Mixdown Practicing & Learning

Magghy Ji

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Hans Van Rah
Dec 03, 2023
Hi everyone,

here is my mix for this week: Boogie Woogie Trio – “Own Way To Boogie”

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1C6CTxpXEWeQli1aZPw74-19ncAElwQ_x/view?usp=sharing

Before I started mixing, I had to understand the basics of the style.
Many songs have a piano as the main instrument or a brass instrument.
My focus was the piano and vocal relationship. Then drums and contrabass.
The vocal is extremely dynamic and needs to stay that way for me, so I tried to tame some of the peaks and not compress too much.
I really enjoyed the challenge of mixing 3 different sources/microphones on the piano and contrabass. Not sure if I got it right, but it seems balanced with the whole song.

Let me know what you think.
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Adrián Quiroz
Dec 04, 2023
whooa what a sweet sounding vocal!!!!! perfectly in place throughout the entire mix. this is what I call sweet vocals :D i dont know what you did but they sound amazing

one thing I can hear is maybe a compressor on the master channel? Its fine to add those sometimes, but only if and when you actually know what they do (and how to make them do what you want them to do, in the way they do it) because those kinds of effects are very, very delicate and if you do the slightest thing in the wrong way, your whole mix goes to waste!!!!! in this case the comp might be compressing a bit too much, like, I can hear it reducing and recovering gain and that is usually not what you want.

what u can do is first, have a really good mix without anything on the master channel, aim for a nice sounding, balanced, dynamic mix. only after that you can then proceed to add stuff in the master channel (SLIGHT STUFF) to finish your mix.

eihter way, I would leave that final processing to a mastering engineer, because like I said earlier those processes are very delicate and a mastering engineer is prepared to handle those very well.

one more thing, add some air to the entire mix :)))) thats it.

hope i didnt bother u with my big ass response haha
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Hans Van Rah (author)
Dec 04, 2023
Hi @Adrián Quirozán

I really, really appreciate your detailed feedback. It really helps us understand what we need to improve and what we need to keep for the future.

You are absolutely right. I tried a new compressor on my mix bus (Amek Mastering Compressor) with settings a bit different from the normal compressors.
I heard something different, but I made the wrong judgment. Now that you mention it, I can hear it pumping like a compressor with a fast release.

I usually use an SSL 4K G bus to keep things tight between the different energies of the verse and chorus.

But here, as you said, it wasn't necessary. Or at least, I don't know how to do it. The energy difference at the end must either be free or barely contained.

On the high-end I was tempted to raise more 2-3db but the reference that I used was on the same range.
I need to listen more and think less. 😅

Again, thank you very much for your extremely helpful feedback. 👊