Mix help

[Tifstorey]

Alright guys,

Bit of a different one for me here.. Did a quick recording today (And i mean quick! set up, 3x songs recorded and packed away within an hour!) and am left to mix them as best i can.

The lass i recorded had a great voice, but as it was a quick set up, the recordings aren't great. I have a vocal track (with an acoustic bleed), a hissy keyboard part (due to a crappy DI) and a half decent guitar track (which can't be used as much as i'd like due to the bleed on the vocals).

This is the mix i've done so far and have come to a bit of a halt on it. Perhaps it's because i've had a few beers.. but, it needs to be finished by tomorrow preferably.

So, what's wrong with it?

I've cut the keys and dehissed it as much as i can. EQ'd the vox and guitar and tried to create a bit of space in there, but it's still sounding a bit raw to me.

Any tips/suggestions?

Cheers

[TrevCircleStudios]

"what's wrong with it"

you just found the old adage to be true: you can't polish a tied dude.

[Tifstorey]

Originally Posted by TrevCircleStudios

"what's wrong with it"

you just found the old adage to be true: you can't polish a tied dude.

I was hoping for yours &/or T3s input on this one but was kind of expecting that phrase to pop up

She's not expecting it to be perfect of course, and i said that when i first got in there. But i was hoping to get more of a clean-cut production on it. Especially the vocals.

Any suggestions/ideas on what i can do to them to for this particular mix?

Cheers

[terminal3]

Yeah, to be absolutely blunt, there's not much more that can be done with this.

A few fundamental problems - the guitar is not perfectly in tune and/or intonated properly and there are playing errors too, that comes off as "rough" but can't be fixed with any technology.

However - if you want, try putting a bit of compression on her voice, maybe add a bit of quality reverb to the guitar (just a touch) and work on the keys/piano EQ a bit more (there's still some mud, have a look around 150-250hz).

It already sounds to me like there's been a lot of EQ happening (especially on her voice, you may have taken it too far IMO but without hearing the original tracks it's tricky to say one way or another).

Anyway, best of luck... it's a difficult place to be to turn around stuff that quickly, ideally you would have spent that hour just fiddling with mic placement let alone recording anything!

[Tifstorey]

Cheers T3.

I'll have another crack at the EQ on her vox and see if i can get it sounding a bit better.

She's booked another 5 hours in the studio (The 1hour i did was a 'taster session') so, i'm only doing this as a favour really.

I've done another mix this morning (albeit.. taken 15 mins!).

Crisped the guitar up a bit, worked on her vocal EQ a bit and when analyzing it there was a bit of a boom at exactly 150-200hz

Originally Posted by Terminal3

have a look around 150-250hz

Anyway, i've uploaded the newer version (in original post). I think it's sounding better than the first, but only as good as i'm going to get with the recordings.

Thanks for help guys!

[tehlord]

I quite like the way it sounds.

Alternatively run it through Ozone 4s CD Master exciter and widener preset

[waxxy]

i dont think it sounds too bad mate i think its the best your gonna get it sounding because of the limited time you had to record the track but in my opinion it sounds ok.im not really into that type of music but ive heard worse recordings of that genre get into the charts so i wouldnt worry too much.

if shes not happy then i think your only real option would be to rerecord it but as a demo it sounds ok

[Dave Boulden]

You are actually going to be restricted by the raw sound you captured... there seems to be a lot of undesirable room noise in the recording. In terms of artistic direction, I would suggest running parts (particularly voice and guitar) though a convolution reverb with a smallish wooden room kinda sound i.e. a room sound as opposed to a more traditionally reverberant effect)... play around with some minimal HF boosts to fake some air to the vocal sound and go the whole hog for a "quirky song recorded in an old house with wooden floor-boards" kinda vibe... basically, aim for a character recording rather than clean and commercial... with any luck, the girl's (excellent) vocal performance might just carry it.