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Hi folks and welcome to the new kinda-not-really-competition, this time for mixing! There's no real competition here, the goal is to do your best, have fun, and learn. So what actually is this thing? The premise is simple: People upload stems of a track (more on this below), you give a crack at mixing it and then you upload for others to enjoy! An important part is that we'd like you to explain what you did and why. The reason for this is if someone else hears some element or thing you did and they really dig it they can learn how to do it, 'cause you're a good teacher. Sounds good, what do I do? Grab your favourite DAW (Reaper is a good one for cheap/free-ish if you want a suggestion), download the stems and go nuts. There's no rules or real requirements, save your final mix should be rendered down into something usable by most people, say a high quality .MP3 or .OGG, or .WAV or whatever. Something real people use and not some esoteric and obscure format. I don't squat about mixing but I'd like to participate! No problem! The friendly folks here would gladly talk about tricks and tips (I'm assuming anyway) and if not there's always the super handy Home Recording Megathread. Those goons know what they're doing, so feel free to bug them with any and every question you might need answered. The important thing is we're opening this jam to everyone and anyone, regardless of experience. Whether you have more albums than Steve Albini or whether you had to look up what a DAW was in the last section you're more than welcome. I don't really want to mix anything but I am an artist with stems. Awesome! It's really hard to mix something that doesn't exist, so we're gonna need content. I'll update this section when we have a solid place to upload your track(s) but for now just pop in and say you'd like to contribute and maybe give us a sample of the raw track. For uploading there's only gonna be a few requirements. First is that the stems are prepped for mixing. Having thirteen .wav files for a single guitar track might work for you when you know what you're looking at in the arranged DAW view, but for us we're going to need each track to be rendered down into a single file. This also means blank space if some tracks start later. Second, is have your track in a mixable form. There's not much sense throwing use a track that was recording with one mic in the middle of the room picking up a full band at rehearsal. We've set the entry level fairly low, so throw us something we can actually work with. Third, have the track as complete as possible in terms of recording. It'd be a bit pointless for us to try mixing a track that has half of the instruments missing because you'll add them later. That's basically it! Submission of Mixes So here's where it gets neat. Basically, once you're done with a mix (or in the middle but want to share something cool) submit the final render and write us a piece on what you did and why you did it. It'd be helpful if you broke it down into parts and really go into the details. I don't think anyone here will complain about too much information. A format like this would be good: Instrument: Vocals/Guitar/Whatever Plugins used (if any): A brief list of plugins and their type. If you used ReaEQ then say that and let us know it's an EQ but tagging it like: ReaEQ (EQ) Method: Talk about what you did with the part(s) and why you did it. If you bumped the guitars up at 800Hz for a fatter sound, tell us! Spill the beans, we're not hiding our secret sauces here. Screenshots of settings/plugins are also very welcome if you think it'd help. If you think how you organise the tracks ("I always put vocals at the top because blah") would help you can even include that! There's no holds-barred for what you want to discuss. Communication While it's super cool to submit mixes and give us a rundown this is a forum, so back and forth with any questions you have for others, or anything you notice about a song is totally cool to discuss. I'll be linking the posts with rundowns when people submit them in this OP, so don't worry about flooding the thread; all the main posts will be contained here. Stems When we get stems they'll go here! Translunar by sebmojo (Post) Electronic Rosebush - Crowbar Vigilantes by CaptainViolence (Post) Indie Rock Everybody Hates Greg - Soviet Fourth Grader by CaptainViolence (Post) Punk All Along by JohnnySmitch (Post) Alternative Finished Mixes When we have somewhere to upload it'll go here! Resources Home Recording Megathread syntaxfunction fucked around with this message at 07:17 on Oct 14, 2017 |
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Sep 22, 2017 11:13
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| # ¿ May 12, 2024 09:19 |
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Awesome, thanks guys! I've added the tracks to the OP. Hopefully this starts the ball rolling.
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Sep 24, 2017 02:35
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Greggster that'd be cool. Also note that I have been downloading and verifying the stems as people submit them so there shouldn't be anything broken or anything. I think we could use a few more stems and then maybe we'll set a date for final mix submissions?
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Sep 27, 2017 03:54
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JohnnySmitch posted:I just finished up a pretty quick mix over my lunch break of the "Rosebush" track posted (cool song by the way!). Dude that's a pretty cool idea to try and mix with only stock plugins! I like this mix a lot, especially the vocals. They sit very nicely. Two things I noticed though. The drums seem really hard panned at times and I was wondering if that was a stylistic choice. The second is I feel like when the guitars crunch up at the end it loses a little oomph and everyone seems to get smaller from the large sound for most of the song.
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Sep 30, 2017 03:45
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I am totally working on a couple of them and will hopefully have a preliminary mix up in a few days. It's fun mixing other people's stuff!
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Oct 4, 2017 01:48
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So just to update ya'll I hope to have a preliminary mix of Rosebush and EHG in the next few days! We need more stems guys! I'm going to try and incorporate some stuff from Johnny for Rosebush. Hopefully it works out. Not that I hate Translunar but I'm starting with more familiar territory.
