Artefact 2 - Mixing Stage
Mixing Plan
After recording and creating our rough mix, we created a mixing plan, which I have put below.
Soweto
Guitar Parts:
Aaron suggested raising the volume of the second guitar riff that comes in at certain points, as it was too quiet. He also proposed potentially muting the original guitar riff when the second one plays, to create more contrast and dynamics.
Emmanuel mentioned the idea of re-amping the guitar solo and changing the amp/pedal settings to get a different tone, referencing the song "Soso" by Omah Lay as a tonal reference.
Bass Guitar:
Emmanuel pointed out sections where the bass was too late/lacked punch and suggested using compression to even out the dynamics.
Andreas agreed that bass guitars have a wide dynamic range across different notes/frequencies and can benefit from compression.
Percussion:
Aaron felt having two shaker/tambourine tracks was redundant and suggested using just one.
Andreas recommended automating the shaker/tambourine parts to have them come in and out, creating variation.
Drums:
Emmanuel proposed adjusting the drum levels and potentially gating/expansion to get a more balanced kit sound.
Andreas mentioned they had already applied some high-hat de-essing and suggested further EQ/compression could add clarity and impact.
Emmanuel noticed some timing issues with the drums and other instruments drifting in and out of time, proposing quantization as a potential fix.
Andreas provided perspective on how much timing drift to address, recommending small human imperfections can be desirable, while offering to show techniques for timing corrections if needed.
Vocals:
Aaron and Andreas discussed the need for a cleaner vocal stem/extraction, as the current one from YouTube had noticeable artifacts. Andreas suggested capturing from a stream instead of YouTube and trying different vocal separation tools.
Piano:
Andreas felt the piano sounded dull and recommended brightening the tone with EQ/reverb. He also proposed creating an artificial stereo image from the mono DI recording.
Overall, the discussion covered a range of mix considerations across different instruments, with suggestions around levels, compression, EQ, effects, timing quantization, reamping, automation, and referencing tones from other songs. Andreas commended the group's recording efforts while providing guidance on areas for improvement in the mix.
Outline the intended mixing approaches to the primary elements of your mix. Discuss individual tracks or instrumentation and intended approaches with regards to balance, pan, EQ, compression or FX. |
For my mix, I am planning to cut out certain parts of the cabasa track, as it is present through the whole song, I will probably have the shaker come in at certain points to make the song a bit more dynamic. I am planning to compress most of the tracks in the song, however I am especially wanting to compress the bass guitar, in most afrobeats songs the bass is quite present, however our recorded bass can be too loud at points. In terms of EQ, am going to apply corrective EQ to most if not all of our recorded tracks, I will do this to remove unwanted frequencies, I am going to do this before I apply my compressors as to avoid any disturbances between the effects. I am also going to apply reverb to all of the guitars as most afrobeats songs have reverb on the guitar. |
Identify two appropriate examples of reference material (provide links) and describe how these might influence your mixing approach. |
“Lonely at the Top” by Asake and “Soso” by Omah Lay are both tracks that I will keep in mind while mixing, as they are both afrobeats songs, which is the same genre as Soweto, i have listened to these songs to give myself an idea as to what effects are appropriate for the genre (e.g. applying reverb to a clean guitar recording). Link to Soso - https://youtu.be/k6eE3c70hgg?si=v-Sg7HMUMHdI6E4t Link to Lonely at the Top - Asake - Lonely At The Top (Official Visualizer) (youtube.com) |
Identify and justify the final mix output format with regards to file type, bit depth and sample rate. | ||
File type | Bit depth | Sample rate |
.wav | 24 bit | 44.1k |
Justification: For my file type for the mix, I will use a .wav file type as it is the best of the uncompressed file types you can get on mac. For my bit depth I will use 24 bits and for my sample rate 44.1Kh sample rate, this is because they are easier to run on a DAW while still sounding good. |
Mixing Plan
After recording and creating our rough mix, we created a mixing plan, which I have put below.
Soweto
Bass Compressor:
Here is a compressor I applied to the bass guitar, I applied this as the bass guitar was drowning out the keyboard at certain points.
Hi-Hat EQ
This EQ is the result of a mistake we made while recording our drums, as the drummer had knocked the hi-hat mic out of place and we did not correct it, the hi-hat mic picked up a lot of snare, so I applied an EQ that eliminated as much snare as possible. I applied a low cut at 50hz, and made use of bell and shelf EQs to cut out the snare, I made sure to keep all frequencies above 3k as to not affect the sound of the hi-hat.
Snare Drum:
I applied a noise gate to the snare to eliminate any bleed from the other drums (mostly the kick drum) and therefore get a much less muddy sound.
This EQ was applied to the snare as there were certain ringy frequencies that could be heard when the snare was hit, as seen below, I used two narrow bell EQs to get rid of these ringy frequencies at 400hz, 500 hz, and a bell with a more broad bandwidth at 800hz.
Overheads:
I applied this EQ to the overheads to make them a bit brighter, as previously the cymbals could not be heard very well, so I applied a low Cut EQ and a high shelf.
Tom Drums:
For the tom drums I applied this EQ to both toms, there I was capturing the kick drum and did not want that coming through in my tom tracks.
I used this gate on both toms as well, this would allow only the sound of the toms being hit through their respective microphones, the noise of the rest of the drum kit is cut.
Lead Guitar:
The distorted lead guitar heard near the end of the song took a lot of work to get right, the first thing I did was apply an EQ to the left panned lead guitar, as its tone was a bit darker than the other lead guitar.
This EQ was applied to both of the guitars, I just raised the high end a little bit to make the guitars brighter overall.
This is the delay effect I applied to the lead guitars, when we were peer evaluating each others tracks in the class, multiple people suggested applying delay to the lead guitar to cover up mistakes, so I used this tape echo plug-in.
