ironside1966

[quote name='MiltyG565' timestamp='1375315038' post='2159798'] Oh goodness, Ironside! Well done! You must have been a bit annoyed that I thought it must have been Skol or Discreet! [/quote] No MittyG565 just happy that you had taken the time out to listen and comment.

Thank you to everyone who voted for me. Overall I liked the song and the performances although there were mistakes and the song went on for far too long. One question that was raised was whether there was any merit to kipping to the original recording. the choice for me was simple what is best for the song, hopefully I kept within the bands intentions. IMHO the arrangements of songs need to be tight and you need to be ruthless and cut out any fat. The internet is full of people wanting you to give their music a listen and if a song gets boring or too repetitive people will move quickly on to the next song or band, also if the intro is flat they might not make it to the first verse. I also believe there is no such thing as cheating when mixing, it is about getting the best results you can with the time and resources you have to make the recording fit for its purpose. [b]Drums:[/b] there has been allot said about drum replacement so I won't go into it but I prefer to turn the hits into midi notes so I can edit and refining them afterwards. The kick is made up of two sounds a Sub kick sample from BFD and a Steven slate kick sample. The snare is also hybrid of two snare samples. [b]Bass:[/b] The bass was split into two tracks with different EQ and Comp a transient designer was also used on the slap track to give the pops more snap. [b]Guitar :[/b] Nothing special on the rhythm guitar but the second staccato guitar I used a phaser and auto pan to create movement. the lead guitar was a bit of a disappointment for me I wanted to create a synthy envelope type of effect but it never worked. [b]My contribution:[/b] I added a organ based on the staccato style of the lead guitar. A Trombone sound based on Xilddx intro from his recording. And a simple guitar chop to help keep the stereo image more balanced. John

There are a lot of good things about the track but to my ears it is way over compressed and spoils everything. Sorry

[quote name='Dad3353' timestamp='1374338611' post='2147810'] Voted. Same dilemma; respect of the 'source'..? Re-engineering..? Cut'n'shut..? Choices, choices... Done now, so that's that. 'Twill be interesting to have the explanations and divers points of view in the 'post-mortem' phase. Well done to all who passed so much time mixing, and congratulations to those who listened through all, sometimes a couple of times. Those who did both, of course, are [i]really [/i]crazy..! [/quote] Thats the dilemma do you mix the song or the band.

I am going back a few years but when I last worked on ships there was a no alcohol policy but we smuggled alcohol in. Saying that I have known musicians contract terminated on the spot for that very reason.

Thank you Mike for your critique. It is a great help to have some one put your mix under a microscope and give you good solid advice.

Thank you to everyone who commented on my mix (mix G) some good comments and I have taken them onboard.

[quote name='triviul' timestamp='1370067420' post='2096138'] Well done Moonbass and Ironside! Glad to see everyone's been getting into the spirit with this competition. As promised, I'll be posting critiques of those two mixes, as well as some comments on the other entries, soon. I'm away for the coming week, but will hope to get something posted pretty quickly after I get back on 10th June. Mike S. [/quote] Thank you, looking forward to it

[quote name='Twigman' timestamp='1369998556' post='2095331'] I think that is a fair assessment. I didn't really think I'd over verbed the vocal....I did however try to get it it right to the front of the mix. I agree on the lack of DB tone....I found eqing this tricky - I really wanted to get the upright vibe but found the bass difficult to get loud enough in my mix - bizarre Yes I knew as soon as I listened back to the mix after it was uploaded that I had taken too much bottom out of the snare. My snare was heavily processed with a transient shaper to try and put some thwack into it - I felt the original had no life.In the process I obviously concentrated on the highs too much and this thinned the snare. Another problem with the snare I found was that there was a lot of snare rattle (I think) on the sidestick in the intro - I ended up cutting this to a different track and gating and eqing it totally differently. [/quote] I found that cutting the lower frequencies to even out the tone worked best for me. There is always a temptation to boost the fundamental or the lower part of a bass sound or kick, try boosting around the second and third harmonic this can bring the sound forward without swamping the low end., Put simply try boosting around the second to third octave, it is important judge the EQ changers as part of a mix and not in isolation.

Thank you to everyone who voted for me, and a big thanks to Simon for his time and effort in making this happen. The tracks were mostly well played and I liked the song, this made this song a pleasure to mix. I felt the acoustic guitar and vocals were the most important elements to this song so I mixed the song around them. If I had a secret weapon it would be tape saturation to help gel the tracks together. My approach to panning was to place the instruments on an imaginary stage; even though a lot of the tracks were in stereo I changed the pan on the stereo track to two separate pans and brought them a lot closer together to the size of an imaginary guitar on my imaginary stage. http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/mar09/articles/stereotechnique.htm pan for each side. Winning in this competition is not how many votes you get but what you learn from taking part. There were things in the other people’s mixers that I liked. A good example was the drums and the vocals on Mix D but I prefer the balance of instruments of my own (Mix G) Listening back I found my mix a little harsh and over compressed, I hit the mix buss comp a little too hard. When I quickly skipped through the tracks I tended to prefer the ones with the warmest tones, as I listen more closely a second time my preferences changed, the balance and how well the sounds gel become more important to me. The fact that there is no clear winner shows there is no right and wrong, it is more about taste and preferences. Well done everybody

