Zelda: Wind Waker - Great Sea (cover with lyrics)

[boozinwalsh]

Hey, guys. So I've been lurking for a while and this is my first post. I've thought about sharing my stuff here before, but wasn't sure if it'd really fit in. It seems like everybody's pretty open-minded around here so I thought I'd give it a go.

I do instrumental vgm covers and often add my own lyrics. My covers tend to have a "folkish" vibe to them. Here is one of my better ones that I did recently:

More than anything I'm looking for feedback on my mixes. Specifically balancing the audio, EQing, mastering, etc.. I feel that's what I need to improve the most. I've made significant progress since I started, but I know that there is so much room for growth. Any tips at all are greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

[Feyd666]

I like it. A lot.

You have got an added fan

[BorgMan]

Funny thing: it sounds like the Neverending Story theme...

I'm liking this too. The lyrics work quite well and it's an actual joy to listen to. At first I was in doubt if a female voice could add depth, but after another listen it has grown on me. Can't give you any more in-depth advice, I'm listening this on a crappy netbook as my PC (with surround system) is currently not connected to the interweb. But I'm digging this.

On a side note: there was someone not too long ago offering a female voice. I'd think it would be cool if you two would team up anyway There's some projects out there that are always in need of talent

[Elder Kirby]

I might be wrong, but something about the bass feels weak in the mix. Seems very high frequency and not enough lows. Are you using the bridge or neck pickup? I like using the bridge one if the goal is more of an accompaniment to the other instruments rather than its own thing. Granted, it sounds better in the latter two thirds of the track, so it could just be your right hand technique.

Everything else sounds great

[YoshiBlade]

As a disclaimer Im not qualified to give technical feedback, only artistic feeling. So yeah I gotta say this could be an example of a true interpretation of source material. Well done, you started ground up and put yourself, and your talents, in the mix, love it! I gotta agree, the bass feels a little flat kind of just plug'n play, i don't know how to put it....just seems cold and distant. The lyrics and vocals are on point, the only thing I could say is for a "folkish" song I'd like to hear your voice/voices without the processed effects. Doesn't folk music tend to embrace the natural feel of an instrument and voices? Oh and by the way you got yourself a new subscriber with those 2 guitars going, now THAT felt folkish. IDK take my thoughts with a heaping helping of salt. Either way great mix.

[Light_of_Aether]

You've got yourself a new subscriber here as well.

I would say reduce the reverb on your voice; sometimes the reverb becomes very noticeable and gets in the way of everything else.

[boozinwalsh]

I like it. A lot.

You have got an added fan

Thank you!

Funny thing: it sounds like the Neverending Story theme...

I'm liking this too. The lyrics work quite well and it's an actual joy to listen to. At first I was in doubt if a female voice could add depth, but after another listen it has grown on me. Can't give you any more in-depth advice, I'm listening this on a crappy netbook as my PC (with surround system) is currently not connected to the interweb. But I'm digging this.

On a side note: there was someone not too long ago offering a female voice. I'd think it would be cool if you two would team up anyway There's some projects out there that are always in need of talent

Thanks! Hmm, I'm planning on getting the ball rolling on some collabs soon. One of which will be with a female singer. Should be fun!

I might be wrong, but something about the bass feels weak in the mix. Seems very high frequency and not enough lows. Are you using the bridge or neck pickup? I like using the bridge one if the goal is more of an accompaniment to the other instruments rather than its own thing. Granted, it sounds better in the latter two thirds of the track, so it could just be your right hand technique.

Everything else sounds great

I don't disagree and this is precisely why I'm asking for feedback. I'm still trying to find that balance with the bass where it's still prominent, but I'm not blowing anybody's speakers. I tend to nerf it in the mix a little because my acoustic guitar produces really low frequencies that often clash with it. I am still learning =) I think I'm mostly using the neck pickup on the bass, by the way. Thanks for the comment!

