It's a beautiful song, great arrangement, really nice (and effective) instrumentation, and nice placement of the instruments in the mix, too.
You didn't specify as to whether you had individual tracks to work with, or if you had pre-mixed stems ...
If I had to be picky, I'm hearing that there may be a tad too much sibilance on the Vox here and there....perhaps look at the 6k range (or so) and maybe attenuate it a tiny bit with a tight Q ...but that's being pretty nit-picky. I sure don't hear any "deal breakers" here...
I think you're the beneficiary of working with really well-recorded organic tracks to begin with, great performances and nice mics to capture them ...and that's where it ALL begins. The better quality the tracks are when they are initially recorded, the less you have to do in the mix stage.
Nice harmony vocale, beautifully simple, and placed very nicely, just under the LV, and not over-produced by reverb or overcooked with EQ.
Any other critiques I might have would just be subjective in nature - in how different engineers or producers hear things.
I like it. Nice job, Marcin. ;)

Welcome to RO Marcin, great to have you onboard.

Having a great recording to train helps a lot because you can focus on mixing.
You've taken the path of minimum modifications and it's very mature of you who just start learning.
I think you did a good job and there is only minor things to make it a bit better.
I'd be interested to hear what the song would sound like once mastered from this exact mix.
In fact, I might get time to do a pseudo mastering of your mix today or tomorrow.
Getting a mix mastered often reveals more about the quality of the mixing because problems may arise once master compression and limiting is applied.

On the get go, I feel the solo guitar or banjo should be more present in the mix.
The bass drum could have less of 125-300hz and the toms could have a bit less 200-500hz.
Also I can hear a hi-hat much (unless it's a brush on the snare) ??
I won't got further in comments before I hear it mastered...
But you did a great job, I like it a lot so far !

I got time to do a fast mastering using Ozone 7 and Fabfilter Pro L
I did to files, one with only the level adjustment (with Pro L) and the other with the mastering from Ozone.
I wanted it to be easy to hear before and after mastering.

My suspicions were right, you general mix is a bit heavy in the low mids and you should correct it.
The observations of my previous post still stand. But I heard far worst mixes ;)
Note that I'm not a mastering engineer and this is only a test I did. No pretention here..
I did keep it simple and didn't use much compression to keep dynamics which are beautiful for that kind of songs.

What do you think ?

https://recording.o…

https://recording.o…

Attached files James May master Bypass test.mp3 (11.9 MB)  James May master test.mp3 (11.9 MB) 

Dears, I'm so happy to read your so helpful comments and am very much interested to hear your tracks PC!!!

Don't have my speakers now, so can't compare and also I won't be able to work on it till monday. But will do!!

I didn't clean the trak at all, so it will remain as natural as possible, just for my plesure of hearing music that pure.
But of course I understand the need of doing it if I would work on the tracks to publish.
Anyway, it's probably the right moment to tackle these things as well.

I think the track were not touched before my mix. I suppose at least.
But the recording is indeed sooo beautiful!!

It comes from here:
acoustic" rel="nofollow">www.cambridge-mt.com/ms-mtk.htmacoustic
so you can check yourself since my limited knowledge does not help to judge myself.

Have a nice weekend and see you next week I hope!

Marcin

Polifonik, post: 453140, member: 50835 wrote: I didn't clean the trak at all, so it will remain as natural as possible, just for my plesure of hearing music that pure.

I'm 100% for pure music and performances. I prefer having great tracks and do a minimum to them. But microphones don't capture sound like our ears are.
When building a recording with multi-tracks, some freq buildup will happen if many tracks exhibit too much of some frequencies.
This isn't a big problem but it can make your mix sound inconsistant depending on the listening device.
It may play nice at home but not in your car.. or on a friend system.. So you see there is a bit of science behind some of our choices that guides us to have a mix that sounds good everywhere (well as much as possible)

You have the original mix on the website, did you think to compare your mix with theirs ?
The funny thing is the original mix is also heavy on the low mids.. :)

https://recording.o…

Attached files ElizaJane_Full_Preview.mp3 (7.1 MB) 

Hey ! Hope you are still there..
I visited the site and got the trill of doing my own mix of the song... I'm not impliying it's better in any way.. just different..

It ended up very different from the preview files from the site (on my previous post)
If you want details of how I've done it, it'll be my pleasure to discuss my mix.

https://recording.o…

Attached files JamesMay_ElizaJane Master.mp3 (11.6 MB) 

Yeah, I'm back.
Happy that the website gave you some fun!
I like your mix actually more than the "official one.
Of course, my is better, but...just joking.
Actually it is funny when listening now to my mix I hear things I thought were soo fine before.
First and most obvious is balans and homogenity. Suddenly holes in the mix are showing up, when I though everything sounded very connected and well balanced. Now I don't think so anymore. Sound color of particular instruments could be more worked out. No idea yet what I could do is maby the reason.
And here is the right place to ask if you would like to share your way you've worked.
About your mix, love "moments" in it. Panning of the drums (toms, rides), which come out suddenly and surprisingly in a few fill ins, mandolin, when vocal stops singing, fills the "empty" space and in general it sounds like "I thought deeply about the function of the instruments in this arrangement". But you didn't have so much time, even more - great job.
I was at first maby surprised by a large and wide sounding bass, but after a while it didn't bother anymore. Will listen many times later on...

