My first audio mixdown

Good effort, but wrong execution. Here's the problem:

First, you have made a monaural mix. It's not stereo, it's mono. That means everything is the same in both channels. What we call, dual channel mono. So it's the same thing coming out of both speakers, but there is no stereo. There is no separation between anything between the left and right channels. We've had stereo since the mid-1930s. It started with Fantasia by Disney. That's where you have different sound sources coming out both the left and right channels. Not out of both channels equally. Because that's mono.

This is a very subdued, and non-dynamic music track. It's pleasant, but contains no information to differentiate between left and right channels. Because your panoramic potentiometers (pan pot) is set to straight up 12 noon position on everything in the music track. Most of this is coming from a electronic keyboard instrument. Most of these instruments have left and right outputs, which should be panned left and right. Channel one, left and Channel 2, right out of the electronic keyboard. So when we go to the left channel of your mix and the other would go to the right channel of your mix. If the keyboard synthesizer track is a single mono track, it's not stereo. The only way then to get stereo from a single mono track would be to add some electronic time delay based stereo simulation such as stereo chorusing, stereo flanging, stereo time delays to simulate some stereo spread of the music track.

The vocal sounds nice, but because of his wimpy delivery, you need to include some fairly aggressive, dynamic range compression on his vocal track. Limiting is the same as compression, it is generally more aggressive to only limit peaks. Whereas compression is more akin to automatic volume control, where it will raise his lower volume levels to higher volume levels and lower a higher Vian levels to lower volume levels. This makes the vocal much more present with higher articulation and putting his vocal into a nice compact little ball of sound that will neither be too loud or too soft on a consistent level. This then lets you place that vocal within the mix so that his voice does not get lost, when he wimps out. And it's a wimpy vocal to begin with. Less than that of a crooner. He never takes a proper breath. He is trying to sing with half of a lung of stale air. And that's not singing, that's mumbling. He needs some direction in his delivery. But that's neither here nor there. He wanted to double his vocal, which actually probably would help. But you already have some kind of time delayed doubling already going on. Again, that too, again is Mono, and not stereo. The doubling effect you have added should appear as a stereo signal, which would then take a single mono vocal track into 2 vocal tracks for left and right stereo. You are doing something way wrong in your mixing to make everything mono. This is what that pan control is for, which would not be needed if the vocal track shows as two waveforms in a single timeline channel or two separate timeline tracks, one for left and one for right and multi-track software, all of them, have provisions for doing this in some manner. Each multi-track software package handles this differently. Some will not allow a stereo track in a single timeline channel. With that the singletrack must be split to 2 separate tracks/channels, in the timeline. So depending upon your multi-track software package, this single mono channel vocal track may have to be slid into two separate timeline channels? ProTools would be a good example of that. Sony Vegas, Adobe Audition and others, allow for a stereo track in a single timeline channel. ProTools doesn't. So your question about your mix also lacks any technical information for which we could help you with. Kind of like a doctor it hurts when I do this question. And you're not even showing what this is? Like saying to the doctor, I don't feel good, without specifying what doesn't feel good? Is it your toe? Your tummy? Or your head? Fingers? Shoulder? Hips? What doesn't feel good?

One of the things you must do before you begin a mix is to start with a reference CD of a major hit release. Then you'll hear what's stereo sounds like. Compare it to yours and you will know that you are not in stereo, but dual channel mono. So this needs a lot of work. Nobody records a hit on their first try. If they do? It's totally dumb luck. And you haven't exactly been lucky from the get-go. Mixing music is an intricate and can be quite involved and complex. It's not just pushing up volume controls, and adding effects plug-ins. You have to think in stereo, because you hear in stereo. This would be fine for monaural AM radio. But the vocals would still sound wimpy, because they have no dynamics processing to keep its level consistent. So, you first need to add some compression to his vocal before you add any effects. And depending upon your software, the vocal may have to be in two timeline channels? With both similar and different processing on both channels to create a stereo vocal track with some stereo spatial spread. Right now it is a lump of mud. And to get the mud out, you will need to add some equalization by boosting midrange frequencies. You will also need to roll off or cut some bass. Once compressed, you can add some time delay flanging effects to give the vocal a spacious stereo sound. Too much and you will get crap. Just enough and it will spring to life in stereo. Stereo also means there is a differential in timing between instrumental sources that can be placed left and right differently in the mix. So how many channels, are you mixing? You have provided no technical information? This is not ready for a prime time release. In fact, it's not ready to release to anybody. You could release it to the trash can, however? So, basically, you need to start again. Because in your mix, if one separates the left from the right channel and inverts the phase on one channel, in mono, it would cancel and you would have no sound at all. And you don't get stereo by just flipping or inverting the phase of a single channel. You can get a stereo effect by having the same vocal channel on two timeline tracks, where one track is phase inverted to the other. But when the mix would be played and listened to on a monaural radio, the vocal would completely cancel out and you would have no vocal at all. So that's not stereo either. Stereo will mean time delay shifts that are different between the left and right channel in the timing of the delays. Because if you work with the same delay time, it will still be mono sounding and the vocal will still cancel in mono. You have to first understand what stereo really is before you can mix a stereo song. I think of stereo as three channels, and not two. So you think and left, center and right. I cannot provide for, you here, a full lesson on stereo mixing technique, especially without any technical information about the recording whatsoever.

