Mixing Corner | run #1 | Big Big Train – “The Transit of Venus Across The Sun”

[sunrat]

Thanks @novalix for your session file, inspired me to do better but still ended up quite different from your mix.
Was great to see you used FirComp2; it was a freemium beta last I looked but now fully free and Linux native. Definitely improved on v.1 .

Not sure I like that open.audio Funkwhale. Interface is a bit clunky and playing track just stopped part way through.

[sunrat]

Wasn't totally happy with the last one so did another little session tonight. Somewhat better now I think.
https://open.audio/library/tracks/427972 - edit, now deleted, see below for final version.

[erlkönig]

[erlkönig]

...so, here's my final contritution:
https://honeysuckers.rocks/media/audio/ ... 0final.ogg

The session: https://honeysuckers.rocks//media/audio ... nal.ardour

my mixing log:
1st listening, mono, equal levels, starting with an empty template:

• horns and violin blend very well, excellent dynamics in ensemble in prelude
• piano and backing vocs promiment, lead voc a bit behind but audible
• almost no coverage of instruments in mono, very good arrangement
• well handled dynamics by the band
• a hooray to the recording-engineer for finding the right balances
• almost no background noises !
• i was really shocked by the immense impress of 3d sound of someone
  blowing her nose, until i realized it was my wife (DJ Snodconk, sitting right
  behind me with a cold)

spreading to stereo
Positions in intensity stereophony:
https://sengpielaudio.com/HoerereignRichtungDL.pdf
Directions of listening events:
L---4/4---3/4---2/4---1/4---0...
diff L/R in dB:
---18dB--11dB--6dB---3dB---0dB...
pan ardour:
100%--93%---83%---73%---60%---50%...

Drum:
- OHs bring a wide image - set the panaroma of toms to the direction they have on OHs, snare is not centered on OHs. Trying to center it via panorama takes away the depth of the toms, and their balance concerning dynamics. So, for the beginning, the sn mics will get their direction by pacement in OH. It would be possible to duck OHs away on snare hits, but since i heard the last record of Tom Jones (studio and live), i take the chance not to set the snare in center.

Horns/Violin:
- French Horn and Violin seem to play with each other, so they are close to center at Horn: l1/4, violin: r1/4
- the rest of the brass is symmetrically spread onto the positions mentioned, keep it wide from the outside to the inside to leave room for guitar and vocals

Guitar: 2/4L

Vocs: Lead remains center, vocals Drums/Guitar on 1/4L and 1/4R

...Listen again...
Panorama is ok for now, no overweight of a side (maybe in the last crescendo,
but i'm going to have an ear to this later)

...switching back to mono and do some faderriding on gains/levelling and do some bandpassing, just to find a better balance between all acteurs. Bringing
up first busses. All for a rough balance.

...the difficult part seems to be towards the end "..so many words..."
everything builds up, band is great, but loudness of the instruments must be
adapted.

A very rough adaption of volumes in:
Big Big Train - Transient of venus - balancing and rough volumes.ardour

That was the rough part, now let's begin the fine work. This means adding some compression, making the vocals more airy and removing some flickering it's an early stage for the flickering). Bringing Git DI and Git mic to the same position? That would bring a little bit of the old Genesis-feeling, but spreading them makes them more clear, so: 2/4L
and 2/4R.

Next: Routing the different instruments from keyboards into seperate busses:
Strings (into which also the violin is routed), Orff (although that's not a real orff instrumentation), piano, arp (that sound reminds me on an ARP, Probably because of the Genesis-like mood of the song) and organ. Doing some faderriding again (mainly on the gains of the newly created busses), because sunrats intermidiate mix showed me, i missed some of these instruments, especially on the volume ramp and on the end.

Again adapting volumes in mono.

Applying compressors. I prefer sidechained multiband compression over eqing. In the digital domain, we are without limitations and can create an instance, whenever necessary.

What i find really remarkable: the bass is still untouched.

Focus on the drums
OHs will slightly be ducked by snare and toms
TOM2 seems to be tracked with a slightly too short gate

I'm a big fan of parallel-compression and multiband-compression/sidechained-multiband-compression. As the tracking (concerning microfone placement) is really well, i have no need for equing. Bring in some clarity to the vocals by Dolby-A trick (https://www.audiothing.net/blog/the-dolby-a-trick/). They are a bit harsh, de-essing is hard. Voices are very warm, i want to preserve that warmness on the compromise of some little pops in p-vowels.

