need mix help on classic RnR tune - updated mix again

[andygabrys]

hey John,

ya know - I think you aren't far away from this style.

arrangement / production / mix wise - I would........

figure out where to put the piano. wide stereo piano is arguably more effective if everything else isn't wide stereo. Otherwise to quote (from Bobby Owsinski's book Mixing engineers handbook 2nd edition and I can't remember who he was interviewing here) "you end up with these big train wrecks out the end of the stereo spectrum (L+R)". Everything is stacked on top of one another and you can't hear anything clearly.

two ways that could work - a la Tom Petty's Damn the Torpedoes album - make the piano narrow, mono and put it in the stereo center. Same with the organ. Or maybe keep piano narrow and near center and do organ stereo and wide cause its usually a pad anyways. Keep the guitars panned wide.

or if its a sparser song a la Tom Petty's "Breakdown" - electric piano really wide - BG vocals wide, and melody guitar, rhythm guitar, and solo dead or near center.

or since we are Canadian - how about Blue Rodeo's "5 Days in May". Organ wide stereo. Piano nearly mono and center Left. Tremolo rhythm guitar center right. Solo guitar dead center.

other main thing I hear - and I think its distinctive cause you classified this as "classic rock" - listening to Tom Petty, Fleetwood Mac et al - the bass and the kick drum are always really locked up. Sometimes the kick is more active (or sometimes the bass like Fleetwood Mac's "Dreams"), but the bass always agrees with the downbeats and a couple other places in the bar. I would go in and simplify the kick patterns you have a little, and then replay the bass so they lock up.

its pretty hard to mix if yu don't have rhythmic agreement with all the parts of your arrangement. It will always sound cloudy and lack punch. And since you are going for a quick recording vibe, you have to assume that its a band you are recording right? What would the bass player do if the drummer were playing a certain kick pattern? Listen and adjust. Even if the song has some crazy energy and a quick recording vibe. Those kind of bands had drum and bass agreement.

that's my opinion anyways!

[AlpacaRoom]

Really digging this tune, and I think it works really well with a few tweaks.

I'm with Andy re: piano and bass. The piano's not sitting right as it is (the first piano break sounds way loud to my ears, too), and the bass isn't really working with the drums. If you're going to replay the bass part, you might think about scrapping the root-fifth parts in the chorus: to me they take it from straight-up classic rock to rocked-up-honky-tonk, which I'm not sure works here. For me, as a guitar player first, the hardest thing about playing bass is knowing when to just play less. You might want to just knock out some eighth-note roots there.

Nice work, though, and good luck with it.


-Nick

[johnlewitt]

Andy / Nick,

Thanks for the advice.

Yes, now that you've said it, the bass is playing something different than the kick (it's amazing how easy it is to overlook simple facts when we play everything ourselves). I will be getting on that next week.

Making the piano a mono channel is a great idea and most likely the solution I was looking for (I've got a guitar hard panned into each channel). And I always appreciate the Blue Rodeo references which are probably going over everyone's head!

Thanks for this guys.

John

[andygabrys]

....... And I always appreciate the Blue Rodeo references which are probably going over everyone's head!

ha funny. how true. and I was just thinking of the lyrics to Hasn't Hit Me Yet and thinking that "down in the middle of lake ontario" was too specific for Film / TV and they would got the song returned by a screener

[rdance]

hey john, went to link on your initial post, so assume that's the latest version. everything is flowing and woven together nicely, and you sing it well, but the overall feeling i get is, the song has the same energy all the way through. i wanted to hear more tension build, drop-downs, etc. since it's a rock tune.

one suggestion, maybe get the drum pattern out of the back-of-the-garage and more up front. this should bring out any subtle stuff the drummer is doing with the kick drum, hat, fills, etc...and then this may inspire a more lively bass part. if the drummer and bass player sound like they're having a good time jamming together, the song will jump more. this in turn will naturally affect how you emotionally approach the vocals, how the other instruments are accented here and there, etc.

just a production opinion of course. it's already really good writing.

[johnlewitt]

Okay, here we go with a new mix / performance.

https://soundcloud.com/john-lewitt/the-common-good

I simplified the kick pattern and then spent hours playing multiple different bass parts before deciding on this simple version.

I adjusted the intro to the middle piano solo's first bar. I tried to switch the piano solo in the middle of the song to mono, but I couldn't figure out how to do it in Kontact, so I auto panned the guitars into the centre for this section of the tune and then did a wide stereo spread on the piano. I think it works, but now it's more a matter of if it's the appropriate volume. Is it?

Let me know your thoughts.

Thanks,

John

[johnlewitt]

Ignore the last post, I've already changed it thanks to a PM from Andy.

Direction Mixer, a plugin in Logic turned my stereo piano plugin into a mono plug in which is what I wanted in the first place!

Let me know what you think.

Thanks,

John

[johnlewitt]

...and ignore this one too! Andy just gave me a couple pointers that I am going to apply tonight. So a new mix will be up tomorrow.

John

[johnlewitt]

Okay, here's mix number 79 of this tune (just joking, sort of).

https://soundcloud.com/john-lewitt/the-common-good

I think I've got it to where I'm happy, so let me know if anything jumps out at you.

Thanks,

John

[funsongs]

Okay, here's mix number 79 of this tune (just joking, sort of).
https://soundcloud.com/john-lewitt/the-common-good
I think I've got it to where I'm happy, so let me know if anything jumps out at you.
Thanks, John

Sounds good and solid to me, John.
FWIW: I finally pegged your vocal as sounding a little like Toby Keith, only better.
For these ears, TK's got an annoying, unnatural-sounding, vibrato in his voice.
Your voice sounds strong and in-control; and very deliberate in your presentation.
Very nice, "Dude".
Cheers.
Peter