As a disclaimer Im not qualified to give technical feedback, only artistic feeling. So yeah I gotta say this could be an example of a true interpretation of source material. Well done, you started ground up and put yourself, and your talents, in the mix, love it! I gotta agree, the bass feels a little flat kind of just plug'n play, i don't know how to put it....just seems cold and distant. The lyrics and vocals are on point, the only thing I could say is for a "folkish" song I'd like to hear your voice/voices without the processed effects. Doesn't folk music tend to embrace the natural feel of an instrument and voices? Oh and by the way you got yourself a new subscriber with those 2 guitars going, now THAT felt folkish. IDK take my thoughts with a heaping helping of salt. Either way great mix.

Thank you! I have an infatuation with reverb that I've been trying to reconcile, haha. I try not to lay it on too thick, but I love how it can make a song sound more ethereal, especially through headphones. I'll try dialing it back a bit in the future.

You've got yourself a new subscriber here as well.

I would say reduce the reverb on your voice; sometimes the reverb becomes very noticeable and gets in the way of everything else.

Thanks a bunch, man! I'll try to not be so liberal with the reverb, even though I love it so haha.

[BorgMan]

That'd be cool man. The NES project in my sig is in search of many different styles of music, and having a track with lyrics would be awesome. So if you're in search of a project to join, head over there; perhalps there's a track you can add to it?

[Feyd666]

Have you ever thought of doing harmony vocals with a female singer? I think it would sound great, especially with your Terra's Theme cover.

[APZX]

Mix feedback?

The things that immediately popped out to me on the initial listen and I will expound on each:

- Bass: A bit uneven in volume throughout, is slightly "tubby" sounding, and lacks some upper freq presence.

- Drums: Overall sound quite good and well recorded but certain instruments of the kit are lacking some presence (mainly the kick) and are a touch dark

- Acoustic Guitars: The rhythm guitar is quite solid, good presence natural sounding etc . . .. The lead guitar though has a touch too much bass.

- Vocals: Other than a handful of the lower notes needing a little bit of EQ they're actually pretty good. Could have the volume a little more evened out to make them a little more present throughout the track. The real thing that got me with the vocals were the harmonies and reverb. The harmonies have the issue of almost being too similar in overall tone. The reverb needs control on what frequencies it is going to reverbate.

Most of these are honestly pretty minor issues except for the kick. I can hear the kick, but it definitely lacks any real definition.

What I mean why I say the bass is "tubby" sounding is that there are a few notes that when hit cause a certain unevenness in the tone of it. Honestly, it sounds like about 100-200Hz is just a bit too hot. But that could be the acoustic guitar as well, hard to tell exactly what. The bass strings could do with just a bit more too.

Drums I actually really like except for the kick. Personally, I'd think a small bit of high shelving to give them just a bit more air would sound very good on them. I don't know how you recorded the drums, but if you can just get that kick out more in the mix it would be a tremendous bonus.

The guitars much like the drums are actually very good overall. The problem I'm having though is determining if the tubbiness is the caused by the guitars or the bass honestly. The lead guitar line is especially at fault though. Cut that low end.

The vocal harmonies just need a little more differentiation from the main vocal. Filtering out some top end would probably be effective as well as making it wetter reverb wise but taking some more reverb off the main vocal. The reverb on the vocals I felt was actually very nice. However, something to try might be using a short plate or such on the main vocal and sending the harmonies to your current verb instead. Also, try EQing the reverb sends and/or EQ the returns.

Try to keep in mind I'm not saying crank everything to 11. Just more subtle changes in the mix would go a very long way and the things I noticed are definitely on the smaller end of the spectrum rather than large gaping issues. You want to try and preserve the feeling you've got, but just make it a little professional sounding.

Other than that I just gotta say this was a really enjoyable listen overall.

[boozinwalsh]

Other than that I just gotta say this was a really enjoyable listen overall.