All synthesizer keyboard instruments, have stereo outputs. The only exception to that rule are very old synthesizers, which had only a single output jack. And they were not stereo, synthesizers. And they were monaural. To create stereo with those, you would have to record an additional separate synthesizer track so that you have 2 tracks of synthesizer. The second track, synthesizer would have to have different settings and instrumental sounds to make it different. Physically, from the first synthesizer track you laid down. Then each one of those tracks would go respectively to left and/or right channels each. Creating a stereo musical effect. The vocal can remain a mono single track, but stereo time delay effects would be added for separate left and right channel information. While the vocals still remains centered. Then only the effects would actually be in stereo. This will give the vocals some spaciousness that would be spread out in stereo and not dual channel mono. Again, this is why that pan control is so important. It's not like the stereo balance on your hi-fi amplifier, when it is a single mono track. The balance control on your hi-fi amplifier balances the left and right channels. A pan pot on a single monaural track utilizes the panoramic potentiometer (pan pot) to simply position what speaker, that mono track will appear to come from. So that's not a balance control, but a positioner, whereas the one on your stereo system is the balance control. So balance and position are different functions. Even though the control looks like and is labeled the same. It ain't. It's a positioner and not a balance control. It's only a balance control, if that single channel timeline track shows two waveforms in the single channel track. Then the pan pot becomes a balance control, and not a position oriented control. And that's the way it works in software. It's different when working on a analog or digital audio console/mixer. And again, you have provided no technical information?

So let's try this again? Take two.
Mx. Remy Ann David

in addition to remy comments, i would like to add a couple. First i wonder if the mono happened during the bounce i know in PT and Digtal performer, and pretty much every DAW, they ask you what you would like to 'bounce down' to.

I heard the vocs get pitchy around 2:20. I would also ask the singer to re-do the vocs w/ more convition. Then i would probably double, and perhaps add some low/high harmonies as an effect.

also, i'm not a fan of the drum reverb, to me it sounds 'dated' from the mid 80s, perhaps cheesy? Please don't take that as an insult. If you can't find a better verb unit/pluggin, i would roll off the highs and upper mids, or construct spatial information w/ a few delays.

Also the delay on the shaker is a bit off putting to me. Generally if you want the delay as an 'effect' you wouldn't sync it to the tempo, which sounds to me like what you were going for. You hear this all the time on reggae tunes, where the swarming echo creeps up outa nowhere on the vocs, and trails off fff ff ff f. In a more prominent rhythmic element, like a shaker, or snare, i tend to sync the delays to the tempo, either by ear, or using a freeware tempo calculator, or some plug-insoffer syncing to the 'conductor' or tempo timeline programmed into the session.

The overall balance sounded good, barring the already mentioned vocal issues. But there is some fundamental problems i think w/ the song itself. There is little 'momentum' Shure the vocal doubles help, but if you listen to alot of commercial songs they build, release, build, build, release. Ya know what i mean. I look at songs like a book or movie, it's the same manipulation. I'm not saying use a pop formula, but overall it's a very stagnant song, like going on a motorcycle ride and accelling to one speed, and staying at the same speed, no twist and turns, just straight ahead, until the ride is over. i would go about introducing even more instrumentation, then maybe pull it back. That last chorus should really really be epic. This is of course creative choices, but the idea of a good song is to hold the listeners interest, this could be as simple as hand claps, and interesting noise, some ooohs/ahhhhs, whatever.

