Many of you are aware that I dabble in mixing. Well, the reason i've been rather quite from the competitions is because I've been mixing my bands own stuff. I'd like you all to hear what I've done, and please crit, comment, share, like, love or do whatever you wish to do.

Brief context:
For our previous single we paid approx R4000 for one song. We dont have that kind of money, so we wanted to TRY recording ourselves. It was a band project, if it worked, great, if not, we only lost a little. So we pulled our money together to get the drummer in a studio. We were only aiming for 1 song, but he was really tight that day, and we got 3 ?

From then, we tracked everything at my house, using my humble M-Audio interface, and Guitar-Rig. My singer has a Rode NT1A, so we recorded vox. Then, I had the fun task of putting it all together. It was great fun, but it did take me a long time. Editing, my word, that is a real time sucker. Anyway. This is my first time I've ever produced and mixed a live band. All my competition entries where guitars and midi. But never live drums etc. So I had a big responsiblity. I feel I did well, I'm certainly happy with what I have released - I can only get better right? I already know what I'm gonna do to enhance the sound for the next EP.

Anway, take some time to listen to the tracks, you guys have heard the one already (regarding the Mastering debate). They also free for download. If you like it, then great. Excited for what you have to say. Most of what I did, I learnt via this forum, and all you fantastic people, so really, producer credits should go partially to all of you haha.

In order of EP:







If you want to download:
(Just set the buy value to 0)

http://brotherandbrother.bandcamp.com/

For those of you who want to show support, and be aware of anything new happening, you can find us on facebook
https://www.facebook.com/BrotherAndBrother

Just got to listen to Bombs, and although no expert (though I do spend most of the day listening to music, so that kinda does count) it in no way sounds 'DIY' to me - very well done

Giggsy wrote: Just got to listen to Bombs, and although no expert (though I do spend most of the day listening to music, so that kinda does count) it in no way sounds 'DIY' to me - very well done

ha ha, well, thanks Giggsy. At least you listened ?

Just listened now.

I could quibble about a lot of small points in the mix (mostly individual instrument levels), but overall it's a good-sounding result - one you can be proud of.

Maybe suffers a little from "everything loud" syndrome - you should choose three instruments to be prominent at any given time (one always being voice when that features), and allow most of the other tracks to bed down and pad the main tracks. I'm also getting some graininess in the top end - the cymbals are a bit too prominent which is highlighting the mp3 compression artefacts.

I like the vibe, and often I think that gets lost in over editing. Cool stuff! My speakers are so laughable, it would be silly of me to give any feedback on the mix, it works for me as it is.

Agree with Alan in regards to a bit graini in the upper freq band.

Levels in certain parts, but i would never say this is a home recording. +1 dude, i know this stuff takes forever - twice as long if you don't have the right equipment ( or almost). Good quality and good music 2 boot.

Chaps I like your style I cant comment much on the mix but I like it

Alan Ratcliffe wrote: Maybe suffers a little from "everything loud" syndrome - you should choose three instruments to be prominent at any given time (one always being voice when that features), and allow most of the other tracks to bed down and pad the main tracks.

Thanks for that Alan. I really agree with you, just needed an objective ear to tell me as it is. I think my problem is that I want everything to be heard, and as a result, I boost volumes instead of maybe focusing more intensly on the EQ.

Alan Ratcliffe wrote: I'm also getting some graininess in the top end - the cymbals are a bit too prominent which is highlighting the mp3 compression artefacts.

Well if you listened on soundcloud, you shouldn't hear any mp3 compression I uploaded as wav ??? unless soundcloud does automatic compression. But this is a good point. I will consider this for next time.

Viccy wrote: I like the vibe, and often I think that gets lost in over editing. Cool stuff! My speakers are so laughable, it would be silly of me to give any feedback on the mix, it works for me as it is.

Your comment is much appreciated ?

Quinlan Kok wrote: Agree with Alan in regards to a bit graini in the upper freq band.

