1st Mix

Mix #2

For this mix I opted to make my own song in Logic using some synth instruments I was toying around with. I found some “crash cymbal” sounds I could tweak to kind of sound like some dissonant clapping which I thought sounded pretty interesting. I went ahead and added some more electronic sounds that could be held into a point of peaking at the high end which added some further eeriness. I also added what could be used as sort of piano filler to give it kind of a sentimental vibe. Altogether the song sounded good enough but I really wanted it to have more of a pensive and somber or isolated vibe so I decided I should mix it and see if I couldn’t reach the results I wanted.

trying to keep the high end peaking in check

REALLY trying to keep the high end peaking in check. I enjoy it aesthetically but too much could just be alarming haha

and finally our ghostly progression that needed quite a bit of tweaking to get it on par with the isolation I wanted it to evoke.

Mix #3

some of the tracks received some volume adjustments and I also played around with surround placement just a little bit which gave me some neat and interesting results I actually didn’t know it was so easy to mess with that in Logic!

I love the way Shawn sings but he is a bit quiet on the mic so I gave him a little boost. really love the way the levels on this turned out actually.

I really felt I had to boost the levels on the electric here to get the sound and volume I wanted out of it here and anytime I attempted to simply boost the gain it would start sounding really muddy.

I’m pretty sure the microphones were positioned in a way that didn’t capture the full percussion set very well as we had some of the perception coming through in other instruments mics but the actual percussion mic only picked up the snare mostly.

Quite happy with the way this mix turned out although I think I may have mixed a bit too personally for my Sennheiser headphones because when I had a couple other people listen to it through different devices I had a mix of about 50% saying the kids were too high on their setups and the other half saying it sound very nice and crisp. Will take note of that and listen with my monitors as well next time.

Mix #4

I went back a few weeks to get the stems for this awesome Laufey cover the guys did in class and there were actually a few changes I could tell needed to happen in the mix right up front.

I started by moving some of the tracks around in the surround sound mix and lowering the dB on some of them , particularly the keyboard I felt was spiking quite a bit in some parts.

I realized the guitar needed some boosting and I was happy to deliver because it sound really very pretty it just needed a little help in the low mid section.

I threw a bit of a cutoff filter on the acoustic because I also felt it was coming through a bit heavy in some sections. I also had turned the gain down just a bit on this one earlier and after the edits I was very happy with the sound it delivered at the level it delivered.

comprehensive image of all the changes I made for this recording. you can see here the filters I used and even the compressor I threw over the vocals. I was really quite proud of the changes and how audible they were. really feels like practice has made a change in the way I listen to these songs.

This is the track sheet I filled out for the jazz band “Lead Female Vocalist which came with the following setup:
Lead Female Vocals

1. Gibson 335 electric guitar into a Fender Princeton Amp

2. Epiphone Jack Casady Artist series electric bass into a Markbass Mini CMD 121P 1x12 Bass Combo Amp

3. 5-piece Gretsch Catalina Drum Kit with Zildjian K Crash Cymbals

4. Saxophone

5. Trombone

I wanted to make Sure the cymbals, sax, trombone, and Vocals were all running with nice condenser mics.

We gave 57s to most of the other instruments minus the bass which was also getting plugged into a DI box that was feeding into our console via XLR.

Our kick drum got a Beta 52a and we made sure to give everyone a few EQ changes to accentuate them in the mix properly. This was a very fun exercise that I feel really got me thinking about recording setups and requirements for healthy sounding instruments.