Great mixes don't make great songs. listen to how really bad black sabboth, or old blues recordings sound. some of 'em will make the hair on your arms stand up, crappy sounding or not.

Good job on your first attempt, just needs some work from square one. Good luck!
-kyle

Your software has the ability to mix down to a combined single stereo track. I think that's where the Mono thing happened? So you indicated that you mixed down as a split dual track mix down. So you took your stereo mix and printed it as a Mono track. You went back and did the same thing again. And of course your stereo would then be Mono. So you have left and right combined as a single track going to the left channel. And the left and right combined as a single track going to the right channel. And that is Mono. You would have to rethink your mixing in your software. You can create a single stereo track that could then be split to two separate tracks, if you want to process your left and right tracks separately. But there is no reason to do that. None whatsoever. No advantage. There is no problem processing stereo tracks. In fact that's the way to do it. So you're taking this through too many steps. I know you are struggling with his vocal sound and performance. Not everybody can be Pavarotti or Joe Cocker. Thank God for that. I had a similar problem with a very good rock 'n roll friend of mine. He wanted that kind of raspy rock 'n roll vocal. And he did it in sort of a whisper where you wanted powerful. I worked with them for a couple of hours on that. Demonstrating to him. Doing it myself. Showing him videos of Steve Tyler also. He just didn't know how to push the air. Didn't know how to get down and dirty sounding. Suggested maybe I should do his vocals? Since I did them so well. No. Though I have done back up for a number of rock bands that couldn't sing their own backups. So I tried to show them how to do it. And they just wanted me to do it so I did. In three-part harmony. I also played some tricks trying to make myself sound different on each one of the passes. On one pass, normal speed. Another pass, hiring speed. The last pass lower in speed. Same trick that the Beatles used.

In talking about what the Beatles used, they both worked and it didn't. It worked if you played their records at the proper speed. But back in those times, radio station competition was fierce. So there was a rock 'n roll radio format known as " MUCH MORE MUSIC ". What that meant was that this particular station was able to play more songs per hour than their competition. There's only 60 minutes in an hour. So the only way to get more songs or, much more music, was to slightly speed up the turntable. When you do that, the music becomes more up-tempo, brighter, more exciting sounding. But when they played a Beatles record, they would start sounding like Alvin and the chipmunks, LOL. I wonder why LOL? Because they were already partially speeded up. Then the radio station just speeded them up some more and you get Alvin. Thankfully that format has gone by the wayside. Now stations just have commercial free hours. It's better than hearing Alvin do HELTER-SKELTER.

OK Dave!
Mx. Remy Ann David

What interface? If there is a mixer application for your interface, make sure that the main stereo out is panned hard left and right. You may have been hearing the mix in mono the whole time. When you export, make sure you choose stereo interleave as your output.

The returns from the ExCiter need to be panned hard left and right otherwise you are still returning a mono signal.

As far as the song is concerned: I agree with kmetal. The singer needs more conviction. I personally don't think the doubling is helping. This is something where a the "producer" in you needs to take control. I mean "producer" in the traditional sense not the "I make beats" sense. The phrasing doesn't work for me and I would do my darnest to get him to sing it a little differently. It's hard to put into words. Well not so hard but hard enough that typing it out would take more effort than I'm willing to put in right now. Maybe later. He sounds like he's trying too hard to sound like someone else and for me that never works.

I would try to keep those vocals as dry as possible. I would gate them even to avoid as much room noise as possible. It sounds like an intimate song to me and I would want to maintain that kind of atmosphere. If there were any vocal doubling involved I would want them to be a harmony only.

The doubling on the guitar in the picking part I could do without as well. It sounds fine for the strumming.

The string synth doesn't work for me at all. I would prefer a very subtle and sparse piano part during the verse. Stronger during the chorus.

I like the flute and that's the one place where I might add some reverb and maybe a bit of delay. Flute can sound haunting and it should sound haunting in this song IMHO. I would like the flautist to hang on some of those notes a little longer though. Some of the stops are a bit abrupt or not abrupt enough. Play what you mean and mean what you play.

I'm not trying to be overly critical. I'm sorry if it comes off that way. I just think you can bring this to a higher potential. You did a fine job recording it. It's just the production that needs help in my ears.

