1980's Rock instrumental mix ears please

[GuitarKit]

I'm of the right age to attempt this one. I even had the hair to prove it.
Can you give me some help on my mix. there is a lot going on. Without a really good pre, it's hard to maintain clarity and definition. (or is that an excuse??)

https://soundcloud.com/itrenon/baby-dont-go/s-KN51g

ORIGINAL, 1980s-Style ROCK INSTRUMENTALS are needed for an (up-to) $1,000, NON-Exclusive, Direct-to-Music Supervisor placement in an Indie Feature Film. This Supervisor is searching for Mid-to-Up-Tempo Instrumentals (Recent or Vintage recordings - actually done in the ‘80s - can both work) that would fit in the general stylistic wheelhouse of the following references we got directly from the Music Supervisor: IMPORTANT NOTE: We are also running a Listing for 1980s-Style Rock Songs as TAXI #Y180520OR, so please don’t confuse the two.

“Once Bitten Twice Shy” by Great White: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bz61YQWZuYU “Rock Me” by Great White: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yg06B46VVys

“Save Your Love” by “Great White: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGPNQsLSBNQ Although the references have vocals, please submit Instrumentals ONLY. Please send in well-crafted Rock Instrumental that take listeners back to the classic sounds and styles of the 1980s Rock scene! Your submissions should be well performed, with authentic sounding Rock band instrumentation and great melodies. Your submissions can be Vintage recordings done in the 1980s, or they can be Instrumentals that have been recently recorded and just inspired by that era. All submissions should be 2 to 4 minutes long, give or take. Non-Faded endings will work best. Do not copy the references in any way, shape, or form. Use them only as general guide for overall feel, texture and tone.

[andygabrys]

Cool piece - you definitely have the chops to give this a good run.

Now mix wise - IMO this is a tough tune. You need to satisfy these points:

1) Arrangement - To make a mix that works, you need to have a good arrangement. This might mean dropping some parts out to give space for whats left to speak and be clear. Like the acoustic guitars, drop them when everything is really rocking, bring them back in when things get sensitive. Like at 1:22 until 1:40, lets hear some more electric and drop the acoustic totally until the last phrase where it goes back to the quiet verse, or drop the level and automate it back up for the return to the verse. 2:10 and on until the end is mostly rocking. If the acoustics are doubled L + R I would ditch one and pan it to 10 o'clock or 2 o'clock, somewhere middle-is but not in the center. Bring the level way down so you hear it as a guitar "shaker" instead of a guitar. Its just there for a rhythm color at that point, as the rest of the agreement plays the chords.

1B) Panning Try mixing L-C-R. Hard left or right or center. Hearing your mix from that standpoint might make it easier to clear up the space in the middle. Put the leads, the kick, snare and bass in the middle. Put rhythm guitars and acoustics (especially if they are doubled L+R) hard L and R. That can make something cluttered sound clear and big. Try not to use "stereo" sounds. Usually the only difference between L and R on "stereo" keyboards or "stereo" guitar amp sim settings is a little warble between the L and R and it doesn't sound wide - everything just fights in the middle. So many ways to combat this.

2) Ambience - To make a mix that sounds appropriate you also need to have some similar ambiences, so that guitars (acoustic in this case) don't poke out and hit you in the eye when the rest of the mix feels like its at "arms length" between your studio monitors (assuming you are mixing on monitor speakers).

3) Dynamic control - You need to have some dynamic control over everything in the mix to allow to actually level things (volume wise). If there are elements that are really dynamic (acoustic guitars again here) then its hard to make them sit without automating the fader. You can instead apply some judicious compression so that they don't peak out on high notes or strongly picked notes. Then apply some ambience and they should slot right in with the rest of the mix.

3B) dynamic control - another way to balance the faders

I often start with the drums on and balance those to where they sound great by themselves.
Then I add the bass and balance against the kick drum.
Then I turn on the melody stuff - in this case your leads. I balance that against the drums and bass. Listen at a super quiet level. Can you still hear the drums and bass?
Then I turn on other stuff and slot it in between those "end points". Like go to the big part of your song in the chorus / solo section. Turn on the rhythm electrics, and the keys, and whats left of the acoustics. Make sure they sound big enough but don't stomp on the mix you have created so far.