Next step: more subrouting. Create three collector-groups:

• snare and toms
• tonal instruments except bass
• all vocals
  The main purpose is to do some smooth sidechained-multiband-compression on the instruments collector, keyed by snare/toms and vocals.

Now it takes vengeance, that i didn't took care enough on the gain-staging on the beginning of the mix. It all runs very hot... but there ist still room until clipping - don't mind some red clip indicators, there's still a (shrinking) headroom. Nothing that cocks it until now.

Time to start with some effects. The mix is already very dense, so i don't go the usual way with adding some reverb first.
First spread bass: adding a bit of saturation to the mic and spread it with a pseudo stereofication.
...some reverb on the snare, a bit less on toms
...not clear for reverb on horns/strings, better Nothing
...Vocs: a delay into a reverb, a bit of chorus, widen and deepen it with
pseudostereo, send must be sidechain gated by vovcals, out must be sidechain-ducked
by vocals
...regaining and recompressing horns
...regaining and recompressing vocals, applying a multiband compressor between 1000 and 2000Hz on the vocals collector

Mastering
Setting up mastering bus :

• a mid channel
• a side channel
• a bass (sub) channel (fed by bass, kick and synth bass), 2 Bands parallel
  compressed

The mix is now at 3dbTP and -15dB LUFS, so simply reducing on the mastering bus to -2dbTP and adding parralell compression to reach -14LUFS. From now on it's simply fighting for numbers, without breaking the sound. ...and adding the first eq (it's on the mastering bus, above 4k).

[SpotlightKid]

@erlkönig Did you mean to edit your post and quoted it (in its entirety) instead?

[sunrat]

Thanks for the detailed analysis of your mix @erlkönig . There are a lot of things I like about it, most of the instrument sounds are good. Not a fan of the delayed reverb though.
I hear you still have the part in the second chorus where the bass and synth bass play together being monstrous; I still haven't worked out how to tame that. Will probably have another shot at it before the end of the month.
Some really good submissions so far. I'm still impressed by @novalix one for it's nice tonal balance. The best result I've had so far is my most recent mix passed through Matchering with that as the reference.

[erlkönig]

@SpotlightKid
...you're right

@sunrat
Yes, the day pops out too often...

I think i will do a second master. This one is to much squeezed. But i'm beginning to become ear-fatigue on that song.

[amberdrake]

Here's my submission

https://nextcloud.amberdrake.eu/nextclo ... 46TeJCqcsE

My workflow and list of software used:

1. Do the routing
   Drum bus
   Guitar bus
   Keys bus
   Brass bus
   Vocal bus

2. Mix the drums:
   Start with the kick in solo, for every drum mic first do some EQ, then apply compression. Check phase on snare top/bottom mic, send them to a bus and blend with Golem. Add toms, pan toms according to their position on the drum kit. Add overheads and other cymbal mics. Pan ride to the left, hi-hats to the right. Try to EQ out the shells out from the overheads. Send overheads and hihat and ride to a cymbal bus for easier control.
   Send all shells to a parallel compression bus, compress that HARD.
   As there is no drum room mic, make bus with room simulation, send all drum mics to it.
   As for the snare processing, to get the nice tail, get out a room sample and send it to reverb. Check the snare bus against overheads with phase flipped, pick which sounds better.
   Glue everything on the drum bus with some compression. Add clipper and saturation.

Note: I don't really like the snare in more emptier sections of the song... It sits perfectly well in busy sections, though. But I ran out of time to tweak stuff, so I'm leaving it as it is

1. Add bass
   The amp track had a lot of bleed from other instruments, decided to not use it.
   Solo together with drums. Add amp and cab sim to the DI track. EQ and compress before it hits the amp sim. Add some saturation with ToTape

2. Add guitars
   Pan one track hard left, the other hard right. Add amp and cab sim to the DI track. There seemed to be an issue with high frequencies, fixed with multiband compressor on high band only. Apply EQ and compression, add a little bit of delay. Add tape saturation, do some stereo widening.

