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kevinwhitect 6 January 2017

[MEDIA=soundcloud]kevin-white-2/outrageous-1[/MEDIA]

Brand new original piece from us. It's a song about escaping abusive relationships.

Any/all comment warmly appreciated.

K-

https://recording.o…

Attached files Outrageous.mp3 (6.2 MB) 

Comments

pcrecord Fri, 01/13/2017 - 02:57

Again another nice song..

I don't know what happened but the sound of the drum is weird, overcompressed and unclear. Do I hear a delay on it? (maybe a too long predelay on a verb )
It sounds like it was in a too tight space for the song..

Anyway, the rest of the mix seems fine, but I can't pass the drum sounds ;)

pcrecord Fri, 01/13/2017 - 08:22

kevinwhitect, post: 446598, member: 11453 wrote: The drums are not playing nice, M. I think I'm going to do a faders down and rebuild from the ground up.

They sound like in a tight compress space..
I would surely put a longer verb on the snare and make it bigger but that's just me. It all depends if you want it to sound more like rock or funk.
I'm sure you'll get it right for you ! ;)

kevinwhitect Fri, 01/13/2017 - 19:11

There's only deep compression on the kick and snare ... and meh ... to make the toms pop hard. I've got the kick and snare held pretty tight ... the compression lets up quick -- but because you (and I) LOVE toms rumbling and popping when they do? I might have compressed them too hard ... and accordingly, when they ring ... the sustain rings.

But you're right. The drums are persnickety on this track.

They were not recorded hot. Nor were they compressed on the input. The recording came right off the mics.

Sometimes I'll process on the way in. Mostly I don't.

audiokid Tue, 01/17/2017 - 21:11

pcrecord, post: 446608, member: 46460 wrote: It's better Kevin, but I feel like it was crushed when tracking.. recorded too hot or something like this.. It might not be the case and it's the overload of compression that is tricking me..
I hope others will comment and reassure me...

+1

Parts of this are really good and other parts are over compressed.
When it comes to compression, less is more.

Kevin, I'm pretty certain this is one of those times... another set of ears being helpful. We are hearing the compression as "excessive" because we are not involved in the song like you are right now.

Take a break on this for a day. Then come back at it, with the focus of backing off on the compression on the tracks that you have it harder on, reduce it by at least half.
imho/

kevinwhitect Wed, 01/18/2017 - 07:29

You both are absolutely correct. I had hit the toms hard w/ an L1 -- and it both killed the attack and caused the toms to ring (sustain) unnaturally. I pulled that completely off the tom sub aux and more gently compressed. Also, to Marco's point, I had the drum overheads accidentally reversed ... which I found when I went back to built the drums from the ground up again.

This file (and the SC link above) is now that address ...

[MEDIA=audio]https://recording.o…

Attached files Outrageous.mp3 (6.2 MB) 

pcrecord Wed, 01/18/2017 - 15:59

We are getting there Kev !! ;)
I think I would enjoy more of that reverb on the snare. (says the guy who usually puts very light verbs)
The drum has a better place in the song now.. Toms are not tune well, you could try to push up each of their fundamental notes with the eq and put down the card-box sound a bit 300-500hz.
I hear some saturation on the bass drum, but I think it's your processing on the 2 buss that is too much. The compressor you have on the master, if you lower the output just a bit and make the attack a tinny bit longer, it could be it...

I now hear other things in the song (that's good that I can unfocus from the drum ) :)

The piano and the bass sound great. the acoustic could be a bit less panned, but hey the mix sounds very good...

kevinwhitect Wed, 01/18/2017 - 16:46

pcrecord, post: 446744, member: 46460 wrote: We are getting there Kev !! ;)
I think I would enjoy more of that reverb on the snare. (says the guy who usually puts very light verbs)
The drum has a better place in the song now.. Toms are not tune well, you could try to push up each of their fondamental notes with the eq and put down the cardbox sound a bit 300-500hz.
I hear some saturation on the bass drum, but I think it's your processing on the 2 buss that is too much. The compressor you have on the master, if you lower the output just a bit and make the attack a tinny bit longer, it could be it...
but wil
I now hear other things in the song (that's good that I can unfocus from the drum ) :)

The piano and the bass sound great. the acoustic could be a bit less panned, but hey the mix sounds very good...

I ADORE your comments, M. You always hit the mark. When I rebuilt the drum mix, I auxed out the snare to a separate plate to widen it. That worked, but it left the snare in kind of an "out of context" place.

Because I ported around the drum master (w/ the reverb) w/ the snare? It's drier. This is not an unintended consequence ... because the drier the sound? The more it intimates ... becomes more focused in attention ... not a bad characteristic for an essential snare element.

The toms are better. They don't ring like they did ... and I can employ software to retune them. I just need to decide if I want to. :D

I WILL look at the boxy ... as I also know what freq range to address that. :D Thank you for that ... as I'm not hearing boxy in them ... but will listen now.

I will also recheck the master buss settings. I lean towards the right level of pulling the glue together w/o sonic smearing.

Thanks again, Marco. Totally appreciated.

audiokid Wed, 01/18/2017 - 17:54

Man, I would still reduce the compression a lot. Its better, but...
Why not use a limiter at the master bus. Thats what I would do.

I would mix the session with much less compression, give the mix headroom and get it all sitting well with the intention of a good limiter right at the end. It will sound fuller and more polished. Less breathing effect.

kevinwhitect Wed, 01/18/2017 - 18:10

audiokid, post: 446750, member: 1 wrote: Man, I would still reduce the compression a lot. Its better, but...
Why not use a limiter at the master bus. Thats what I would do.

