Hi mix and pop experts, would love to know your thoughts.
A singer/ac. guitarist asked me to mix their song with reference to Alison Krauss Gentle on My Mind.
This is a gorgeous song produced by legendary Nashville producer Buddy Cannon, and the production is awesome! Listen on your mixing headphones.
Question- would you have mixed this as bright? Especially the vocals seem to get brighter into the song, and the sibilance a tad too high. Or is the brightness just right? The microphone surely can only be a vintage C12 or C800 to provide such a bright base to work on?
I realise even acoustic bands have been infected by the EDM virus to over-brighten vocals to the limit. Or am I stuck in the taped music of the 90s, like the Daniel Lanois production of Wrecking Ball by Emmy Lou Harris, which the singer found not bright enough? Now where’s that MAAG EQ….
sc1460 wrote: ↑Sun Jun 11, 2023 1:34 pm
Question- would you have mixed this as bright?
No...not really.
Several issues with that recording. Krauss' vocal is nasal and not well-balanced in places. The sibilance allows words to be heard that would otherwise be lost, but my approach would be different. As the arrangement gets denser, her vocals risk becoming even more buried.
I would have adjusted the arrangement to find some more space for the main voice. I think I'd have used some side-chain dynamic EQ processing, too. It's easy to hear the frequency clashes. The mix sounds decent, but quite uninteresting to me.
Here's a much better version. No snare drum, and lots of space for the vocal to sit nicely. https://youtu.be/SJwdUtL1_wE
Last edited by sonics on Sun Jun 11, 2023 9:10 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Have you listened to the Alison Krauss track at CD quality? If not, I’d recommend it, as listening to a reference at YouTube quality could be quite misleading.
I’ll have a listen myself soon and see if I agree with you!
Before the bass comes in, the brightness of the whole track is overwhelming and really unpleasant to listen to.
I agree that Alison's voice is too bright and some processing has also been done that takes the naturalness away from it. I'm not sure what that is, but I think it's more than just EQ as it too is quite unpleasant.
To be honest, the whole track has a similar kind of edge to it. So it’s possible this the mastering engineer rather than the mix engineer. Perhaps some kind of enhancer plugin?
I would guess the best way forward is to ask your client what they particularly like about that mix!
Last edited by RichardT on Sun Jun 11, 2023 11:12 pm, edited 2 times in total.
sc1460 wrote: ↑Sun Jun 11, 2023 1:34 pm
Question- would you have mixed this as bright?
No...not really.
Several issues with that recording. Krauss' vocal is nasal and not well-balanced in places. The sibilance allows words to be heard that would otherwise be lost, but my approach would be different. As the arrangement gets denser, her vocals risk becoming even more buried.
I would have adjusted the arrangement to find some more space for the main voice. I think I'd have used some side-chain dynamic EQ processing, too. It's easy to hear the frequency clashes. The mix sounds decent, but quite uninteresting to me.
Here's a much better version. No snare drum, and lots of space for the vocal to sit nicely. https://youtu.be/SJwdUtL1_wE
This too is a bright mix - just listen to the tonality of the piano. But Alison's voice is much more natural.
It sounds fine to me, but then I can't hear above 8kHz, so any over-brightness must be in those upper frequency regions.
But the audio is at best 256kbps AAC at 720p and higher, and 128kbps below that, so if the mastering level is too high, there may well also be inter-sample peak artefacts introduced during the encoding process.
Wonks wrote: ↑Sun Jun 11, 2023 11:06 pm
It sounds fine to me, but then I can't hear above 8kHz, so any over-brightness must be in those upper frequency regions.
But the audio is at best 256kbps AAC at 720p and higher, and 128kbps below that, so if the mastering level is too high, there may well also be inter-sample peak artefacts introduced during the encoding process.
My guess too is that a lot of the brightness is quite high up. It’s the same at CD quality!
Wonks wrote: ↑Sun Jun 11, 2023 11:06 pm
But the audio is at best 256kbps AAC at 720p and higher, and 128kbps below that, so if the mastering level is too high, there may well also be inter-sample peak artefacts introduced during the encoding process.
I believe YouTube now delivers AAC at 128k or (mostly) Opus at 132k as the best available streams, and will do so even if you restrict the video to, for example, 240p! I don't think 720p "triggers" the better audio stream like it did years ago.
Both of those utube links the singing hurts my ears. The instrumentation also is a trifle harsh on my ears.
It's my main criterion nowadays in choosing instruments arranging mixing : not to hurt my ears : I would say this isn't a terrible way to make a music piece : to not hurt ears
Also just because it's Bluegrass, Country, shouldn't be scared as it were to put more bass mid into it take off the top a fair amount.
Similar with some Blast Beats Metal there too much top, way too little Bass : sounds weedy.
