lets make this happen!

Hey Rif. If we track the thing up, any chance we could get you to do the mix? That would be sweet! Very nice job on the acoustic/vocal. Or if you play instruments, we need to get you on this as well. Thoughts?

Alright, we got my buddy Barry on drums! He says it's "a no problem". I will track his drums in MIDI using a V-Drum set. Either use BFD 2 or EZDrummer for sounds.

We got Guitar486 on the ole six string. I'm thinking if we can get the drums, bass and acoustic done, I can send you the session and let you have at it on the guitar. Then you can comp up what you like, or send it over to one of us for comping/editing. Either way man, glad you are on board!

First thing is first, WE NEED A BASS PLAYER....

And if someone wants to redo that acoustic, that's probably a good idea for first track after drums. Just to lead the rest of the session players. I really think we are better off rerecording the acoustic cause its gonna be nutz trying to tempo match from the first session, but I'm open to any ideas.

Anyone for bass or the acoustic?

[guitar486]

I may have a bass player, but he's out of town until sunday so we'll see where we are by then. Therese, I'd be willing to do the guitar if you want to send me a rough chord chart. I could probably figure it out but I want to be sure. Thehacksaw can then send me the drums when they're done.
Btw heres my rough mix: http://www.lightningmp3.com/live/file.php?id=19991
I really like the lyrics therese!