Is there too little in the rears?

[Mr. Afternoon]

Beloved QQ'ers I need your help! Is this mix fine or do I gotta move around some stuff?

(i think i uploaded it in 5.1 lmk if i didn't)

 

[Mr. Afternoon]

I'm rather concerned that the mix isn't immersive enough... This is the least discrete track in the album and I'm wondering if I should spread the drums out or something...

 

[M-K]

• Rears could be a bit louder.
• Bass is a bit too boomy.

Only a bit!

I do not like the perspective from a drummers seat for a surround mix so do not spread out the drums.
This is my personal taste.

But the drums could be more present in the front channels.

 

[jimfisheye]

Guess I don't know how to get 5.1 from Youtube then?
Is there an addon?

 

[Mr. Afternoon]

here's a 5.1 flac for those who can't play youtube in 5.1
LFE is there but optional, feel free to throw it out. It's just derived from the main channels.

 

[jimfisheye]

Cool!

The sax has an up close fidelity with full high end. The drums have no up close elements or at least sound exaggerated in that direction next to the sax. Maybe balance that one way or the other?

Then there could be more in the rears. What tho... That dub fx near the end is cool. Maybe more of that in spots that could poke into the rears?
Of course I don't know if that is performed in the mix or went down live.

I dropped ch 4 and listened to the 5.0 as instructed.

 

[ar surround]

(As instructed, I got rid of the LFE because it made the bass too boomy for my tastes.)

I compared Track 16 to some of what you have done on The Golden Bonana. I believe that Track 16 sounds similar to the tracks on the latter, which is good. However, it doesn't quite have that 'full' sound that I find so endearing on TGB. Perhaps spread the lower percussion (not the cymbals) a bit wider; and then also put some of the difference signal of that lower percussion into the surrounds?

It depends on what you're trying to achieve, but it seems that you aren't satisfied with the presentation of the drum track, so you should probably try changing it to your tastes.

 

[Mr. Afternoon]

I should mention this is the ONLY sax track on the album.
I'll try messin' a bit with the drums and post a new snippet. I'm working in a completely new DAW because my old one wasn't capable of the routing I needed for this album.

 

[Mr. Afternoon]

However, it doesn't quite have that 'full' sound that I find so endearing on TGB.

Could you please clarify? If you're talking about the brightness/warmth of the sound, that's intended. Do I need more bleed-in between channels? Bring stuff out to the center of the room? With Bonana, everything bled into every channel, with this I was taking a different approach.

 

[Mr. Afternoon]

New snippet of the same section, new changes.

• Brought the kick and snare out a bit
• Added a bit "glue" to the drums
• Changed the placement of the piano
• Omitted the derived LFE (it's now 5.0 in a 5.1 container)

Let me know your thoughts.

 

[ar surround]

Could you please clarify? If you're talking about the brightness/warmth of the sound, that's intended. Do I need more bleed-in between channels? Bring stuff out to the center of the room? With Bonana, everything bled into every channel, with this I was taking a different approach.

Brightness: If you want this track to have more brightness than TGB, then OK. It’s an artistic choice.

Bleed-in: It sounds good as is.

Bring stuff out into center: Depends on your artistic choice.

I will listen to the new snippet later today.

 

[AYanguas]

Listening to the second snippet. The first one too boomy.

For my taste, the drums are low. As the sax is so bright, and I have good enough volume at the Sides (it hurts me such high freq), I have to lower the master volume. Then the drums are low for me, and dissapear a little.

 

[ar surround]

After listening to both of these a few times, I got used to both of them. Test 2 comes across as very loud, about 2 dB louder than Test 1. So I equalized the volumes. After equalizing the volumes, I determined that I really don't have a preference for one over the other, especially given that this is new prototype music with no earlier reference recording.

(I already commented on the brightness compared to the TGB, and you noted that it was intentional.)

 

[Mr. Afternoon]

I have multiple people saying the drums are low, I'll tweak the drums and post a new snippet.
Sorry about the change in loudness. I'll restore some dynamic range. I was seeing how it would affect the gel-ing of instruments.

 

[jimfisheye]

I'd back off on the brightness on the sax (dynamix eq approach on the bitey area if it's recorded that way) and bring in drum detail. Perhaps there's some percussion or drum kit elements that could wrap around?

I still don't know how to coax 5.1 out of Youtube in a browser... Is there a Firefox addon? Hope it doesn't involve the C-word one. Google searches keep trying to sell me an Apple TV. I don't want one. But 5.1 from Youtube - even if stepped on - sounds amusing. Is this more copy protection gone wild crap I've stumbled into again?

 

[Mr. Afternoon]

I'd back off on the brightness on the sax (dynamix eq approach on the bitey area if it's recorded that way) and bring in drum detail. Perhaps there's some percussion or drum kit elements that could wrap around?

I still don't know how to coax 5.1 out of Youtube in a browser... Is there a Firefox addon? Hope it doesn't involve the C-word one. Google searches keep trying to sell me an Apple TV. I don't want one. But 5.1 from Youtube - even if stepped on - sounds amusing. Is this more copy protection gone wild crap I've stumbled into again?

Looks like it only works on stuff like the Apple TV, which I didn't realize, hence the FLAC posting.
I'm surprised I'm having complaints about the brightness of the sax. Both visually (spectrogram), and to my ears, it sounds fine. May I ask what tuning your systems have? I've tried it on both V-curve and flat-tuned systems.

 

[jimfisheye]

Strictly flat. Aim is to hear any recording as intended. Pretty well dampened room too. My mixing and mastering room.

Disagreement with my bright comment doesn't shock me. I can see that being intentionally in your face. I've heard brighter too. The juxtaposition of the forward bright sax with the subdued and room heavy sounding drums called attention to me.

Take that for good, bad, or out to lunch, as you please!

Is that seriously Youtube doing an Apple hardware-only thing?! Christ on a freezer pop is there anything that isn't a grift nowadays?! So... how do you work around that and grab the audio in a browser? Is there some whitelist file to edit again? Perhaps someone made a friendly script? Sorry for the digression there!

 

[Mr. Afternoon]

Strictly flat. Aim is to hear any recording as intended. Pretty well dampened room too. My mixing and mastering room.

Disagreement with my bright comment doesn't shock me. I can see that being intentionally in your face. I've heard brighter too. The juxtaposition of the forward bright sax with the subdued and room heavy sounding drums called attention to me.

Take that for good, bad, or out to lunch, as you please!

Is that seriously Youtube doing an Apple hardware-only thing?! Christ on a freezer pop is there anything that isn't a grift nowadays?! So... how do you work around that and grab the audio in a browser? Is there some whitelist file to edit again? Perhaps someone made a friendly script? Sorry for the digression there!

I think it's a streaming stick/Apple TV thing only, which I didn't know. You CAN download the file off of YouTube with the 5.1 audio intact, but no native desktop streaming apparently.

 

[Mr. Afternoon]

Also I would like thoughts about the fidelity compared to Bonana, if you don't mind.

 

[Mr. Afternoon]

The juxtaposition of the forward bright sax with the subdued and room heavy sounding drums called attention to me.

Ah, that's intentional, thematically.