Kristofer Dahl - A Loner, My new tune! Options

[Kristofer Dahl]

Here is a tune I have been working on recently - where I have experimented with a new, lower voice. As usual suggestions are very welcome as I am trying to learn how to make my mixes (etc) as good as possible. Thanks for listening!

A Loner (now at iTunes)

Do you know who I am?

- I have planted a seed in your brain
That makes the pain stay the same

Unleash the beast!
At least I have come to join the feast

What a surprise...

A loner - never meant to be your fall
A loner - never meant to see you crawl
A loner - descendant of your act

You don't seem to get it

- I am coming, no in fact, I am running
I will haunt you in your sleep, no relief

Bring back the beast
Don't settle for the least

Open your eyes...

A loner - wasn't meant to be your fall
A loner - never meant to see you crawl
A loner - descendant of your act

SOLO

A loner - wasn't meant to be your fall
A loner - never meant to see you crawl
A loner - descendant of your act

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[Ivan Milenkovic]

The way I hear it, guitars are "eating up" the mid-himid range a bit. For example, cymbals are a bit choked now, but it is all the question of what needs to be achieved in the end. If the guitars have to go in front, then I think this is the right direction to follow.

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[Kristofer Dahl]

The way I hear it, guitars are "eating up" the mid-himid range a bit. For example, cymbals are a bit choked now, but it is all the question of what needs to be achieved in the end. If the guitars have to go in front, then I think this is the right direction to follow.

Thanks to this (and Fran's comment earlier) I just realised I have made a completely unnecessary mistake in the mix. There are six rhythm guitar tracks and 3 of them where panned in the middle - thereby seriously competing with the vocals..! I will fix this later today. Huge thanks again to everyone who gives their opinions here!!

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[Ivan Milenkovic]

Thanks to this (and Fran's comment earlier) I just realised I have made a completely unnecessary mistake in the mix. There are six rhythm guitar tracks and 3 of them where panned in the middle - thereby seriously competing with the vocals..! I will fix this later today. Huge thanks again to everyone who gives their opinions here!!

No problem Kris, thank you for putting this track so we can comment it! Sometimes it can be difficult for us (at least for me! ) to accept the weak points of our work, specially if we invest a lot of time and dedication in making it! This I think shows how much flexible and mature person is based on the critics.

I have couple of more tips that I actually pulled out from a very useful book that I red some years ago. I hope it will be useful for many people, and it is related to the topic of this mix in some way.

Delay:
Digital delay is an excellent tool to widen the image of a single instrument. With original instrument sound panned to one side of the stereo spectrum and a short delay - below about 35ms - panned to the opposite side of the spectrum, the originally mono image spread across the panorama, leaving more room to hear the rest of the instruments. This technique widens the stereo image, but almost more importantly, it makes room to hear the rest of the instruments and their image in the stereo soundfield. Delay times between 35-50ms often sound very big and impressive in stereo.
In understadning the stereo image, it's helpful to realize that when these short delays are panned apart, our ears will prefer the original over the delay. A phenomenon knows as the Haas effect indicates that the delay is suppressed by as much as 8-12dB. In other words our hearing system is doing it['s best to ensure that localization is cued from the initial direct sound wave. If we want to split an instrument in the mix, and we want that instrument to sound like it's coming equally from both left and right, we have to turn the delayed signal up higher in actual level than the original. The amount depends on the amount of transient and the overall sound quality of the instrument.


EQ- cumulative effect:
If we boost kick drum, bass guitar and rhythm guitar by 4dB@100Hz, they might each sound great alone, but the cumulative effect of boosting the same frequency on all these instruments wouldn't be good. The result is an artificially hot mix - a mix that doesn't sound as strong or loud as it should.
The ideal procedure when combining EQ is to compensate for a boost in one instrument by cutting the same frequency in another instrument. Example - if bass gutiar needs 100Hz boost, then cutting kick @100Hz could be in order. If the kick needs more lows, boosting 60Hz, and cutting 60Hz on the bass guitar may seem more appropriate. If the guitars are added to these instruments, chances are there's no need to include the lows on the guitar at all. So cutting bellow ~150Hz on the guitars will be a good starting point.
When we compensate for boosts in EQ by cutting at the corresponding frequency on a different instrument, we end up with mixes that sound louder at the same master mix level. We also create ixes that sound better on more systems.
The arrangement:
There are a lot of situations when it's valid to record a few tracks that you might or might not use in the mix. Often those tracks will be turned up for just a portion of the song, at just the right time. In that context, it can be very valuable to record extra parts.
Yuo might be making some radical changes in your mixes. Once you've critically evaluated the options, you could end up turning off everything but the acoustic guitar and lead vocals for just the intro or the first quarter of the song; you might leave some tracks completely out of the song or just include them on the choruses. The options are vast.
Multiple mixes:
Don't be afraid to try something really "out there" with your songs. Render and mix as many different versions as you can come up with. Sometimes you'll listen to all of your final mix vesions and fall in love with the one that seemed like your least favorite in the studio. You might even end up editing parts of different versions together.

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This post has been edited by Ivan Milenkovic: Apr 20 2009, 02:04 PM