It's TURD polishing time again here at the old Recording.ORG corral. This kind of has that almost groovy like Moody Blues feel to it. But here's how I think it might be improved? His doubling, ain't quite there yet. What you really need to do is composite a single take out of the two vocals. Then you need to crunch the holy be Jesus out of his vocal. Some kind of tube oriented, optical compressor. Not too fast an attack time. Not too fast in the release time. No look ahead. Around 4:1, like, 20 DB gain reduction on his loudest delivery. Then go ahead and also grab the De-esser plug-in. The condenser microphone you are using on his voice, really doesn't work on his voice. That's a voice that would be better off with a SM58 and an additional foam pop filter.

To keep that Moody Blues kind of feel on his vocal, instead of him doubling himself, it can still be accomplished quite nicely from surely one of your available presets in your multi-track audio software? You can shift pitch without changing time, change time without shifting pitch, low frequency oscillator clocking the delay, differently between the left and right channels. Eh, voilà! It's that or pitch correct both of his tracks.

You're never getting be able to get this person to deliver the performance that they are incapable of delivering. So you really just need to capture their essence. I remember when I first saw Joe Cocker. At first I thought it was like a standup comedian? Until I realized it wasn't an act. That's just his essence. He gives a great performance and he's fun to watch. Never thought much about his vocal delivery any further than I did Bob Dylan. So it's how to capture that essence. That is aiming to say the vocal also reeks of cheap condenser microphone thingy syndrome. This guy needs a microphone with a boost in the upper midrange and not in the high frequency range. Then you need to compress him enough to sustain his chest resonance. He only sings on available air. He never takes a proper breath. Never uses proper support. And so what you get is what you get. So ya need more of the personality and less of the audio fidelity as your criteria. He's got a lightweight growl that you need to capture.

So to review... microphone into preamp into compressor into recorder. If ya have no hardware compression? All is not lost. No. You just need to get a little more aggressive in your processing. So maybe along with the compression, ya also want some downward expansion. Otherwise I think you'll sound more like he's in the bathroom than he already is? Great vocal booth concept, though.

I think this guy could benefit from some heavy hip-hop style pitch correction? But only if you compress and limit him hard and add a ton of EQ before and after compressing and limiting. Don't forget the downward expansion to clean up the room acoustics the microphone will be sucking up from the processing. That's all ya need.

Wasn't that simple?
Mx. Remy Ann David

+1 Yeah i'd do away w/ the doubling, unless they were heavily pitch/time corrected in the vain of, (ugh can't believe i'm saying this), mainstream pop. You can use a stereo pitch shift pluggin, put one side .5cents down, the other, .5cents up. pan em maybe 10:30 and 1:30. this is a nice simple way to create a 'harmonizer' effect. Not the whole time, just maybe chorus's or bridge, or whever. maybe don't even do that?

still way too much verb unless your going for a pink floyd's style of washy vocals. I wouldn't. 'whish you were here' is dry as a bone, it sounds like guilmore is like 3ft away from you in your own living room! I think that's what huseph was getting at when he said intimate.

same w/ the guitars, dry them up. This will help keep the high frequency stuff like the shaker/hi hat, from being in front of the guitars. They are supporting the guitar, not the other way around.

One thing that really helped my mixes improve drastically when i first got a powerful enough cpu to run alot of plugins, was to not use alot of plugins. It was the best suggestion on mixing i'd gotten in a long time and made the most drastic improvement in my mixes than anything else has for a while.

Set yourself up, w/ a 1/4 note delay, a short/tight verb, and a longer more open verb. Put them all on auxes. Use only them on the whole mix (only the things that need 'em of course) If you can like, "hear" them, they're probably too loud. You should notice when they are muted, but you shouldn't notice them when they are on. This will help make everything blend or mix together, as opposed to hearing say, a guitar and it's delay. Limitations can spawn creation. When your happy with your static mix, then i'd thinking about couple "special' effects, little things happening to keep the song interesting.

+1 on the single guitar on the picking part, if you insist on stereo there, use a subtle delay panned opposite. I'd leave it to one guitar, then when the strumming comes in it'll help the verse 'pop' w/ a nice big stereo image!