I would mix the session with much less compression, give the mix headroom and get it all sitting well with the intention of a good limiter right at the end. It will sound fuller and more polished. Less breathing effect.

That's all I have, Chris ... and I tend to dial it in lightly as possible ... again ... the balance between the sheen and the real.

audiokid Wed, 01/18/2017 - 18:16

kevinwhitect, post: 446752, member: 11453 wrote: ... but you make me wonder WHERE that hearing of "breathing" is coming from?

Do you hear the breathing?
I have noticed people blaming pumping and other issues on MP3 compression but, to my ears and cross examining my mixes, this is an indication of too much compression somewhere that needs to be fixed.
The Mp3 is a great warning method for me to re study a mix. If you hear something pumping on MP3, it really means its over compressed somewhere before it was ever finished into an MP3.

kevinwhitect Wed, 01/18/2017 - 18:19

If I were to break it down?

Vocals? Waves vocal rider. No compression, per se.

Bass? Same as above, but I did add a Maxxbass to this mix.

Elec Guitar? None. EQ only.

Acoustic guitar? Mild to tame hard strums. Also mostly a scoop EQ.

Keys? None. No effects but for a delay on the sax synth.

Drums? I split kick/snare/toms in compression individually and separate. OH goes through sub buss (no compression outside of drum sum) ... along w/ hh (no compression outside of drum sum) ... but I do address the kick (by itself), snare (by itself) and toms (in aux bus) w/ compression.

2 bus has a limiter.

That's it.

kevinwhitect Wed, 01/18/2017 - 18:48

audiokid, post: 446758, member: 1 wrote: Right off the start, there is an effect pressing some tracks down. Its drops volume on the word (when I realize that...

Do you hear this?

I can't say I did, Chris. With things so light as of that point? It HAS to be something on the 2 bus. I'll listen tomorrow to exactly there.

kevinwhitect Wed, 01/18/2017 - 18:52

audiokid, post: 446763, member: 1 wrote: I'm not a fan of riders. They do weird stuff to the source and transient integrity. I think people get used to them on things, the sound of them I mean. I think this is part of what I am not finding helpful for you.

I'm actually fairly new to them. My thought on that is that sometimes they get caught a bit "off guard" ... trying to follow transients (and valleys) so quickly ... and yet, I find they've less coloration than the compression sheen. Not less noticeable ... just less sheen.

pcrecord Thu, 01/19/2017 - 02:48

Chris and I are looking for the cause of exposed compression we can hear.
You seem to say the only place it as one is the limiter. Could you say how many db it is reducing ?
Could we hear a version without the limiter ?
You know loudness isn't something to chase at the mixing phase right ? A bit of controle maybe but not much more than a few db.
You know what, maybe the output of the limiter is too loud and the DAW does what we are chasing for by itself (the comp effect and saturation)
You should definetly try to lower the limiter's output as a test.

pcrecord Sat, 01/21/2017 - 06:10

kevinwhitect, post: 446787, member: 11453 wrote: Argh ... when I isolated the drums ... there's a buzz in the kick I never noticed before. It's not there all the time. I have to figure out how to fix it. Argh!!!!

:D

Somethings are easy to pin point, but it once took me an hour to find the cause of a similar noise. After checking all the in and out levels of the signal chain and changing plugins, it turns out the mic was touching the front head of the bass drum... LOL !!

kevinwhitect Sat, 01/21/2017 - 07:15

pcrecord, post: 446836, member: 46460 wrote: Somethings are easy to pin point, but it once took me an hour to find the cause of a similar noise. After checking all the in and out levels of the signal chain and changing plugins, it turns out the mic was touching the front head of the bass drum... LOL !!

I think I've got a similar issue. It's on the tape ... some hits it's more prevalent than others. Sonar has a "drum replacement" tool where I can take the noisy hits and replace it w/ a "clean sample" ... but I've never used it before. I've a training video that I'm evidently going to become very familiar with. :D

bouldersound Sat, 01/21/2017 - 09:11

kevinwhitect, post: 446837, member: 11453 wrote: I think I've got a similar issue. It's on the tape ... some hits it's more prevalent than others. Sonar has a "drum replacement" tool where I can take the noisy hits and replace it w/ a "clean sample" ... but I've never used it before. I've a training video that I'm evidently going to become very familiar with. :D

I've never used an automatic replacement tool but I've replaced kick hits manually. I created a dummy track next to the kick. Then I copied one good sample and pasted it in the dummy track near the problem hit and lined it up by eye, then I tweaked the clip gain, then I dragged it down over the bad hit. Once I got going it went pretty fast, and custom fitting each hit (timing and level) gave me an excellent result.

I'm not usually a fan of compressing overheads at any stage before mastering. It just sounds unnatural to me.

kevinwhitect Sat, 01/21/2017 - 10:48

bouldersound, post: 446842, member: 38959 wrote: I've never used an automatic replacement tool but I've replaced kick hits manually. I created a dummy track next to the kick. Then I copied one good sample and pasted it in the dummy track near the problem hit and lined it up by eye, then I tweaked the clip gain, then I dragged it down over the bad hit. Once I got going it went pretty fast, and custom fitting each hit (timing and level) gave me an excellent result.

I'm not usually a fan of compressing overheads at any stage before mastering. It just sounds unnatural to me.

That's interesting because I port everything to a drum master buss, and I usually as a compressor then a limiter ... but I lean light on the compression and limiting USUALLY (unless the drums really need to be aggressive and in one's face).

I'd not thought of porting the overheads right to the master out.

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