Experienced ears and decent monitors needed!

Carl Mikael Björk

Greets!

I've been working on this new song, and I'm kinda pleased with the arrangment and instrumentation. But I'm having a hard time with the mix. That's a general problem for me... I don't really know what to listen for - and I don't know how to remedy what doesn't sound good. I have no clues how to make a sound "fit" or "blend". It's all trial and error and that is to much hit and miss for me right now.

Also I think my monitoring is nowhere close to flat or ideal in any way. They're a couple of Jamo 100 euro wooden cabinet computer speakers. This particular song is mixed to a large extent on my K141 headphones, though.

The song sounds completely different on the Jamos and my hi-fi system. Completely...

I know a bunch of experienced people reside here and I'd be thrilled if you'd listen to my song on your monitors and gave me a few pointers on what I could do to improve my mix.

Here's the song: Resistors, Capacitors and Delay Lines

Thanks a lot!
/Mikael

mosc · Posted: Fri Sep 03, 2004 11:45 am Post subject:

I love this song. Best pop tune I've heard in a long time Smile

I love the lyrics... I like the processing you use on the voice, it gives it a nice quality.

The mix sounds tinny to me. There is not enough bass. The melodic parts are too far down under the percussion. The purcussion is great though. I love the quick (micro?) beats.

I like this better if I roll off the highs just a bit and boost to lows considerably.

Just my opinion, of course...

elektro80 · Posted: Fri Sep 03, 2004 3:55 pm Post subject:

Yes, this is great! I really like this song.

I agree with Howard.. too litle bass and lows. But some of the midrange / treble stuff is not quite good in the mix.

You can fix this by doing some compression and such on the various tracks. some of the idm-ish noises and stuff are insanely cool but the sounds have a transient/dynamics structure that does not sit well in the mix. All this can be fixed. some of the idm-ish stuff has an envelope that kinda makes it out of time.. this can be fixed too. This is an excellent pop tune and it seems to me that you have all the vital stuff on "tape" already.

I would like to know a bit about how the project is constructed. Which DAW are you using?

Carl Mikael Björk · Posted: Fri Sep 03, 2004 10:28 pm Post subject:

Thanks a lot Mosc and Elektro80! Very Happy

This song started out as a guitarbased song in Cubase SX and was actually finished there. But I was never quite pleased! I like electronic music and wanted to bring it into that realm. So when I purchased Live 4 a few weeks ago - I transfered the parts that I liked (the vocals and the guitar) to Live.

From there I made started constructing a new arrangment. MicroTonic for the electronic drums, Nord G2 for the persistant synth part, a couple of free Jazz loops for the more acoustic drum parts and a lot of Supatrigga for the stuttering, reversed and slowed-down fx. I made scenes for each verse with the basic drumloops, vocals and bass - then I recorded the arrangment on the fly, dropping different drumparts in and out, playing the Supatrigga and riding the volume on some parts.

Cheers,
Mikael

mosc · Posted: Sat Sep 04, 2004 8:33 am Post subject:

Well, it's super.

Tell me, I'm kinda interested in Live 4. Is it significatly different from a Cubase type program. It is worth it? What are your impressions?

elektro80 · Posted: Sat Sep 04, 2004 9:07 am Post subject:

The latest issue of Sound On Sound has an article about Live 4. I haven´t read it yet.

Carl Mikael Björk · Posted: Sat Sep 04, 2004 1:46 pm Post subject:

The thing that differs from Cubase (or Sonar, Logic...) is the session view, where you make arrangments in real-time. Or play live... For me this is inspiring. To play or improvise a song structure rather than putting it cronologically along a timeline. You can do this to, though!

I'm a rather new Live user, but from what I gather, there are a lot of advanced functions in Cubase that are not available in Live. But being an electronic musician I find it rather inspiring to work in a program that is not built to mimic analog hardware.

Take a look at the demo at www.ableton.com. It's fully functional except for saving and rendering.

Cheers,
Mikael

Carl Mikael Björk · Posted: Sun Sep 05, 2004 1:57 pm Post subject:

First - thanks a lot Mosc and Elektro80 for your thoughts!

I've had a new go at the song, the result is here: Resistors, Capacitors and Delay Lines

Cheers,
Mikael

elektro80 · Posted: Sun Sep 05, 2004 2:22 pm Post subject:

Now I am back to headphnes here.. so I cannot really tell how this REALLY sounds. On the other hand, this sounds better. Possibly the bass is a bit low in the low departmentet still but I really think this is an improvement. What did you do?

mosc · Posted: Sun Sep 05, 2004 2:54 pm Post subject:

Gee, this isn't too different. The voice sounds better - more easilly understandable - that's good. Still think there needs to be more bass, but this time when I turn up the bass on my Mackie mixer, it sounds very muddy, so a simple bass boost doesn't work for some reason. Doesn't sound quite so tinny either.

elektro80 · Posted: Sun Sep 05, 2004 3:06 pm Post subject:

Something has clearly happened in here.

Adding bass in not really workable unless you add a new version of the bassline.. and other bass events. Keep what you have and add new layers that have that umph and thump . there is still something about the levels here.. did you run this thru some multiband compressor or something? The "problems" cannot really be solved unless you treat every single voice individually.

Carl Mikael Björk · Posted: Fri Sep 10, 2004 2:11 pm Post subject:

Thanks alot for all your help! Smile

I've done a third attempt of getting this right, and I don't think I'll get much further on my monitoring of today.

Please have a final listen and, hopefully, enjoy!

Resistors, Capacitors and Delay Lines

Cheers,
Mikael

elektro80 · Posted: Fri Sep 10, 2004 4:59 pm Post subject:

Did you remove the older versions?

The link points to the same file?

This sounds good, but I would like to compare it with the older versions.

mosc · Posted: Fri Sep 10, 2004 5:12 pm Post subject:

Nice. This sounds really good.

elektro80 · Posted: Fri Sep 10, 2004 5:26 pm Post subject:

Yup... it sounds good.

This is kinda how Thomas Dolby should have sounded way back.

Carl Mikael Björk · Posted: Fri Sep 10, 2004 10:12 pm Post subject:

Yup! Only the new version is publically (is that a word?) available.

Thanks for your guidance Mosc and Elektro80!

astroid power-up! · Joined: Mar 23, 2004 Posts: 334 G2 patch files: 15

well, i only heard the last version, but great work!
Cool

elektro80 · Posted: Sat Sep 11, 2004 11:45 am Post subject:

yup, great song! Very Happy

Dovdimus Prime · Posted: Fri Sep 17, 2004 11:06 am Post subject:

This is a really nice song. Well done there.

Hmmm. I downloaded the most recent version and I would still want to bring out the middle frequencies - the belly of the piece more. And the bass could do with more thud. More corner, less roundness.

Song is really nice though. Good work.