Vocalist are funny animals, you as an experienced singer must know this. I've spent hours w/ people w/ "good voices" but don't breathe right, and sound weak. When i sense this coming on i usually try to just call an end to the session and have the person practice more. I'm not a vocalist myself beyond oooohh's and ahhhh's, so i recommend they watch some videos, or take a couple lessons and come back in a week or two. even that little time, usually makes a big difference cuz at least they know what they are 'trying' to do.

The recording is well done. the mix, getting there, certainly moving in the right direction. I wouldn't stress too hard over anything, most times the whole idea is to paint a picture of the artist doing their thing in front of you. Mistakes, or not. Some mistakes are bad, some are great, and some can be pitch corrected.

gonna have ta get your hands dirty to polish a turd. (<----ugh)

The standard mixdown is a huge improvement over the last one. So much better. Great work. The exciter negated anything you did with the de-esser. It's not that bad but it's not an improvement IMHO.

Just listened on my monitors. That exciter is doing you no benefit. It's either a setting or you should just not use it. All I hear is that it sucked all the life out of your mix.

Nice job! Nothing is distracting me from the song itself anymore! Sounds good thru my Hr's. big improvement, with a more current production sound. I'd save any stereo/mix processing for mastering processing, if there's gonna be any, or leave as alone. Good work, keep it up!

-kyle

RemyRAD: I worked in radio in the late 1960's - 1970's. Vinyl was spun on the air, and the turntables (mainly QRK fast starts) were set for 47 rpm rather than 45 rpm....yes there was more (altered) music...The popular air mic at the time was the E-V 666...hard for the announcers to beat that one up...later came the Sennheiser MD421...but the announcers found a way to break off that chintzy plastic clip and the mic wound up duct-taped to the Luxo stand....

Yeah that Electro-Voice 666 had that proximity reducing backbone, that kept DJs from getting too muddy. I just don't think anybody would purchase a microphone today with the model number there reads 666? LOL doesn't sound terribly lucky. I think many announcer would have trepidations working on that microphone today?

Those must've been some pretty heavy handed DJs if they broke that 421 clip? I don't remember any of those breaking more than the four years during my tenure at NBC radio. You guys must have had a very animated, active microphone grabber? And I've never broken mine in the over 25 years I've used mine which has been quite extensively. Some folks are just heavy-handed morons never had to fix anything. And also because they didn't have to pay for it themselves. Oh well... you can't fix stupid.

Sounds like you've got a few years on me? But just a few.
Mx. Remy Ann David

Nutti, post: 394010 wrote: Hi all!

I finally got the time to get in the studio today and this is what I did to the mix.

- Added compression to the vocals and added 2db @ 1,5k and 4k
- Replaced the percussion reverb with a studio verb
- Found out what caused the mono problem!

The mono issue happens when I send the stereo file out from my interface! It only has mono in/out so when I sent the file to the exiter it cutted it down to mono so I just get a mono signal back into the audio interface. What can I do about this? Any ideas??

Anyways, here's the mixdown again...any thoughts?

[[url=http://[/URL]="http://soundcloud.c…"]Hero mixdown by Nutti_ on SoundCloud - Create, record and share your sounds for free[/]="http://soundcloud.c…"]Hero mixdown by Nutti_ on SoundCloud - Create, record and share your sounds for free[/]

Are you saying that you " left the box " and sent the mix to an outside processor? You mentioned sending the mix to an exciter (shudder.... bad box BAD BOX!) were you doing this by actually coming out of your computer audio I/O send?

Might I suggest that you ditch the whole "leave the box and send it to an outboard exciter" idea...

First off, if your audio I/O only has a mono out ( which is really weird... I've never heard of that before), then yes, you are summing all stereo audio to a mono signal.

Your best bet would be to invest in an exciter plug in ( if you must... personally, I can't stand exciters, but there are those that like them) that you could process the stereo file with internally and never have to leave the digital recording platform.

Also, if you are coming out of an analog out, through a cheap processor, and then back in again, regardless of whether or not you are maintaining stereo signal or converting to mono, you will degrade the audio, especially in budget audio interface models. If you had high end analog outboard gear, then there are exceptions... but then again, if you had the money for that high end analog outboard gear, I think you'd probably have a high caliber audio I/O with nice converters and more than just a mono out...

Do yourself a favor and invest $40 or so in an exciter plug in, then render the final mix within your DAW program, and ditch the whole idea of leaving the box to begin with, especially under the circumstances you described.

FWIW