Michael Martinez

I should note: for purposes of the critique, please ignore the "musicality" of the vocals. The guy recorded harmony line. The lady recorded lead for the whole song, but I don't like the way she is singing on the verse so I cut her out. I'm still trying to figure out what to do about that.

But ignore that for now, I welcome critique on the technical aspects of the whole mix, including how the vocals sit.

voxengo span. ok I will grab that.

I'm mixing with both headphones and monitors. I make adjustments using one. Later I'll listen on the other to hear how it turns out.

Regarding visualizing waveforms, although I don't think it is helping me mix, it definitely helped me to comprehend how the compressor works. Especially helped me to understand where the "recommended" values for compressor settings are coming from. 20ms attack. 200ms release. Etc. Before I was able to zoom in and visualize the waveforms and see the effects of compression, these numbers were just random arbitrary numbers. Like, "why 10ms"? Well, the length of attacks and stuff becomes clear looking at the waveforms, so it's a useful learning tool in that regard.

18 minutes ago, Wookiee said:

@Michael Martinez 

Basically yes, I have a Global reverb buss, which consists of the N-type Channel emulation then the  quad Curve EQ set as described followed by Breverb with a hall type patch, totally wet no dry.  Then using the track sends I just send enough to create that gel on the whole mix.

Ok, so the reverb buss filters out the low end *prior* to applying the reverb.

A couple questions:

- the level on you reverb buss is set to 0db?

- what is N-type Channel emulation? how do I set this up?

- do you recommend Breverb over Sonitus reverb? (I've been using Sonitus, but I did notice I have BReverb also)

Sorry, I keep asking questions. Thanks for your quick responses, it's very helpful.

14 minutes ago, panup said:

"Old school" mixing engineers may not get any useful data from looking at the waveform but younger people get overview of the song dynamics from waveforms just by looking at them.

I don't get any of that! haha. I'm clueless. This is my first attempts at mixing and, although I find it interesting, I find it very frustrating as well.

9 minutes ago, Wookiee said:

Always worth a touch of EQ on the vocals, just to clear the way for the bottom end Bass and Kick.  A lite slap-back delay on the vocal can be used to thicken it.   Use reverb to create a space for all the "voices/instruments" to sit within.  For that I tend to use a global reverb over the whole mix with the bottom end rolled off below around the 150hZ mark.

You mean send all tracks to the same reverb aux?

My second attempt at mixing is with this song. This time I do have dry vocal tracks to work with.

I feel the female vocal on the chorus comes in too abruptly? If so, maybe reduce or automate the level? Or perhaps apply compression? I applied compression to the male vocal track, but not to the female track.

Let me know if there's anything I can do differently with this mix to improve it:

http://clyp.it/xsslgsun

thanks for the tips on loudness, I'll check that out.

regarding the mix, I'll redo the song, I'm going to play with levels, and I'm going to remove all the processing I'm doing on the vocals. If it's still slightly unclear at that point, I wonder if EQ-ing would help?

Dan -  Do you recommend using a loudness meter? Is that a plugin that I would put on a bus somewhere, or a piece of hardware?

Regarding making the vocals better - what would be the recommended course? Increase volume a little? Back off the delay a little? The vocal track on this song was given to me with effects printed in. Is there a way to improve the clarity given that fact?  I compressed the vocals a little and I added a little delay to it.  Maybe I should disable these?

I think I can improve the drums easier, probably by turn ingup the volume a little on the drum track.

This is my first attempt at mixing a song, at using things like compressors, reverb, etc. I also tried mastering it but I bungled that so I  sent it to an automated online mastering service for what you hear below. It sounds ok to me but I'm sure an experienced audio engineer would take one listen and immediately find faults. I'd like some feedback on any glaring things that need improvement regarding the engineering mix aspect of it.

https://clyp.it/dnrufymb

13 hours ago, John Nelson said:

Most dynamic processors have a gain reduction meter.  To visualize by means of a waveform... is highly unorthodox, not something mixers typically do.

And in the end the advice is always to use your ears and not your eyes.

That's fine, but in learning how compressors work I have found it very useful.

Thank for the tips. I'll look for the "All" dropdown next time I'm in there. For now I've been outputting to an aux track and that has been working so far.

I'm actually not seeing Waveform preview at all on any buses or tracks, audio or otherwise. 

Routing to aux track worked. Thanks.