Levels in certain parts, but i would never say this is a home recording. +1 dude, i know this stuff takes forever - twice as long if you don't have the right equipment ( or almost). Good quality and good music 2 boot.

Thanks a million. Yes, perhaps I should have applied some multi-band compressor to the high-end? I deliberately didn't touch it cause I thought it would be the mastering engineers job only to deal with that. Do you guys often make use of multi-band compression in the mixing stage?

Attila Barath wrote: Chaps I like your style I cant comment much on the mix but I like it

I like your style too :? Thank you

symbolofmylife wrote: I like it. Not my vibe musically but judging from the process you followed, excellent result.

It may be my laptop speakers but the vox seemed a little harsh.

Is it? I must be careful of that then. A good mix should sound good on all speakers. Thanks for the headsup

Soundcloud definitely recompresses the audio. I found on my Soundcloud uploads the cymbals had that bad mp3 washy sound going on, although the originals sounded fine. So I switched to ReverbNation. No problem. They even allow you to build your own android app... For free.

Adrian Rogowski wrote: Well if you listened on soundcloud, you shouldn't hear any mp3 compression I uploaded as wav ??? unless soundcloud does automatic compression.

From the results they obviously do. Find out what they don't recompress, then compress to that format yourself using the best codec available at the slowest compression rate. Here's the important thing: Listen to the compressed result and then remaster with that in mind, compress yourself, check and upload. Basically you must master specifically for whatever format(s) you are distributing your music in and you must do the format conversion yourself where at all possible.

Do you guys often make use of multi-band compression in the mixing stage?

More on the mastering, but I do use it on busses containing a wide frequency range stuff (like drum busses). Even occasionally inserted on keyboards or solo guitar tracks. Basically anything with a wide frequency range that needs compression. It just gives you so much more control...

symbolofmylife wrote: So I switched to ReverbNation. No problem. They even allow you to build your own android app... For free.

Speak to Rene about RN - they seem to be a bit of a ripoff. See his FB page for some of his trials and tribulations with them.

Well u can use a multi band eq or any other "simpler" eq depending on the instruments.

Don't know what program u use, but for me in cubase 5 there is a lot of eq ing options. I don't really follow a step by step process - but eq is wonderfull for highlightin certain instruments in the song progression without actually touching the volume faders. So you should eq the same audio track you recorded differently at stages in the song to get emotion across to listeners.

Lol i'm struggling to explain it. But PM me ur mail address and i'll forward u some awesome books on recording and mastering if u would like to read.

Some tips off of a website:

4 Easy Tips for getting the best out of your home recordings

Taking a look through the feedback on some of my previous articles, it struck me that one of the major barriers to people making effective home recordings is that they are not confident in their ability to get pro-quality results at home. So for this article, I’m going to share four techniques and ideas that most, if not all, top producers and mix engineers use when recording and mixing that you can use at home at no or minimal cost, to help you get a better sound.

1 Turn the volume down

If you go into any expensive recording or mixing studio, you’ll see a pair of enormous studio monitors, probably bolted to the walls, ready to inflict an ear-smashing wall of audio doom on everyone within commuting distance of the studio. Here’s a production secret for you: those things are just for show. They’re there for when a client comes in and wants to hear his music at ear-splitting volume and serve no other purpose. I’ve heard that some studio owners actually charge the cost of those speakers to the marketing budget! You’d be amazed at the small, crappy speakers that the engineer will actually use while working, and the low volume levels he’ll use.

Why? Well, as any guitarist knows, the louder something is, the better it sounds. That’s great for listening for pleasure, but when you’re trying to judge the quality of a recording, excessive volume can mask problems that would be much easier to find and fix at lower volumes. This is because your ears start to filter out frequencies and distort the audio at high volume levels in order to protect themselves from damage. So turn your monitors down (your neighbours will thank you for it as well). If you can hear everything clearly at low volume, you know you have a good mix.

2 Use the wrong speakers

Yes, you read that right. I mentioned above that pro engineers very often mix using crappy speakers, and it’s for similar reasons to before – mixing on expensive, high-fidelity speakers is like riding a bike with stabiliser wheels: it’s easy, but in the real world you’ll fall flat on your face.

