[LAU] [music] Elements of Synth: Wind

[Jostein Chr. Andersen]

Hi Jeanette!

On 2022-01-17 15:41, Jeanette C. wrote:
> Hi Jostein!
> Jan 17 2022, Jostein Chr. Andersen has written:
> ...
>> Good and interesting composition (as usual from you). IMHO, the sound 
>> of the mix is not my cup of tea, even for this kind of music, but I 
>> like the song.
> ...
> First of all: thanks for your feedback. I will pass on the praise to
> Staffan. Since I did the mix, I am curious. Could you perhaps find
> particular points which you don't like. I know a lot of this is a 
> matter
> of taste, but there are technical faults and other methods to improve
> the production. Nobody - certain not me - is perfect and it's never too
> late to learn new tricks.

It's cool that you want to improve and I'm always impressed when 
somebody reacts to criticism like you do!

It's first of all, IMHO, too much hi-end from the high mid and up and 
too little lo-end. I miss the kicking bass and pulse at the bottom. The 
first one is often when the ears (and often the head) are tired and the 
lack of bass is often because the acoustics in the mixing room and/or 
head phone generate too much bass and people overcompensate the other 
way because they think it's too much bass. That was the main thing that 
I heard at once, but if that is fixed (assuming I'm right), then new 
problems might arise! But in the end, mixing is always a subjective 
thing! :-) Som reference tracks of some well-known music in the same 
type of music will often keep one on track and of course: -Rests! One 
should never mix more than an hour without rests, the ears are big 
liars!

I mainly make a living as a sound engineer and believe me, I have done 
worse and more bad things are still to come! Around five years ago, I 
mixed a song with the hi-hats so loud that the producer kicked me out 
and let another mixer mix that song! For this job, I was mixing 8 songs 
in a row at night time, everyone knows that this is a no-no, but I had a 
deadline to keep.

As an example of bad mixing (IM-not-so-HO), here you can hear a lear bad 
mix with only one guitar and vocals. That's John Lennon's Working Class 
Hero on his YouTube channel. Here you can hear how they in a 2010 
remastering of the song changed the voice (way too much middle - a more 
telephonic voice) and even managed to compress the life out of the voice 
even more. And as a curiosity, notice what's happening between 1:24 and 
1:45, they have punched in another take (that also appears on the 
original). Not everyone has noticed this, but it proves that everyone no 
matter how good they are, can do funny stuff and even get away with it. 
:-) The professional world has many examples of bad takes and mixing 
mistakes.

Jostein