[LAU] [OT] Help with mixing and mastering?

[James Stone]

On Sat, May 09, 2009 at 09:50:35AM -0700, Ken Restivo wrote:
> On Fri, May 08, 2009 at 08:42:25PM -1000, david wrote:
> > James Stone wrote:
> > > On Fri, May 08, 2009 at 11:12:54AM -0700, Mark Knecht wrote:
> > >> James,
> > >>    Welcome and best of luck with what you're doing. IMO his is
> > >> completely the right place to ask questions like this.
> > >>
> > > 
> > > Thanks Mark!
> > > 
> > > 
> > >> 2) Learn to use busses and in general limit yourself to a single
> > >> reverb. Try to leave a LOT of headroom in your indivdual track
> > >> recordings as it will reduce the number of limiter and compressors you
> > >> find yourself using overall. Using multiple reverbs will eventually
> > >> lead to a muddy sound as every instrument starts acting like it's in a
> > >> different room. Busses are easy in Ardour, albiet FAR more capable
> > >> than they really should be. That said, you need them and once you
> > >> learn to use them for things like reverb you'll probably be better
> > >> off.
> > >>
> > > 
> > > I had a quick mess around with a bus with TAP reverb, and only 1
> > > reverb.. It gave the track a more "live" sound to my ears - more
> > > real maybe, but lacking some of the dynamics of a studio
> > > recording.. any idea where I am going wrong?
> > > 
> > > How about compression? Is it OK to run 2 compressors in parallel
> > > like the C* and Satan Maximizer, or is it just a waste of
> > > resources?
> > > 
> > >> way you want your mix to sound. You don't say much about music style,
> > >> which is cool, but I suggest that one answer doesn't fit Animal
> > >> Collective, Particle, McCoy Tyner and John Mayall, all being bands
> > >> I've listened to in depth this week. Maybe you're doing something
> > >> non-pop/rock and some sort of strange reverb setup makes it work. If
> > >> that's the case then by all means do WHATEVER works!
> > > 
> > > Well, our first studio track, which was recorded by a student
> > > engineer in a semi-proper studio on protools, then mixed and
> > > mastered by a professional engineer is here:
> > > 
> > > http://www.last.fm/music/kitten+cake
> > > 
> > > mp3 here:
> > > 
> > > http://drop.io/dont_call_her_baby (password: kc09)
> > 
> > That's a very nice sound. Good recording quality - very clean, nice 
> > separation between instruments. Duly added to the playlist!
> > 
> 
> Very nice. I can however hear the compression pumping, i.e. on the kick drum. Maybe you were going for that sound (i.e. DJ rare-groove vynil), but it sounds really prominent to me. Maybe it's bleed-through from the kick to other tracks which have compression on them which is causing that effect. I like the creative use of reverb in the first verse.
> 
> I felt like I wanted to hear the choruses and bridge "leaned into" a bit more, and have the dynamics pick up there.
> 
> Your singer has a fascinating and unique voice; reminds me a bit of the singer from Portishead, but has her own take on it.
>

Thanks for the really kind words. This recording was not done on
Linux though (hence the OT) and I had nothing to do with the
mixing/mastering process - we paid a studio to do it for us as
none of us had access to protools. I just played bass! Let's hope
my low-budget linux-based approach can get close! :)

Interesting what you say about Candice's voice - someone else
said that about Portishead. I'm still puzzling about what genre
we fit into though.. Still that's probably a good thing!

James