There’s a small, ugly brown speaker called an Auratone 5C that’s long gone out of production. It’s a nasty, tinny mono thing with the frequency response of a dead slug. Yet most of the big albums of the 1970s and 1980s were mixed in a large part on Auratones, and vintage Auratones fetch huge prices when they come up for sale. It’s so sought-after precisely because it’s so terrible. If your mix sounds good on an Auratone, it sounds amazing on anything else!

A lot of aspiring producers make the mistake of hooking their computer or mixing desk up to a pair of expensive, fancy hi-fi speakers. The problem is that hi-fi speakers are specially engineered to make everything sound great, including bad mixes. That’s why they cost a lot of money and weigh so much. But how many of your listeners are actually going to be listening to your song on an expensive hi-fi system in ideal listening conditions? Probably not many. Most will be listening to it on iPods, in their cars, on their radios and on their computers, all of which feature inferior speakers, so you will need something to simulate that listening experience. Get a pair of proper studio monitors with a flat frequency response (the Mackie MR5 is a good buy), but also get something cheap and rubbish to get an honest idea of what most of your listeners will hear. If it sounds good on a cheap piece of crap, you’ve done a good job.

3 Plan ahead

I must admit that I’m bad at this, but I always end up regretting not doing it. We are all human beings, and we all have a limited supply of mental energy, patience and concentration. To get the best from a mix, those limited resources should be concentrated on getting the mix right, not working out where everything is and which of your 50 mix tracks is the one that you need to work on.

Almost all DAWs let you colour-code the tracks and clips, and all of them let you rename tracks. Some, such as Reaper, even let you add a little symbol of a guitar or whatever to a track so you can see at a glance what it is. Do all these things, you won't regret it. I now always colour my drums red, my guitars yellow, vocals blue etc, using the same colour coding in every mix I do. That way, when I load up a project I don’t have to think about it. I only have so much brain to go around, and brain used remembering where everything is is brain that could be used to do something actually useful.

Even if you think you’ve got a handle of what’s going on in your mix right now, you might have to come back to it months later, or hand it over to someone else to do a remix, and if you have to spend the first 20 minutes of a mixing session working out what everything is you’ll be bored, stressed and bad-tempered before you even start, and that’s the wrong headspace to be in when approaching a mix. Do your groundwork at the beginning and you’ll save yourself five or six times as much time and frustration later on.

4 Rest your ears

Every producer, no matter how experienced, will reach the point at which they throw their hands up into the air and yell “Aargh, it all sounds the f*****g same!” Experience and discipline will increase the amount of mixing or recording time between these incidents, but they happen to everyone eventually. This is when it’s time to take a break.

A lot of people feel guilty about taking a break as it seems contrary to a professional work ethic. I can assure you, however, that all the top recording, mixing and mastering engineers take breaks when their ears or brains get tired. They’ve learned that anything you do past that point is wasted. Once your ears get tired, any changes you make will make things sound worse, not better. This goes for recording as well. Once you get tired and frustrated, you’re less and less likely to get good takes. Take a break – it will actually save time and you’ll be able to do something else useful in the meantime. Do your laundry, get some exercise, make some phone calls, but clear your head of music and sound. I take breaks of at least 30 minutes, but I’ve heard that some mastering engineers never take a break of less than 3 hours before getting back behind the desk. It’s not just about recovering your ears and being able to hear more objectively, it’s about lowering your stress levels and your temperament when working, which will make you happier and more productive.

Even if you can’t feel your ears getting tired, they might be anyway, especially after a long recording or mixing session. That’s why I NEVER send the first mix of a project to a client, no matter how great I think it sounds. I always listen to it again the next day, because I know that I’ll hear some boneheaded mistake that I missed the night before. With mastering, I repeat this process every day until I decide not to make any changes two days in a row. Then I know I’m happy with it and that the client will be too.

Here is the link to his website:

http://www.axemanjim.co.uk/index.html