I find this is a good alternate way to go in case I mixed my way into a corner by starting with the drums and add everything else, and then last the vocal or leads. Usually they have to be super screaming loud to be heard over the cacophony that I have already mixed.

4) Stylistically appropriate - To make something sounds 80's you need screaming gymnastic guitars and gated-reverb drums. Having some cheesy keyboard sounds a la DX7 helps.

If the drums aren'y loud enough, or there is a lot of other stuff panned narrow or in the center competing with the snare, you won't feel that goofy air from the gated type reverb. Same thing with TOM fills - when they are doing a being wide panned fill, it helps to be able to hear them with some gated verb as well. You need to eq them so they sound big and 80's rather than dry and sort of dull 70's. Making them heard might mean automating them up during the fill (Chris Lord-Alge does this all the time) or clearing out a few other instruments to make room.

You definitely have screaming guitars, but they are one of the hardest things to balance well because they cut SO HARD through everything else. To my ear your electrics in general seem to have a midrange bump, and its a little bit too much when I ref against other productions here. A couple small db or 2 cuts in the midrange (boost with a family narrow Q, sweep, find the ouch, then turn the boost into a cut) will help make the guitar sound a little more full range, and it won't poke out too much over the rest of the mix.

Like I mentioned above - rhythm electric guitars in the second half of the song are buried (if they are there at all?). Pan them hard L+R and make sure they are different performances or if you have used the same performance copied then time shift one side back in time by 20 to 40 ms to give some stereo spread. Nothing rhythm wise in the center of the mix.

I would look at the sound you are using - did you mic an actual amp for these tracks?. They could benefit from some judicious midrange wide boost to hear what they are doing, or maybe just a level boost. If you want to make it more of a 4x12" cabinet sound cut narrow at 1khz by a dB or two. That would help differentiate between the lead and rhythm sounds too if they are all the same amp.

Panning guitars - later on when you have harmony electric LEAD guitars, narrow is better. Wide takes over the entire mix. Check panning against "no one like you" by the Scorpions for harmony guitars. The repeat of the intro has a good example.

Octave Double leads - the last section of the song has a low and a high octave double on the electric lead. When you add the octave above double, it gets super cutting and loud. Automate that section down on both guitars. The high octave is going to cut a lot so you could even bring that down further.

5) To make something play on TV / film that possibly might lie under dialogue you have to have a way to disguise the screaming leads as they are in the same frequency as the dialogue. If the guitars (and tenor saxophone and similar sounds in the same frequency as the human voice) are sawing away and they are loud, the piece is going to get turned WAY down so it doesn't stomp on the dialogue.

Something that I often do is play my production, and turn down my monitor control until the song is inaudible, then raise it one click (monitor control is notched in my case).

I listen for what the balance is like. If I am doing well, I hear everything at that volume. Bass, kick, drums in general, all keys, guitars, etc. And I try to be really objective about the level of lead instruments. Usually they don't have to be that loud and its a much more flat balance.

Try grouping your lead guitars and turning them down to -ve infinity on your faders. Play the song, and gradually raise them until they are just audible. Make a note of that fader position. Then keep raising the guitar faders, and again listen at a super low monitor level. When you have tons of lead guitar and you are losing focus on other instruments make another note of the fader position. Your acceptable relative volume of the lead guitars is going to be between those two points. Probably more on the lower end.

You will be delivering some alternate mixes of this piece if it gets chosen, probably a full mix, and one without lead guitars (no melody) so plan for that case. Make sure the piece has enough oomph / strength without those leads taking up all the airspace. If the leads are most of the piece and they disappear then it can sound weak.

Anyways...good luck, and Hope this Helps. Sorry for the lengthy reply.

[lesmac]

Hi Kit, nice playing as usual .

I would try and pull some elements back in the mix after they have made their presence known, i.e. the strings in the intro. Start bringing it back at 0;10.
When the lead comes in at 020 drop the acoustic back a bit. You could shave off some high frequencies as well as using level and even increase the reverb to lower these instruments or push them back a bit. A combination of micro moves or just plain drop in level.
The accentuations at 0;42 would sound nice with a touch of delay and maybe a little darker, weightier. Again the string pad is too loud and flat here.
To give the 'chorus at 1;11 more impact cut things back on the 'pre'.
At 1;21 cut the acoustic altogether. The low mids don't seem to be coming through here. Try"uncovering' them by ...