I want to say a word also about the mastering of my mix. Since the mix and a bit the official mix of the song as you said is a bit bass heavy, I thought it gives to the recording a kind of silkyness which makes the recording more analogue sounding, which I like a lot. Your mastering made it more clear but in the same moment more edgy and sharp. Probably was not too easy to make something of such a mix as mine though, but maby your decision based on the individual taste. Don't know. Anyway, your mix has more warmth. Still not that cosy and round, but full and well balanced.

Now I'd like to read what you have done to the mix to make it soo good!

And thanks a lot for your help and time!!

Marcin

Polifonik, post: 453223, member: 50835 wrote: Since the mix and a bit the official mix of the song as you said is a bit bass heavy,

They were heavy on the low-mids not bass... Low mids = around 200-400hz. Bass = 0-125hz (something like that anyway...) ;)
Of course, to a certain degree, there is not right and wrong here. What I was trying to do when mastering your mix was to make it sound consistant to what commercial music offers today.
Also this mid heavy might sound good at your place but may not translate well to other sound systems.
I must admit my mix may have a bit too much bass at the beginning of the song but it's more balanced with the drums later in the song. I could have automated it.

My first goal when starting my mix was to give a space to every instruments so they don't compete so much.
I used volume automation to push up the mandoline and the slide guitar in areas where nothing special was happening. It's hard when you don't have a more define catchy melody to push up, but I guess it's time to get creative when the song doesn,t have any.

I will try to make a brief brake down of my mix tonight or tomorrow ..

I know, I know, wrote what I had on my mind, should have read your post again. Sorry.

pcrecord, post: 453226, member: 46460 wrote: My first goal when starting my mix was to give a space to every instruments so they don't compete so much.

Definitely a thing which I like a lot in it. Thanks for the automation tip. Will read about and practice it since it looks like a powerfull tool.

I will be very glad to read your mix story.

Greetings,

M

[MEDIA=soundcloud]michael-caliri/come-back The stems I got off a mixing contest I did not get in on.I used my Presonus studiolive 16,not my Tascam DP-24

Here's a quick mix break down.
BD = EQ :small boost at 40-60hz | removed 3db at 230hz | good boost at 3.3k for presence. Compression slow attack + slow release
SN = No EQ, No Comp, just a room reverb
HH = High pass at 300hz, panned at 45 %
T1 = EQ : high pass at 60hz | +6 db at 85hz (to make the note ring a bit) | -6 db at 450hz (starting at 150 to 1k) to remove the boxy sound | Small boost at 4k for presence
T2 = Same EQ as T1 but low boost at 65hz
Overheads = 1176 type of compression, medium attack and release
Bass = compression because it's too dynamic, slow attack medium release | EQ large boost at 60hz to give it more low end
Acous 1 = EQ high pass 100hz | 2db cut at 300hz
Acous 2 = Same EQ but Compression (La2A type) to tame the peaks and bring up the good stuff...
Mandolin1 = EQ high pass 225hz and -3db at 500hz
Mandolin2 = Same EQ
Hammond low and hi = EQ high pass at 200hz (big chunk of mud gone) and small boost at 5.5k for presence
PedalSteel = high pass at 150hz, small cut at 400hz | compression fast attact and release
BackVoc = High pass to 100hz | -2db between 250-800hz | comp : small attack medium release
Lead voc = Same EQ same Comp

The rest is volume and pans + some automation for the solos.
Also did a bit of mastering using ozone. Vintage comp on the whole mix. boost the sides a bit with M/S process, EQ curve to make it similare than a pink noise and a limiter...

Lovely:)) Thanks a lot for this beautiful info!
I will try to apply this to my mix to compare and will definitely ask questions if I may.
One now.
Which treshold and ratio of the compression did you use?
Kind greetings,
Marcin

Polifonik, post: 453464, member: 50835 wrote: Which treshold and ratio of the compression did you use?

I don't want to put specifics but fast would be between 20 and 40ms and slow would be around 100 - 200ms.
I always go by ear and listen to how it affects the dynamic of the track.
For exemple on the bass drum, I choose a place where it's played fast and I make sure it's fully recover by the next hit.

The ratio also depends on how much I want the compression to happen. I usually start at 4 and can go down to 2...

Oh, the threshold...
Once you've set how fast and how much the signal would go through or be reduced.
I set the threshold so the signal is being reduced by 3 to 6db depending on how the dynamics of a track is out of hand.. ;)