what would you do if..

[aviel]

you are mixing a song for 1-2 months, each time make a new mix, each mix sucks, and its the 7th attempt to mix it?

options are:
1. something sucks in the song
2. i approach it badly
3. i suck


as far as 3 might be half true - i have done better mixes before, and much better after, but this one just sucks.

i would have tried to post it here for people to mix, but its not "that" metal, and its not super polished

 

[bryan_kilco]

If you post a clip, it'd be much easier for others to try to help you out!

 

[Ascendant]

1-2 months for one song? Yikes, and I thought I was bad at committing. Hard to tell which case is true without hearing your mix.

 

[egan.]

One week max. Then do something else. The longer you work on something the less perspective you have. It's unlikely you'll have a breakthrough by hammering on it endlessly.

 

[rob w]

Pick a reference track, mix so your song has the characteristics you like of the reference track, and then mixdown and move on. You'll never be happy if you allow yourself to go back to it. Even andy says he finds things he would change as little as a week later.

 

[JakeAC5253]

I suffer from this as well. Somebody on another forum posted something about this topic and I thought it was funny. They said that if you are still playing with something after 15 minutes, then you'll probably be playing with it after 90 minutes, and it likely won't be much better.

I'm an amateur mixer as well, it's easy to do, but extremely difficult to do well. What I do when I find myself banging against something is distance myself and work on a different project, or start something new. Clear your head then come back and work on it in a few days.

 

[aviel]

well i was able to find any reference mix.. becasue the song is rockenrolish, bass tracking wasnt super so i cant get it to grind, eac mix is or: too harsh/to flat/too basy/too boomy/ plastic.

let me upload some mixes lol, each sounds almost the same though :|
rough mix http://minus.com/#!/mjNKWqcKQ/1
too middy: http://minus.com/#!/mbflXcTccC/1
this reminds me a spaceship: http://minus.com/#!/mkjuIDjZm/1
vocal are just hovering over it

 

[luismars]

You should retrack or move the tracks to the grid, they not seem be coherent with each other. Also, the vocals are too hight, try to put them a few dB lower.

 

[aviel]

on the last one? yes the vocs are high.. what do you mean about the tracks? guitars sounds on click to me, maybe i am wrong?

 

[Darren "Jenk" Jenkins]

It just comes down to experience. The more you mix the better you get. 1 - 2 months is a very long time. I like to spend 1 day per song. I heard a movie director once say "I never finish a film, I just walk away". Some good advice.

 

[miguelrx10d]

IMO the vocals are really high and therefore unglued in those mixes you posted, try to mix the level with a low monitoring volume and watch out for that high mids conflict between vox and guitars

 

[Ascendant]

Yeah what everybody else said, vocals are definitely too loud. Other than that it's not too shabby, bass sounds bad though, sounds like the strings haven't been changed in decades.

 

[ArthurD]

Man, the performance is not tight enough, i think the vocals are sloppy, there are too much fx on vocals, IMO.
Drums sound like there is no ROOM. The song is kind boring, lacks of punch itself (sorry, the vocals didn't catch me on this)
I remember a CLA tip: Make the drums and vocals cut with punch, but not overpower. They are the "power center" of rock.
You should track this to the grid, retrack the vocals (they are a bit out of tune, specially when entering notes).

 

[aviel]

thank you all for you advices.

i agree on the vocals, but otherwise i just found them to get lost in the mix. when i tamed the highs from the guitars, the mix became too dark.
about the bass i actually opened up another thread where few people said its sounds fine, some said its bad, its fingerpicking and i am having hard time to nail this down. the strings was quite new though.

for the vocs i also opened a thread where i tried to make them less harsh, i tried a few things, people pointed out that they should sit perfectly in a mix..

the drums were superior drummer, it has a room track, but i like to take it down a bit because i get too much kick and hats from it..

i find the hardest thing in this mix is to nail to bass + kick and drums sound, i think after this is done everything gonna be good, but in 7 mixes i got similar results..

so will you remix it? or just send one of the above versions? its for a a movies my girlfreind need for her degree.. the song is quite boring i know, but its a rockish cover of a old israeli, and we didnt want to take it too far away. it was supposed to be something quick and simple, and got into a ** challenging mix, at least for me.

in this time - retracking is not an option anymore so i have to deal with those stuff,,, where will you start this mix from?

 

[aviel]

I remember a CLA tip: Make the drums and vocals cut with punch, but not overpower. They are the "power center" of rock.
You should track this to the grid, retrack the vocals (they are a bit out of tune, specially when entering notes).

how will you do it? using compressors and stuff? the drums are programmed. so they are quite tight..

which one of the mix was the most "almost there" from all of them?

 

[freakkguitarist]

aside from the kick having almost no punch, i feel the the main thing that bugs me about it is the actual playing/programming, (maybe its just the lack of punch/low in the kick) but it seems like the drums/guitar/bass DONT groove together. the drums are super rigid, yet the playing doesnt seem to "click" with it. i think you need to step back, listen to some other music. save that version of the mix. put ALLL your faders to 0 (or most of them) and try starting with a clean slate.


sometimes ill be working on a mix for weeks then randomly revert to the original session, and do the mix start to finish in less then a day ( full cd/ep!) and it usually will be 10x better then the old mix!

dont get bummed out! !!:Smokin:

 

[aviel]

Actually i feel the same about the drums. do you sugggest to reprigram them and align them with bass! i am not sure what groove to go with actually.

i thought of doing a clean mix with almost no procrsing. if it wont glue with no procrss. it will be impossible to glue it anyway. right?

 

[jackbraglia]

well i was able to find any reference mix.. becasue the song is rockenrolish, bass tracking wasnt super so i cant get it to grind, eac mix is or: too harsh/to flat/too basy/too boomy/ plastic.

let me upload some mixes lol, each sounds almost the same though :|
rough mix http://minus.com/#!/mjNKWqcKQ/1
too middy: http://minus.com/#!/mbflXcTccC/1
this reminds me a spaceship: http://minus.com/#!/mkjuIDjZm/1
vocal are just hovering over it

the vocals are so painfully bad that I can't even listen to this for more than like 3 seconds

 

[aviel]

the vocals are so painfully bad that I can't even listen to this for more than like 3 seconds

lol. youre talking about processing? or just badly done? i dont think they are so badly done. they have some off tunes, they push too much. but not that bad

 

[Loki Laufeyiarson]

Reprogram the drums so they groove with the bass and try using a bunch of saturation on every channel before you start mixing (you, like VCC or the like, if you don't have such a thing, try tesla from variety of sound, it's free). That might glue it a bit more together.