I just noticed Andy has given you the juice so I'll just say "do what he said' Some mid side processing would help with this track too.

[GuitarKit]

This is awesome guys. You would have to pay to get feedback like this. (I guess I am, being a Taxi member.)
I really appreciate the depth of input. Please don't apologize.
All of your points make sense to me. Yes, I was also thinking about cutting some instrument elements at places to make more room for others. E.Q points are great. I'm on it.

Kit

[GuitarKit]

O.K so here is mix number 2.
I have tried to implement everything both you guys have helped me with.
I must admit, I think mixing is my Achilles heel. I've watched countless youtube tutorials. When the engineer A B's what they having been working on and says; 'listen to the difference, it's night and day.' I feel like I still have my jammies on. I can't hear any difference. Haha.
What do you think? (don't go to heaps of effort. Just a quick listen)

https://soundcloud.com/itrenon/baby-dont-go-1/s-oPJD4

[PhilRey]

Really like it It has a little something of Boston... Awesome track Kit ;o)
Does it sound 80s-ish..? I have the feeling that it does... I'm like you regarding mixing.. not my main thing... So if it was me I'd submit it right away ! But that's just me - Phil

[andygabrys]

Massive difference - much much improved. Its like 80% of the direction I would take it.

Awesome bringing in the wire-y chorused Strat accents around the acoustics in the earlier sections.

Some things I noticed that I would touch up -

arrangement / production: The Bridge at 2:30 first 2 bars of every repeat. I like the guitar figure and its very apropos but it sounds a little unsupported. The drums aren't very active and the bass is playing footballs (whole notes). I would look at some way to make it all hang together there a bit stronger.

Mix - please find some similar arrangements to A/B against. Maybe Top Gun Anthem (steve stevens and harold faltermyer) or Boston tunes a la More than a Feeling but I think the leads are now a little bit TOO low. And the upper octave is a little lower than I would hear it in respect to the main lead guitar. Top Gun Anthem is much more evenly leveled. More than a feeling the lead guitars are pretty loud. Scopions No One Like You is still a good ref. Note that those leads seem to have a little sizzle on them - feels like about 3-4 kHz which helps them cut even though they aren't that loud. The arrangement helps a lot too with the big spaces between the rhythm guitar hits.

Hi hat - sticks out of the mix - sounds very dry and close especially early on. Around 0:25 its very evident. I assume this is a virtual kit but regardless - usually most of the hi-hat sound comes from the OH mics and the hi-hat is brought up in the mix just enough to give the fine articulation if its needed for a funk kind of thing.

O.K so here is mix number 2.
I must admit, I think mixing is my Achilles heel. I've watched countless youtube tutorials. When the engineer A B's what they having been working on and says; 'listen to the difference, it's night and day.' I feel like I still have my jammies on. I can't hear any difference. Haha.

Mixing is kind of the Pareto principle - 80/20. You spend 20% of the time to get 80% of the way there and then you can burn up weeks going for even another 10%.

Some of the A/B things are so minimal on their own that the difference is not really audible. Especially to semi-untrained listeners on pro-sumer or consumer grade equipment.

Like how many people are going to be able to tell a 3 K peaking boost on a Pultec EQP1A vs. a Neve 1073, vs an Api 500? Hardly anybody in the public, and lots of engineers are going to say "well it sounds better with the 3k on the vocal" but may or may not be able to tell which unit was used for the boost.

So IMO that's a good way to go - fool most of the people most of the time. If you don't hear the difference, concentrate on something else.

If there is something that somebody recommends, then turn the knob up to full so you can really HEAR an extreme effect, and turn it off and on to see if you can really hear a difference. If you are hearing a difference, then you can moderate the effect in between nothing and totally extreme.

If you aren't hearing enough of an effect sometimes taking that plugin off is the better way to go.

Keep in mind that when you are comparing A agents B you need to have a VOLUME MATCHED comparison otherwise your mind will always trick you into thinking the louder one is slightly better. That's really helpful for compression and eq evaluations.

Just my perspective

[GuitarKit]

Thanks heaps Andy. Have you done and audo engineering course or just your own learning?
You sound like you know what your pretry on to it.