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fealow · 03-07-2012, 10:49 PM

I thought I may as well tell you all what I did to the mix as well (just the main differences). This is what I explained to him in the message too.

"First of all I removed most of the low frequency content from the instruments that didn't require it e.g. the guitar, pizzacato, clarinet etc... as these don't really produce anything worthwhile below 150-200hz. This frees up a lot of room for the bass and drums to breath in the mix, which in turn means they can sound more powerful or fuller without getting in the way.

I noticed that the guitar and pizzacto more or less play the same thing through out the song so I decided to treat them as one instrument and processed them on a bus (separate track that both audio signals get sent to). I used some light compression on them to keep their dynamics almost identical so one did not suddenly pop out in front of the other, the compression also increased the perceived volume of the natural reverb which helps to keep them out of the vocals space.

The oboe was quite harsh on the ears at loud volumes so I cut it down a few decibles around 3000khz which gave it a more mellow tone without loosing its presence. On the original the bass/ kick bass was very heavy and muddy which caused it to get in the way of the other instruments (mainly the chorus) so I cleaned that up by compressing the sub frequencies of the bass and kick so the thump and boomyness are still prominent while removing a lot of unneeded weight on the bass and drums by lowering the low mid range around 200-350hz.

The next major thing I did was to the "pinkies parents" section. I removed everything below 200hz from the audio and everything above 8000khz (basically pulling bass and treble down to leave more mid range like a radio or phone would sound) as I felt this helped make it stand out more from the rest of the song without having to be louder or quieter.

I did a few other things like replace the kick on the chorus with the verse kick so I could keep the kicks level consistent through out the song without affecting the drums as a whole, but I wont get into it as it was quite a complicated task."

03-07-2012, 10:49 PM	#87
fealow Human being with feelings Join Date: Nov 2011 Posts: 175	I thought I may as well tell you all what I did to the mix as well (just the main differences). This is what I explained to him in the message too. "First of all I removed most of the low frequency content from the instruments that didn't require it e.g. the guitar, pizzacato, clarinet etc... as these don't really produce anything worthwhile below 150-200hz. This frees up a lot of room for the bass and drums to breath in the mix, which in turn means they can sound more powerful or fuller without getting in the way. I noticed that the guitar and pizzacto more or less play the same thing through out the song so I decided to treat them as one instrument and processed them on a bus (separate track that both audio signals get sent to). I used some light compression on them to keep their dynamics almost identical so one did not suddenly pop out in front of the other, the compression also increased the perceived volume of the natural reverb which helps to keep them out of the vocals space. The oboe was quite harsh on the ears at loud volumes so I cut it down a few decibles around 3000khz which gave it a more mellow tone without loosing its presence. On the original the bass/ kick bass was very heavy and muddy which caused it to get in the way of the other instruments (mainly the chorus) so I cleaned that up by compressing the sub frequencies of the bass and kick so the thump and boomyness are still prominent while removing a lot of unneeded weight on the bass and drums by lowering the low mid range around 200-350hz. The next major thing I did was to the "pinkies parents" section. I removed everything below 200hz from the audio and everything above 8000khz (basically pulling bass and treble down to leave more mid range like a radio or phone would sound) as I felt this helped make it stand out more from the rest of the song without having to be louder or quieter. I did a few other things like replace the kick on the chorus with the verse kick so I could keep the kicks level consistent through out the song without affecting the drums as a whole, but I wont get into it as it was quite a complicated task."