Too me the first mix is a bit on the bright side (certainly brighter than I'd have mixed it) and I wouldn't have been happy with the de-essing - I wonder if that's what Richard T is hearing?
The second link sounds better balanced to me but that piano does seem to have been quite heavily high-passed
RichardT wrote: ↑Sun Jun 11, 2023 9:09 pm
Have you listened to the Alison Krauss track at CD quality? If not, I’d recommend it, as listening to a reference at YouTube quality could be quite misleading.
I’ll have a listen myself soon and see if I agree with you!
Agreed, you have to be pretty careful with YouTube for references. I don't think that's so much down to the YouTube data compression, though: it's because YouTube is user-generated content uploaded by random people. Unless it's on an official channel, you have no idea where the person who uploaded any given track has sourced it. Who knows what processes it has gone through before even getting to YouTube?
Edit: just noticed that this particular example is on her own channel, so I guess it sounds how it was meant to. I don't think it's terrible, but certainly on the bright side.
Thanks all great to hear your views, btw I have the hi-res 48K flac version of this track and listening through 3 monitors, Geithain, PMCs and NS10s; all 3 say the same thing, very bright indeed. Yet this is Buddy Cannon in Nashville, must be a deliberate decision.
I dread it when an artist walks in and asks to match David Guetta Nothing but the Beat, a huge popular seller, yet so harsh in the mids/highs and maximised to hell!
Now how to persuade the artist they might consider another reference haha
Engineering is the easy part, artist psychology is hard!
Is no one going to mention the herd of elephants in the room?
I realise this is not the question asked so apologies, but that guitar sounds like it was recorded in a galaxy far, far away and the band has never met. I love Alison Krauss but this is awful.
As well as tonal and production references I believe groove references should be a fundamental part of the recording process, and in that spirit I’ll take the opportunity to shoehorn in a Molly Tuttle link:
Posts:10110Joined: Sun Dec 09, 2007 12:00 amLocation: Manchester, UK
“…I can tell you I don't have money, but what I do have are a very particular set of skills. Skills I have acquired over a very long career” - (folk musician, Manchester).
Bela Fleck is brilliant, for me the Molly Tuttle version is still my fave but that version is superb too. Both are more to my taste than the Alison Krauss version (mix quality notwithstanding) which sounds a bit cheesy to my ears (and for me Alison Krauss can usually do no wrong).
Molly Tuttle version is good, thanks for sharing. She is a monster on guitar. I've played (guitar) and sang this one a few times. The chord progression is fun to play, but I never could get the vocal quite right. We had pretty good banjo player in the band and he would tear it up, which really made the song much better. I prefer banjo as the upfront instrument on this one as it gives the flavor needed for the content of the song.
Speaking of Banjo this is a triffic version of Paul Simon's American Tune sung by Rhiannon Giddens playing Banjo alongside Paul : 2022 Newport Folk festival.
Paul rewrote words of two lines of the lyrics. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=IZTWSJFuuAY
Frailing is a different technique to Bluegrass banjo, closer to clawhammer but traditionally played on fretless banjo. My BG banjo learning fell by the wayside when I had to practice for a band gig and I haven't got back to it but I'm thinking clawhammer (but definitely with frets ) might be a little closer to my guitar technique and thus easier to learn.
I think this mix is an interesting one to compare with the AK. The panning's a bit extreme for headphone listening and I can only think the drums were a click track someone forgot to replace but the arrangement is much more organic and forward thinking and the tonal balance leaves more space without obviously brutal sculpting so retaining a very natural sound for each element - to my untrained but highly opinionated ear.
Posts:10110Joined: Sun Dec 09, 2007 12:00 amLocation: Manchester, UK
“…I can tell you I don't have money, but what I do have are a very particular set of skills. Skills I have acquired over a very long career” - (folk musician, Manchester).
There is something different about John Hartford's banjo style. I dont play banjo or understand the nuances but when I first heard Morning Bugle, I could tell that this banjo playing is quite a bit more laid back than what I'm used to hearing, especially in traditional bluegrass. The "sound" of that album and the banjo parts are iconic to me. Doesn't hurt that Norman Blake played alot of guitar on this album
Aaron Straley wrote: ↑Fri Jun 30, 2023 12:04 pm
There is something different about John Hartford's banjo style. I dont play banjo or understand the nuances but when I first heard Morning Bugle, I could tell that this banjo playing is quite a bit more laid back than what I'm used to hearing, especially in traditional bluegrass. The "sound" of that album and the banjo parts are iconic to me. Doesn't hurt that Norman Blake played alot of guitar on this album
I'm no banjo expert but that sounds to me like he's playing with his fingers rather than picks. It also sounds like it's not been very close mic'd so that could be having an effect too.
) might be a little closer to my guitar technique and thus easier to learn.