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Oct 7, 2017 09:46
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First, working on Rosebush and I have really gotten some serious Jefferson Aeroplane vibes from it. Anyway. I have a few mixes I'm working on, specifically Rosebush, Greg and All Along. I'm focusing on those three, and man mixing is hard when you have no control over the composition! Lumpy, I like your mix but as much as I hate it I agree with Johnny about the reverb. Not cause Johnny but because I generally avoid reverb when possible. But for that song it definitely works as a good glue. I also feel that blending the vocals a little more with the rest of the song wouldn't go astray. It sounds nice but the vocals are very front forward and you don't really get a chance to focus on the other elements with vocals being so centre stage. Otherwise I dig! Also Johnny I added your stems to the OP. Sebmojo, I do want to give a crack at Translunar but man mixing electronic stuff is way out of my comfort zone. Given you created it do you have any suggestions to help me/us along?
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Oct 14, 2017 07:23
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| # ¿ May 12, 2024 09:19 |
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Kicking some life back into this thing! I actually lost all the mixes I had started so I'm starting again. I'm working on a mix of EHG right now and wanted to show the process I'm going through. So here's my workspace to start (warning: big rear end image).  And the mix as it stands. Couple things. First, ignore the evaluation license bit. I am bad person but I am going to buy it (I've just been poor as poo poo). Sorry Cockos! Second you'll notice I use Directsound. This is because I like mixing using my headphones (I don't own speakers let alone monitors) through my computer because I feel like it's a more likely scenario than through a dedicated interface/amplifier. I usually bounce between the two. Third, I actually mix fairly quietly. Not sure what dB range but my interface output sits at like 2 and my headphones usually sit at 20-40% of the output volume. My theory is that if I can get it sounding good at a low volume then it'll sound better cranked. Anyway, let's talk about things. Workflow I just wanted to touch on this first. As you can tell, I like things colour coded and organised. Guitars are always blue, bass purple, drums brown and vocals green and yellow. I also stack tracks the way you see, with vocals up top and drums at bottom. I don't know why, but this just makes sense to me. I also have a second monitor which affords me the ability to have all my tracks and controls easily viewable at once. Also, busses, people! Current State I've only begun setting things up, so at the moment I've basically panned, used faders and a bit of compression for the most part. More on that later. Basically, this is a pre-mix. I set up the mix to hit approximately the right levels and pan things around a bit, then I start work on EQ's, effects, etc. The Mix Instrument: Vocals Plugins used (if any): ReaComp on the background vocal bus. Method: After panning around a bit I slapped ReaComp on the vocal bus. -15dB threshold, with a 3:1 ratio. No make up gain. Why? I wanted to pull down the loud part at the end without affecting the volume throughout. At it does the trick nicely. I haven't touched the main vocals as of yet, I just adjusted the bus fader to bring things a bit more in line. Instrument: Guitar Plugins used (if any): ModernAnaloguer and ReaEQ on the Distortion bus. Method: This actually has a few things happening. First, GTR1 and GTR2 and panned hard left and right, and 3/4 panned 50% either way. I really like hard panning main guitars and then sitting other guitars panned but not too crazy. I find it really makes the guitars seem bigger, and if you mono it they don't disappear because it's not all hard left/right. ReaEQ is doing the most basic job. Low pass at 7k (which is fairly low I know) to kill that tiny bit of fizz, and a high pass at 50Hz to clean up the bottom end. I do this pretty much automatically with guitars that have any sort of gain on them. ModernAnaloguer is a weird one. I only use it occasionally because it does tend to darken the sound quite drastically, but it also beefs things up and makes them a bit fatter sounding. I don't really know why or how it does that (I think it's meant to emulate tape?) but in the right context it works really well. Settings are here. It just saturates nicely so I can get behind that. Instrument: Bass Plugins used (if any): ReaComp yet again. Method: Bass is pretty straight forward. 3:1 ratio on the compressor, makeup gain, -25dB threshold. Just makes it consistently punchy, although the bass itself was even in the raw. Instrument: Drums Plugins used (if any): ReaComp everywhere with no rhyme or reason. Method: Okay so here's the rub. I have no real idea how to mix drums. I slapped on a couple compressors and I guess they're helping? Honestly, my usual method of drums is a MIDI track, some drum plugin and a limiter and just smash the hell out of it. I would love advice on how people have or would approach this mix with the drums. I'm sort of in the same boat with vocals but I have a bit more of an idea with them. Where To? So I have my foundations down. But I really would like some advice on mixing drums properly as well as general thoughts. I should also say I will set up send busses for reverb etc, and actually mix the thing  I intend to update again when I have a new/better mix, but for now this is what I got.Also are there any mixes that have been posted people consider done? Cause if so I'll chuck them in the OP. syntaxfunction fucked around with this message at 02:08 on Dec 1, 2017 |
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Dec 1, 2017 02:01
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