As for waveform preview, I made sure it's enabled in the edit-preferences, but I don't see it available as a button anywhere. I see buttons for "interleave" and for "input echo" but no button for "waveform preview."

Well, I thought that would be a simple matter of patching in Cakewalk, but I don't see how to set the track output to another track's input..... 

I suppose I could just put the compressor on the track, set the track output to another track's input, hit record.  I guess this would be the most straightforward way to do it.

I know there's a Waveform Preview while recording audio, but is there a way to view the waveform of the output of a bus or channel (after eq, compression, insert effects)? I'd like to do a before/after comparison of the effects of compression.

Old Joad: just watched that youtube tutorial you recommended. It was informative.

Now I've got a couple questions:

For reverb/delay, I'm assuming this is done on a track-by-track basis, depending on where you want to place the instrument in the front/back space, so most if not all tracks will have different amounts of this.

For compression, is this also typically done on most/all tracks? Or is more customary to do it on certain types of tracks only?

Any other youtube videos that show mixing of a song in Sonar/Cakewalk? That first video dealt with the vocal track only. It'd be helpful to see the process done on an entire song, all the tracks.

-

Old Joad - I'll bookmark those links .Definitely seems mixing is an art of itself and could be real enjoyable and pleasant if one had the time.

Mixing does look like a fun thing to get into. It definitely seems like it can end up being an art in and of itself.

Tezza,

I'll definitely be learning about mixing with Prochannel in my spare time. For now I've decided it's too many rabbit holes for me to be chasing at the moment, and so for this batch of songs I'll be sending them to some engineers. I exported wav files (one for each track in a song, timestamped) with eq off, everything panned Center, levels at 0, reverb off, all the Sends off except for certain Delays that I want to keep  - and I'm pretty sure this is sufficient for an audio engineer.

I already had a fellow in China, of all places, offer to do a mix for free. I told him I wanted an 80s style sound. He sent me his mix - it's a bit unusual, not what I was expecting, but the vocals sit way, way better than any of my attempts. I've also had a couple other offers from random people, so it'll be interesting to hear each person's different take on things.

I appreciate all your info, it's definitely helped improve my understanding of the mixing process.

Tezza - thanks for the info. I am both pleased and disheartened. Pleased because it seems compression is one of those things that will help. Disheartened because it's yet another rabbit hole I have to go chasing down (learning curve). Thanks for the tips. I'll either make the effort to learn about it, or I'll just farm these songs out to a mix engineer.

If I decide to have a mix engineer do it for me, in Cakewalk, if I choose Export > Audio > Files of type "Broadcast Wave", Source Category "Tracks", Preset "Entire MIX No F/X" this is what an audio engineer expects?

Other choices are "RAW broadcast", "raw track no f/x"

Tezza I haven't been using compression at all. Does Cakewalk come with a built-in compressor? Can you recommend a compression patch to start with on the vocals?

Another question: in Cakewalk's track view for a single instrument/vocal (the vertical track strip), there is the area for the Sends. If I have two sends there - one for reverb, one for delay - I'm assuming a copy of the dry signal is sent independently to each bus, and those busses are routed to master, so one signal gets reverb, the other gets delay. Is that how it works?

If so, is that how it's customary to set it up, or should the dry signal be sent to one Send buss that has Delay on it, and then that buss sends to a Reverb buss before going to the master?

12 minutes ago, Byron Dickens said:

Try this: go back to your drum track.  Lower the velocity of the hi hat  on every other eighth note a very small amount.  Then raise it just a tiny bit on the one of every measure.  Then select all the snare hits and nudge them just barely to the right so they are just behind the beat. Now, take the bass part and nudge it slightly to the left so it is right on the leading edge of the beat.   Try it and see how that sounds. 

Thanks I will give this a try.

I'm playing around with the Sonintus Reverb and Delay that comes with Cakewalk. What I like is for the vocals to sit back, be more airy as if they are floating in a wide open space. What are some ways to achieve this? I thought more reverb, but that only distracts and makes the lyrics less clear. Would a long delay be appropriate?

HEre's the more recent revision if anyone wants to take a quick listen: https://soundcloud.com/mwtzzz/the-forever-lament

18 hours ago, Tezza said:

The reverb on her voice isn't ideal, too much and cheap wet sounding, I couldn't focus on the lyrics.

 

I re-listened to it, and yeah, you're right, the reverb is distracting. How to fix this? Is there a different type of reverb I can try, or maybe just less of this one?