NoHopeRadio Posted April 22, 2018 Share Posted April 22, 2018 Hi, So I think the arrangement is close to done, but I need some advice on mixing. https://t.co/nbwZ1I6gc7 I'm kind of new to audio production, so I'm really open to any advice at all. I know there are places where I need to do something, but I'm not sure what. Thanks, I hope I'm doing this right. I'm kind of shy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
timaeus222 Posted April 22, 2018 Share Posted April 22, 2018 Welcome to OCR! Something to get you started is instrument roles; what instrument do you want to play what? At 0:24, you have a low bass and a phase-y synth playing the melody in octaves. Try to imagine what possible instruments can suit the melody sequence you want to write, and where it lies in the frequency spectrum. For instance, you generally don't want a bass playing lead, or a lead playing bass. You also seem to have most tonal instruments panned either left or right 'just because'. Typically, chordal instruments might be panned wide, while leads and basses would be front and center. Something to think about. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NoHopeRadio Posted April 22, 2018 Author Share Posted April 22, 2018 Thank you, that's really helpful! I was trying to use panning to keep things separated, but that's different than having things properly organized. And thanks for the welcome! I've been a listener since the early 00s, so I'm hoping I can fit in some way or another (^v^) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NoHopeRadio Posted April 22, 2018 Author Share Posted April 22, 2018 Thanks again for the feedback and your time. That panning issue seems emblematic of greater personality flaws, as though my general reticence spills over into everything I do. So, I moved almost everything to the middle and tried to make everything more confident in general. I think it sounds much better now, but I'm not sure where to go next. https://talesofinsecurity.files.wordpress.com/2018/04/vampirekiller_2.mp3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
timaeus222 Posted April 23, 2018 Share Posted April 23, 2018 Yeah, the re-panning is definitely helping! I know I haven't really given much mixing advice yet, but mixing really accompanies arrangement and composition, so we should be addressing all three. The next thing I'm hearing is that there are some harmony clashings going on; mainly, it's coming from what the woody plucked instrument (first heard at 0:14; is it a cello pizzicato?) is playing compared to the lead. It seems to be playing in a different key sometimes, and landing a major 2nd or minor 2nd interval away from the main scale. To try to make this relatable, look for spots like those where you have simultaneous notes that sound kinda like you played the chord [C C# F G# A]; an example is at 1:30 - 1:37. I don't usually say this, but try figuring out what key you are in and what notes are in that scale so that you use mainly the notes that should harmonize with the rest of your instrumentation. Then, if you get stuck, highlight the text below this to find what key you are in. For the most part, you are in D minor, which has the notes D, E, F, G, A, A#, C, . . . in each octave (except for the few times you play D, A, G#, A, G#, D; that G# is out of the key). On another note, you might like this walkthrough video of a Vampire Killer remix; maybe it'll help you expand your creativity. In particular, I think the 10:53 and 16:00 marks really apply to you, but if you get the time I think the whole thing is worth watching. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NoHopeRadio Posted April 23, 2018 Author Share Posted April 23, 2018 Huh, that's interesting. I thought I'd stayed pretty rigidly in D harmonic minor (with a few exceptions? like in the main motif) but I'll examine it in finer detail later. Really appreciate this close listening you're doing for my little track. Makes me feel like I need to do everything I can to make it better! From your comments, it seems like my efforts to keep the arrangement safe were a little too successful, and that the riskier parts of the arrangement may have been the wrong risks. A lot to think about! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Souperion Posted April 23, 2018 Share Posted April 23, 2018 I can't really add anything that timaeus222 didn't already cover, but I think you've got potential for a cool arrangement here! Keep at it! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NoHopeRadio Posted April 23, 2018 Author Share Posted April 23, 2018 That video was helpful! In addition to observing Zircon's process a little, watching it made me realize that I was trying to make a dance track for some reason, when instead I wanted it to be like something from a John Carpenter movie, evoking some concept of waking the dead, or perhaps of the dead waking the living? Something like that. It's a vague concept, but it's starting to get closer to something I'm proud of, though I'm probably going to step away from it for a few days to listen to it with fresh ears. Those accidentals in the pizzicato part were hiding from me because that instrument has kind of a loose tuning. As soon as I switched it to a synth the problem was extremely clear, and now I have all these nice synths! https://talesofinsecurity.files.wordpress.com/2018/04/vampirekiller3.mp3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
timaeus222 Posted April 24, 2018 Share Posted April 24, 2018 Yeah, I can see where you're coming from with your vision. At this point I think we've addressed major non-mixing concerns. Now I wonder, did you use a limiter? Any EQ? (When I first started... get this... I did not use a mixer.) There are a lot of bass sounds going on, and their frequency ranges are clashing (for most people this occurs around 300 - 500 Hz, the "low midrange"). What I would do is isolate out groups of instruments that should have similar frequency ranges and examine those. Solo each instrument in that group and look on your EQ plugin to see where the frequency range tapers off. It will depend on each sound, but here are common ranges to look for: Then, try cutting down (usually 2 - 5 dB is fine) at a frequency range for one instrument that is in common between two instruments, so that the feature in the tone of that instrument that you actually want to hear is more distinct. Another thing that helps is that after you identify the frequency range spanned by an instrument, try using a high pass filter (HPF) to cut out the frequencies below the bottom of the range. [You can control the slope so that it doesn't cut frequencies too sharply.] Sometimes, a low shelf filter would be a good alternative if you don't want to make something sound too thin. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NoHopeRadio Posted April 29, 2018 Author Share Posted April 29, 2018 Great, yeah this is definitely an area I know nothing about, and having these vocabulary items to search for is definitely helpful. Not quite ready for more feedback yet, though I've used the above information to clean some things up. There are a few places still where I can tell there's interference, but I'm not sure exactly what to adjust, and it's probably going to come down to a lot of experimentation and tweaking. So many decisions! Probably going to have to take a trip to the library or youtube to get more of a feel for what's involved on the audio engineering side of things, but this whole process has done wonders, I think, for developing something of an intuition for how an arrangement goes. Thanks again! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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