3. Add keys
   Separate the keys track by panning them out. Do some compression and saturation on the whole bus. Send all keys except the bass to a reverb bus, each with a slightly different volume to further "space them out"

4. Add brass
   Same process as with keys

5. Add violin
   EQ and compression, saturate. Add a little bit of reverb.

6. Add vocals
   Pan out the vocals - lead in the middle, backing vocals on left and right. Try to gate out some of the bleed from other instruments. Start with EQ on the separate tracks, then move to whole bus. Use multiple compressors - one to level out the peaks, other with more attack for dynamics. Add saturation and deesser. Send vocals to some light reverb. Apply clipper on the Lead track to get rid of the harshest peaks.

7. Automate the volume where it is needed

8. Master the track
   Glue everything together with some compression, do some slight EQ adjustments. Add clipper and limiter to master to desired loudness.

DAW: Ardour 8.10.0
Plugins used in this session:

CNT | TYPE | NAME
1 * VST2 Dragonfly Hall Reverb (by Michael Willis and Rob vd Berg)
1 * LV2 LSP Multiband Compressor Mono x8 (by LSP LV2)
2 * LV2 Gxroom_simulator (by Guitarix team)
5 * LV2 Neural Amp Modeler (by Mike Oliphant)
1 * VST2 Srsly3 (by airwindows)
7 * VST2 Channel9 (by airwindows)
5 * VST2 ToTape8 (by airwindows)
6 * VST2 VariMu (by airwindows)
2 * LV2 LSP Compressor Stereo (by LSP LV2)
1 * LV2 EBU R128 Meter (by Robin Gareus)
1 * LV2 x42-dpl - Digital Peak Limiter Stereo (by Robin Gareus)
2 * LV2 LSP Gate Mono (by LSP LV2)
4 * LV2 Dragonfly Room Reverb (by Michael Willis)
2 * LV2 x42 - IR Convolver Mono (by Robin Gareus)
1 * VST2 Dragonfly Plate Reverb (by Michael Willis)
1 * LV2 Dragonfly Hall Reverb (by Michael Willis and Rob vd Berg)
3 * VST2 ADClip7 (by airwindows)
1 * LV2 LSP Multiband Compressor Stereo x8 (by LSP LV2)
1 * VST2 Golem (by airwindows)
1 * LV2 Calf Deesser (by Calf Studio Gear)
1 * LV2 Calf Vintage Delay (by Calf Studio Gear)
9 * LV2 LSP Parametric Equalizer x8 Mono (by LSP LV2)
6 * LV2 LSP Parametric Equalizer x8 Stereo (by LSP LV2)
9 * LV2 LSP Compressor Mono (by LSP LV2)

[sunrat]

OK, this is the final one for sure!
https://open.audio/library/tracks/428275

Ardour session file:
https://app.box.com/s/2686rv3tkdsstie31w8hadnmmst3j72s

I've never done much serious mixing in the box, mainly only mixing live sound. What I have done was almost always with Mixbus, and this was certainly a learning experience to do without all the excellent Mixbus tools and plugins. I think I learned a lot.
Plugins:

Code: Select all

CNT | TYPE | NAME
  5 * Lua    ACE High/Low Pass Filter (by Ardour Community)
  1 * VST3   FirComp (by JonVProd)
 14 * VST3   FirComp2 (by JonVProd)
  1 * LV2    ACE Expander (by Ardour Community)
  2 * LV2    x42 - Preset Convolver Stereo (by Robin Gareus)
  4 * LV2    ACE Compressor (by Ardour Community)
  1 * LV2    Aether (by Dougal Stewart)
  2 * LV2    x42-eq - Parametric Equalizer Stereo (by Robin Gareus)
  4 * LV2    LSP Gate Mono (by LSP LV2)
  1 * LV2    LSP Multiband Compressor MidSide x8 (by LSP LV2)
  1 * LV2    Stereo Balance Control (by Robin Gareus)
  1 * LADSPA TAP TubeWarmth (by Tom Szilagyi)
  1 * LV2    LSP Multiband Compressor Stereo x8 (by LSP LV2)
  3 * LV2    LSP Compressor Mono (by LSP LV2)
  1 * LV2    x42-dpl - Digital Peak Limiter Stereo (by Robin Gareus)
  1 * LV2    Lens (by Auburn Sounds)
  1 * LV2    Graillon 3 (by Auburn Sounds)
  1 * VST3   TheMasker (by Cinemystics)
  2 * LV2    LSP Delay Compensator Mono (by LSP LV2)
  1 * LV2    LSP Slapback Delay Stereo (by LSP LV2)
  3 * LV2    LSP Compressor Stereo (by LSP LV2)
  2 * LV2    ACE Compressor (stereo) (by Ardour Community)
 20 * LV2    Airwindows Consolidated (by Airwindows)
 15 * LV2    ZL Equalizer (by ZL)
  1 * LV2    Lens (by Auburn Sounds) 

