AA1 Week 11

This week's task was much harder than i first thought. I was initially excited about hearing a commercial song broken down.

I had, and the mixdown still does, many problems. There were so many things to think about, such as the overall volume, how loud the song should be during certain sections. The problem of each section getting louder and louder i have many issues with.

What i am proud of is my drum kit EQ, i believe that i obtained a good sound for the song. What i did find difficult was getting the right sound for the toms because it was recorded with only 2 overheads, i couldn't control the individual sound of the toms without affecting the sound of the hats and cymbals, which was quite annoying. Because the kick comes through the overheads as well it was quite bassy as well. But aside from this i think i came to a happy medium.

Also Kavyen Temperley's voice can get out of control sometimes, especially when he says the word 'about.' I had to quickly lower his volume when he says that word. His voice needs compression, and additional reverb, the room reverb is horrible and sometimes stands out quite substantially.

Mixdowns are hard, i admit i haven't played with the panning much, just a little with a few vocal tracks, but the recording seemed to have sufficient panning on it.

Also, when i mixed it on the speakers to a sound that i thought was good, when i put my headphones on, it was way too muddy, i could barely pick out sounds.

Overall, an eye opener to how hard mixing is!!!!

Mixdown Mono
www.mydatabus.com/public/loudman/EJNewYorkDougmono.mp3

Mixdown Stereo
www.mydatabus.com/public/loudman/EJNewYorkDougstereo.mp3

Mixdown Stereo EQ
www.mydatabus.com/public/loudman/EJNewYorkDougEQStereo.mp3

In case you have the audio files on your computer, here is the Protools Session.
www.mydatabus.com/public/loudman/EJNewYorkDoug.ptf

This is an overall image of the Session
www.mydatabus.com/public/loudman/Picture1.png

This is an Image of the Vocal section where his voice goes out of "control." What i have done is essentially a manual compression.
www.mydatabus.com/public/loudman/Picture327.png

This is an Image of the EQ on the Overheads.
www.mydatabus.com/public/loudman/Picture4.png

References:
Fieldhouse, Steve. Mixing (1) lecture 22nd May 2007

"The Art of Mixing," chapter 11 AA1 Readings.

Protools LE 7.3.1

Sorry about the hyperlinks, they don't seem to be working in the mac lab, blogger doesn't want to give me them.