Practical mixing fixes




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I think today is the final day of mixing for Portraits of Hope.  I thought it might be of some interest to post a few of the little changes we have made recently and give you an opportunity to test your ears a bit.

Here are two clips from Heaven Came Down.  Listen closely and try to figure out the difference between them.

Clip 1
Clip 2

The difference between these clips is that in the second one, the woodwinds (oboe, clarinet, and flute) have been removed completely from the mix during the run.  If you didn't hear that, go back and listen again.  If you listen carefully to the first clip, you may be able to identify why we made a decision to cut them.  There is just a lack of preciseness between what they are doing and what I am doing.  Either them or me (probably me) is off by a few milliseconds. 

We recorded this song with a click (metronome) set at 254 beats/minute for a quarter note.  I am playing eighth notes.  The result is me trying to play a not-so-easy run very fast with very little room for error if I am going to line up with what the woodwinds are doing.  While the run sounds clean by itself, it is just off enough to create a conflict with them.  So, we cut the woodwinds.

There are many places on the project where instruments do not completely line up, but that is both expected and OK in an orchestra project.  But in a song like this, we wanted more preciseness. 

Now, listen to these two clips.

Clip 1
Clip 2

The problem in Clip 1 that is almost fixed in Clip 2 is very obvious to me but many people will not hear it.  Celloists, bass players, and other musicians that play low register instruments probably will hear it right away.  To me, it sounds like a low dull thud on a downbeat.  You can hear it in both clips, but it is much more prominant in Clip 1.

The thud is caused by a conflict between what I am playing and what the double bassist is playing.  We are both playing the same chord but I am playing a first inversion.  That creates an ugly low close interval.  You probably know that pianists should avoid close intervals in the lower register, and this is a good demonstration why.

Frankly, this kind of conflict happens scores of times during a typical song service in almost any church, but no one is listening very close.  On a CD, these things jump out at me.  So, the fix we attempted was to take the double bass out of the mix for that one note.

That worked but not entirely.  The double bass was right beside all the other strings, and that sound made it into many open mics.  That is why you can still hear the conflict (much softer) in Clip 2.

So this is an example of a problem that really cannot be fixed.  There are unfortunately many other things like that throughout the project.  I suppose most people will never know, but they drive me nuts.  One of the curses of recording music is that very rarely do you actually enjoy listening to it later.

 



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