Lewis Capaldi - Someone You Loved - Inside Track - Mix/Master

[marklance]

Hello all - I used to post on here years ago but not been on for a while. Usually lurk nowadays - anyway this sort of riled me up a bit so wanted to share. I was listening to Lewis Capaldi's Someone You Loved today - great song - and love Lewis but I think the mix and or mastering job on this song is absolutely horrifying.

Where to start? Throughout the track there are clear digital artifacts, clicks and grainy clipping on the vocal which is plain to me on even inexpensive nearfields or dare I say it my iphone speaker. Some of the more obvious examples just in the first minute at 0:36 the word 'never' at 0:41 'pain' 0:56 'rug' 0:58 'loved' or 1:01 'going'. The vocal edits are also really jarring and obvious in places such as after the line 'numbed all the pain' in the first minute where the end of the phrase is cut off and you hear a SUBTLE waveform click. I am not going to go through the whole song but listen for yourself. I find the track incredibly fatiguing- the vocal sounds like digital hash for want of a better descriptor.

I was interested to read the SOS article on the track (
https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques ... ved?page=2) about how they processed and comped the track-

The vocal tracks in 'Someone You Loved' are quite extensively treated, with up to eight plug-ins straight on the tracks and three sends to auxiliary effect tracks.

and it all sort of makes sense really - to me they clearly over processed it and edited it to within an inch of its life. Now the article isn't intended as a critical analysis of the techniques I get that - I was just surprised that it subtly holds the track out as some kind of example of good production 'secrets' when in fact to me at least it is quite the opposite.

Barnes: "We did a lot of work in terms of refining the timing and even moving breaths around. If there's a dodgy breath or even 'ess', we may take it from somewhere else. This is such an exposed vocal that you need to make it perfect.

Perfect you say? Hmm. Some pretty obvious edits in there.

But then I thought - hang on - it hasn't harmed the success song at all. In fact most people don't notice what I am hearing and don't care. So I do wonder if when I am going through mixes to try and avoid clicks, artifacts and digital hash whether I am the biggest loser here and absolutely wasting my time. Maybe the true 'secret' here is a great track and performance will always override production issues.

M

[James Perrett]

I think that bad edits may be something fashionable right now. I hear them so often. I guess that it is like distorted guitars in the 60s - purists hated them but record buyers loved them.

[RichardT]

In my opinion it’s a poor track and a dreadful performance! But that’s a different issue….

[FrankF]

I wish you'd provided a link, as I would have wasted a few seconds less finding and then listening to this identikit rubbish.

Still, 646m views, eh?

[marklance]

I wish you'd provided a link, as I would have wasted a few seconds less finding and then listening to this identikit rubbish.

Still, 646m views, eh?

I am firmly a rock and alternative fan but for what it is I actually think he's a talent and the songs are decent - watch the Tiny Desk concert on NPR for a raw performance. But the recording is dreadful. As you point out he has so many frickin views it makes me question why I take time to make sure vocal comps fit naturally and pops clicks and distortion are eliminated. It just seems pointless nowadays. I mean seriously does anyone care about this stuff anymore apart from us SOS readers?

[marklance]

I think that bad edits may be something fashionable right now. I hear them so often. I guess that it is like distorted guitars in the 60s - purists hated them but record buyers loved them.

I don't know - perhaps. That aside if you are going to do jarring vocal cuts at least make sure you do a decent edit on the waveform to remove the artifacts. Sometimes I wish my brain wasn't wired to hear this stuff - I am sure non mixers/engineers ignore it.