Need help, from scratch, with mixing New Age music.

[Christopher Burke]

Dear Anyone.

 

For starters, I've read the 10 rules and utterly agree with all of them, that's how come I'm posting this here.  Please critique away and I'll do a new mix, from scratch, incorporating everyone's criticisms and hopefully it'll sound better!  (It can't sound worse.) 

 

For seconds - I know these are not the best available sounds, but right now I'm hoping that won't matter too much.  I've got better synths but I don't know where tweaking the sounds within the synths and using EQ/whatever on them in the mix starts and finishes (when should I be tweaking them in the VST and when should I be using more EQ/whatever!?! - that's rhetorical for now.)  What I'd love to hear is all 4 freebie sounds sounding the best/clearest they can, yet with the pad in back, pan-pipe on top, ripply thingy just behind panpipe and choir not 'taking over' so much when it comes in.  If I turn down the choir, the pad immediately eats it (ditto with adding reverb to it - it's just a soundfont with SF2 player release on it right now).  If I keep the background ripplers (you'll hear them) less muffled, they immediately eat everything.  If I keep them clearer but turned down, they jump out at you in bits and disappear in bits for no apparent reason - I'm not changing any levels but they do do that.  (They don't now because I've EQ'd the bejeezus outta them but I don't want to do that unless I really have to!)  Ditto with the sound that occasionally ripples into life panned right - if I keep the clarity bits in there, it eats the world.  (I've got other VSTs but they've got probs., like they don't obey CC changes for some unknown reason and I've gotta do everything virtually cos I'm disabled, don't let it bother you.) So basically it's remix time from scratch. 

 

Basically, say whatever you like and I'll do it all and if it comes out better I'll thank you profusely, if it don't then I'll be back asking what I've done wrong again.  I've honestly heard sounds as bad as mine in easy-listening music on YouTube, but they all sound a lot clearer yet in the right places in the mix.  I'd be ecstatic to be able to achieve that for starters. 

 

So go ahead, have a ball, say whatever you like, it's an object we're trying to improve, not 'Muy Bay-bee, Don't Hurt it's Wickle Feelings!!'  I've been trying to get the hang of mixing for years, I've got several albums ready to hit the Internet when I can do it (can't afford to pay anyone else) so vent away.  When you can't vent any more, I'll know I've got it right.  And hopefully be able to use what I've learned on the next track. 

 

Yours respectfully

 

Chris.

Please_help_me_sound_better_MP3.mp3

[Christopher Burke]

Dear HoboSage.

 

That's a good start.

 

What I'll do is give this post a leetle time to (hopefully) get a few more replies - or if you want to say more feel free - and when I've got a bunch of ideas to work with, courtesy of all you kind people - and that is NOT sarcasm! - I'll do a remix using all of 'em, chuck the remix up here and then the process can start again!  Really it's techniques I'm after learning right now - how to make 4 sounds sit well with eachother even if they're 4 crappy sounds, if their odiousness is clear and audible and not muddy then I'll know how to do Phase One and be able to go onto Phase 2 - Getting Better Sounds and Using Them Without having to EQ them to Shreds to get them to sit properly in a Mix!!

 

Feel free, you and everyone, to chuck as many tomato-shaped ideas at this as you want/can think of and I'll use 'em all! 

 

Yours respectfully

 

Chris.

[MikeRobinson]

As I listen to this tune ... receptively ... openly ... encouragingly ... 

 

... I'd simply suggest that it needs some serious mixing.  Although the various sounds are "okay, by themselves," (albeit rather mechanical ...), there's no cohesion to it.  The various parts, each at their various (wildly different ...) volume levels, make no particular attempt to "get along with one another" to present the listener with ... a singular musical experience.

 

Take each of the component tracks and, first of all, normalize their respective volume levels:  make sure that none of them overpower any of the others.  Then, "plan the performance" in which all of these various instrumentalists are intended to be players.  Imagine that these "people" really are performers, all on-stage at the same time in front of an eager and appreciative audience, and plan just how you intend to let each one of them, in turn, "shine!"  At various points during the performance, some of them will "step up to the microphone," while others will "step back" and support them.  During each musician's "moment of glory," their particular sound will be front-and-center.  At other times, their sound will "continue to be heard, therefore be familiar," but will not take the lead.

 

I have no "tomatoes" to lob at you, Chris.  Instead, I invite you to take what you've got now and plan a cohesive musical presentation.  Every one of your musicians has already handed you a very fine performance:  you have all of them "in the can."  What you need to do now, is to construct "a show."

 

(And, fair warning, this happens to be "one of those things that Experienced Folks do so well, that we fail to realize that they are actually doing it.")   "Doesn't it, like, just happen that way?"  Uhhh... "no."

 

Edited April 29, 2016 by MikeRobinson