Workflow:- randomly try something to see if it works, rinse and repeat.

[SpotlightKid]

I like that one very much as well, @sunrat !

Very clean and every instrument has its own space. I especially like that you can year all those keyboard (?) tinkles and bells very well.

At times I though that the bass was a bit too prominent and encroaching too much on the mid range.

The guitar solo could stand out a bit more, here also the (synth) bass and the organ are too massive.

But these are all minor nitpicks, a very enjoyable mix all in all.

[erlkönig]

Uff!! Here's my really final mix:
https://honeysuckers.rocks/media/audio/ ... final.flac
The sessionfile:
https://honeysuckers.rocks/media/audio/ ... nal.ardour
For me, it was a hard ride. I underestimated everything.
]
Over the weekend, i'm going to listen to all the other mixes and load their sessions. I'm really courious!

Any ideas, what to do next?

[sunrat]

Some great submissions here. I think @novalix one is still my favourite.
This was a quite difficult song to mix, with all the spill , wildly varying levels, and that synth bass with one note that just exploded.
Thanks for initiating the project @erlkönig .

May I suggest for the next project, "Not Alone" by Fredy V from https://www.cambridge-mt.com/ms/mtk/ . It's a nice "Smooth Soul/Pop" track with a very good clean recording.

[erlkönig]

Thank you all for taking part here! I'm looking forward to listen to all your session files

Here again all submissions in reversed order of publishing:
@erlkönig
https://honeysuckers.rocks/media/audio/ ... final.flac
https://honeysuckers.rocks/media/audio/ ... nal.ardour

@sunrat
https://open.audio/library/tracks/428275
https://app.box.com/s/2686rv3tkdsstie31w8hadnmmst3j72s

@amberdrake
https://nextcloud.amberdrake.eu/nextclo ... 46TeJCqcsE
...is your session file inside of one of the zips? i didn't had a look, yet?

@novalix
https://open.audio/api/v1/listen/22df2a ... e060f4d6d5
...is your session file in the zip?

@MyLoFy
https://mark.nl.tab.digital/s/kqkaWNkZQo2PgpD

@LAM
https://cryptpad.fr/file/#/2/file/SmSkN ... OaXzo69nc/
https://cryptpad.fr/file/#/2/file/ZTw0u ... eZVhfE8bD/

I hope, i did not forget a mix...if so, just let me know.

Thank you all, and all listeners and readers! It was great, if we could start a little discussion here about different approaches/perspectives on the mix, what difficulties we had, what was easy, why we took decisions as we did...

For me, it was really a difficult mix. I started as usual with leveling all up on mono, distribute it into a panorama and try to find out the parts that covered each other. I absolutely underestimated the dynamics of this song. The spill/bleed was not so hard, it's in the usual range, when you record a band ensemble, especially in a rehearsal situation. I found it extremely important to preserve the dynamic parts. There were really two challenging things: preserving dynamics and tidying up parts with lots of instrumentation (organ, horns, guitars ensemble...).
I will have a closer ear and look to all your mixes and sessions over the week. Maybe you all could do the same, so can have an exchange. Maybe we could meet next saturday in the jitsi/fairmeeting channel?
I'm looking forward to it!

[novalix]

I like that one very much as well, @sunrat !

Seconded!

At times I though that the bass was a bit too prominent and encroaching too much on the mid range.

In my mix i did something i've never done before on a bass guitar: cut some mids. It's usually the other way around. Thanks Rickenbacker!

[finotti]

I am deeply sorry I could not participate, but I look forward listening to your mixes (and checking your comments)! It will quite helpful when I try to mix it myself later.