Thanks for the writeup! This is exactly what I'm looking for and I completely agree with you. When producing a song, I always hit a wall near the end where I know that it needs more work in the mix, but I simply don't have the knowledge to get it the rest of the way there. I usually just end up cringing and clicking the upload button any way, haha.

I struggle with the bass on pretty much every song. It almost always has a muddy quality to it. I think part of the issue is, like you pointed out, the acoustic guitar produces some really low frequencies and it's hard to reconcile them with the bass. I try to dampen the lower frequencies in the EQ and that helps a lot, but it's still noticeable.

As far as the kick goes, I tried to dampen the mid frequencies and increased the low and high ones. I guess that was the wrong thing to do? I've got very little experience mixing drums.

Is there a book or maybe a video series you can point me towards to get a better understanding of these concepts?

[APZX]

There are a ton of resources for helping with mixing! I'll put some links at the end of the post for you.

Okay, so bass I think is difficult to get right in general. Some things I would try if I were mixing would probably be this. First, I'd start off with the ever powerful HPF on everything but the kick & bass. Probably around 200-250Hz. This would give me a good idea of what is going on in the low end of the track. After I get that a little more sorted out in that area I'd then start moving the HPFs lower on certain instruments, probably the main vocal, guitar, and snare to give them all a little more body. You just have remember that most instruments normally have nothing that is really important below 150 - 200Hz anyway. They normally do not add anything to the mix. Anyway, after I got that working with just EQ I would apply some nice mild compression to the bass to even out the volume of it. Something you can do to give yourself some more perspective on what is going in the low end is actually place a LPF on the Master channel and cut everything but the lows. It could help you hone in on what is going on down there without having the distractions caused by all the higher frequency stuff.

Drums are also difficult to mix. However, as I said you've got a good start. Now, I know this is not EDM or the likes, but believe it or not sidechaining is still useful even in this kind of situation and I really love sidechaining the bass to the kick pretty much most of the time. Though there are other options. One such option is letting one or the other win the low end. To let one or the other win simply cut, what about 50-60Hz from the kick or the bass (in the case of this track). This will let either come through much more prominently. If you listen to a lot of rock from the mid 80s through about 2004 rock you'll be able to hear this in action quite a bit. But really I think giving the kick a good 6dB+/- boost would really help it out. Now, depending on how you want the kick to sound determines how you're going to treat it. Giving it more lows, less mids, and more highs will let some of the lower harmonics of the guitar and vocals through more. More low end fights with the bass more and the highs start fighting with the snare. I think perhaps keeping the mids of the kick, ~500Hz, and a bit more beater, ~6KHz, would probably work well with this track. These freqs btw are where I would start with the EQ. Not saying that they are where you ought to treat, just starting areas. Also, now that I'm relistening to it the snare could do with a little bit of a volume lift as well.

As I said I don't know how you recorded the drums but where I like to start with drums is actually with the overheads. I try to get them to sound as good in the track as I can with just them first. Then from there I'll add the kick and snare to essentially enhance those two instruments. You'd be really surprised at just how much of the drum sound comes from the overheads. Also, do not be afraid to flip the polarity of the kick and snare relative to the overheads. Sometimes it really helps in tightening up the sound. To help hearing this you can mono the track and play the track through just one speaker. It can make it easier to hear what is going on phase wise.

Okay, for some resources!

Recording Revolution's 5 Minutes to a Better Mix series actually a great resource. He has put out 3 of these and even though I know my way around mixing (still learning) it still great to see different ways of doing something and even just rehashing the basics from time to time.

If you want some books I'd suggest as a starting point being Mike Senior's two books: Mixing Secrets for the Small Studio and Recording Secrets for the Small Studio. Very well written and easy to understand. There are more books as well that you could look into such as Mixerman's series of books and if you want to get really into the technical side of audio then Bob Katz's Mastering Audio is a great start to it as well.

Other than that I'll tell you this. Getting better at mixing will simply require lots and lots of practice. Eventually you just start notice when something isn't right or off and know some ways you might treat it to alleviate the problem.