Think like a drummer: to be aware of how a real drummer would play. If the aim is to create natural-sounding drum parts, though, you need to think about what a drummer is physically capable of playing at any given time. Two toms being played at the same time as a ride, crash and hi-hat, for example, is likely to sound ‘wrong’ because a drummer has only four limbs! Similarly, you wouldn’t usually hear any hi-hats during a tom fill or maybe a snare hit. I gave each individual hit a different velocity with a slight emphasis placed on the beat of the drummer’s stronger arm. Also moved the snare drum off quantize a few milliseconds late to get a more relaxed feel or visa versa. If a drummer plays two things at once like kick and a cymbal one would be played slightly earlier the other. also after a drummer hits a cymbal they would take a second or so to get back to playing the hi hats Vary the hi hat patens an maybe use in some triplets if appropriate for the song. Choice of sounds: It is tempting to chose the biggest punchiest drum samples you have but they can sound out of place it is often the weaker sounds with a bit of processing that comes up trumps, choose the sounds carefully

I have had this before and my attitude is When you have invested the time and the money to get the band to where it is today then you can have equal splits.

A band is a business and you are employed to do some work it is not a profit share and you are not a charity. Ask for what you think you are worth and let the band get what they are worth.

Clicks with tempo changers are quite normal I often increase the tempo by a few BPM at the chorus and maybe at the end to give the song a more natural feel. To use o click or not depends on what is going to give you the best results. if you are tight with a drummer who doesn't drift in temp too much and you can play your songs all the way through with no mistakes ( every band says they can but not that many nail in a couple of takes) on the other side I have wasted hour trying to get a usable performance out of a drummer who can't play to a click. if you want to record a live session you need to check that the studio has the space and experience to get good results. My advice would be to get a daw or a friend with one, work out the tempos and create a click then take that in the studio has a audio file, that way you are not wasting valuable studio time. I would go a step further and record and create the guide tracks beforehand too. use the studio time wisely if it not going to be on the finished mix try and do it at home. Don't worry about the sound quality but make sure the performance is good enough. Then Practice practice practice to the tracks

[quote name='51m0n' timestamp='1365583161' post='2041243'] Nice effort Ironside, Never fear heres always the next one, hope you dig on Country and Western though [/quote] Thank you. This is my first mix on just headphones (DT880s) I would value your opinion on the tonal balance and how the mix translates. I like Aprils mix choice. It is quite easy to get a good sound but even easer to run it. One hour working out of your comfort zone is worth 100 hours of sticking to what you know in terms of music education

I have been off line for a bit so idiot know about the competition until it was too late but if I did my mix might have sounded something like this. Well done moonbass.

Am I the only one who thinks that the cash in hand pay no tax economy that occurs regularly in live entrainment is doing more harm to the value of musicians, than any band playing for free in the local boozer.

To all those who thinks it, a sin for band to play for free, Is it fair that some bands\ musicians under cut pros because they don't pay tax on the income

If you play an instrument you will no what to put in, but a musician will no what to leave out.

If what the keyboard player is doing works then its fine, there is nothing wrong with a keyboard doubled bass line when needed or parts that complement each other. Don't feel threatened if the keyboard player comes out with a better bass line then you just go do what is best for the song, whatever you do it needs to be extra tight and well thought out because low notes can soon clash and sound muddy. High pass filters can work but it is far better to fix the arrangement then the mix every time.

[quote name='4 Strings' timestamp='1348818513' post='1818555'] I think I understand where Bilbo is coming from, we were booked for a 'Tribute Night' and, to be honest, many of the other acts were poor. We were the only act without BTs, our sax player was infuriated by the whole thing. After his years of study and extremely hard work in becoming little short of an elite sax player, working just as hard to promote his own quartet with original music among a number of other projects to see people being paid for the display of so little talent and heavy reliance on other people's for a, frankly, poor act it was a little too much for him. How could he find mediocre singing and performance to off-the-shelf tracks entertaining? The 'real world' sees the punters seeming to lap it up, I see people trying to make a living, the venue sees a booking fee less than a fifth of ours. Our sax player would rather have been anywhere else. He's not a musical snob, just knows what it takes to be a talented professional. [/quote] That's about the quality of the acts not about using backing tracks. If you take away the excitement and energy of the band I find a lot of real band singers lacking, they can be just as bad if not worse than many cheap solo acts.

People who don't like Solo acts will never go and see them and just assume they are all rubbish. They are many average solo singers out there just like there are many average bands. But it is OK to be average. keep music free and not elitist.

[quote name='mcgraham' timestamp='1346521260' post='1790245'] I think he's talented. I think that this particular use of his talent is degrading. I never said I didn't like the music. I don't get where this argument is coming from. [/quote] Why is it degrading? Why do you judge people? Why do you think that what you do is any less degrading?

[quote name='mcgraham' timestamp='1346520417' post='1790230'] Firstly, I'm not bringing talent into the question, the guy is clearly very talented and I made no comment on that at all. Secondly, even beyond the context of this thread I think you're wrong. There are plenty of things that people do to earn a living that are cringe-worthy or embarrassing. Don't try and tell me it's NEVER cringe-worthy, cos that is just arguing for the sake of it. [/quote] I think most people have done thing that we find cringe worthy or embarrassing. But for other to judge and look down on other people because of what they do, when they are hurting nobody is wrong. I just don't get the my music is better than yours thing at all. I just like talent.

I find ego and disillusionment and people who don,t respect other musicians talent. cringe worthy or embarrassing... earning a living at something you a good at is definitely not cringe worthy or embarrassing...