The reason why I started mixing the song was because my producer (Harry) was taking a but too long to mix the song and was off ill that day. i thought that I would briefly mix the song and Harry would carry it on once he was available.

 

Here I will show you how I went,

From this

 

To this

 

 

Beginning-Harmonies

Beginning of song

First harmony

Raw

Mixed

Screenshots

I added compressor to make it all levelled  out and so that there wasn’t volume imbalance. I added echo instead of reverb as I believe it added a cool effect to the vocal.

Second harmony

Raw

Mixed

For this harmony I decided put the gain level on the EQ bit more up to make it sound more clearer and so that this harmony peaks out the most when all the harmonies are together. I also added compressor to make the volume levelled ad reverb so that the vocals go well together.

Third harmony

Raw

For this harmony I only added reverb as this harmony was going to be turn down a lot and I didn’t want a piercing high pitched note/sound. I realised after that I didn’t crop the noise at the beginning.

 

Mixed

 

For this harmony I only added reverb as this harmony was going to be turned down a lot so I didn’t want a piercing high pitched note/sound.

 

This is a screenshot of the automation and how I made the vocals fade into the song.

First verse & pre-chorus

Raw

Mixed

As shown on the screen shot I added compressor to control the dynamics. I added reverb, EQ and  raised the gain level up so the vocals would sound brighter.

For the main vocal I tried to eliminate the part where you can hear me taking a breathe before singing. I also levelled out one of the harmonies and turned the louder one down.

1 verse, backing vocals & harmonies – Mixed

This is what the full vocals sound like with the backing vocals to fill in the empty gaps.

This the first part of the pre-chorus

Raw

Mixed

These are the screenshots of my mixing, I added EQ, reverb and compressor like n the other audio.

Second part of pre-chorus

Raw

These are the two harmonies mixed together.

These are all the vocals including the main vocal, mixed together.

Main vocals with harmonies – chorus

The Chorus has the same mixing as the verse and pre-chorus as they are on the same audio track. For the backing vocals I copied and pasted the harmonies from the start of the song to add texture to the chorus.

Second verse

Raw

Mixed

The two harmonies mixed.

For the second verse & pre-chorus I  just mimicked the first verse with the harmonies and did the same mixing to it but added a slight more reverb on it . As seen on the screenshots  I had to copy and paste the main vocal to double it up as one of the audio was very dull and quiet and when I opened it on a new audio track it sounded brighter and Louder, I decided to leave them both as without one another they sounded very plain. I adjusted the gain level slightly more than before due to that problem

 

what I did wit the automation was, levelled out all of the harmonies and made them all the same volume but made sure that the main vocal was mostly heard.

Second chorus

The second verse is the same as the first one, It was copied and pasted.

Bridge

All vocals 

When I was in the studio I was stuck on this particular part of the song, I didn’t know what to record and what to do for the bridge part. So for the bridge I decided be slightly more creative and record more harmonies and some new melodies.

Raw

Mixed

I started will layering more harmonies to the previous harmonies I did that were at the beginning of the song. they are the same harmonies but an octave higher.

I then added a new melody to the harmonies. I mimicked this piano melody.

Vocals

Raw

Mixed

I sorted out the dynamics with the compressor and added echo to the vocals, I can’t remember why I added echo instead of reverb but it still ended sounding better than before mixing.

I then harmonised the last note of the vocals which is a third higher, as it was sounding a bit plain on its own.

Mixed

I then mixed it the same way I did with all the other vocals. I selected compressor and reverb and raised the gain level.

Vocals together

Main vocal

Raw

I somehow bounced a small part of the mixed version.

 

 

This vocal has the same mixing as the second verse as it has been recorded on the same audio track. the only thing that s different is the automation. I muted the part where I took a breath as you could really hear it.

Last chorus & Ending

For the final chorus I kept it the same as others and added some vocal in the background which sounded like this. I also extended it by adding another 4 bars.

Added vocal – mixed 

This vocal is played for the first 4 bars.

Another added melody

This melody is played at the last 4 bars of the chorus and ends the song.

The backing vocals to the ending

 

Full Song

The Quiet Things – Let Go

We also tried adding guitar where Bart (the promoter of our band) played. We decided not to use it as it didn’t sound good as it didn’t fit the sequence, we decided to leave the song as it is.

The Quiet Things – Let Go (Acoustic version)

I decided to mute the drums to make it an acoustic version. the reason I did that was to extend the EP.

Overall evaluation

Strengths 

I believe that I did well on harmonising and adding texture tho the song. Although the song has the same chorus throughout the whole song I tried my best to make the song entertaining by adding different harmonies and melodies in each section of the song and trying to make it sound slightly different each time. Although I was not meant to mix the song, I still ended up briefly mixing the song as Harry (the producer of the band) was meant to further mix it, and I believe I did well on mixing the vocals to make them sound brighter and sow a concept to the producer o what I want them to sound like and what vocals go where. when I was recording I was recording as much vocals as I could so that I would get the recording over and done with, then later on start mixing them and placing or deleting the vocals where I want them to be I the song and be more creative with it. This have more time for the producer to mix the songs. I believe that there is good timing in the sequence were everything is in time and everything is coordinating with each other for example, I mimicked the piano melody with my voice when adding texture to the song. I believe that the biggest strength was the actual performance when recording in the studio. I also tried adding the same reverb and compressor to the instrument tome that track sound more put together.

weaknesses 

I believe that the song could have improved a lot and be mixed and mastered a lot more better to get to a professional standard. what I could of improved on with composing was write more lyrics for example, the second chorus and the bridge. With mixing I believe I could of done better, If I was working on my own I believe I would of done better as I would research ways of mixing and different mixing techniques, bus as I knew that I still had Harry,i briefly mixed it to give him a head start. Because I was mixing the song through headphones I didn’t master the song well and it sounded different trough headphones than it did through speakers. When I played the song through the studio monitors I then realised that the track overall needs to be mastered a lot more. I realised that everything was too loud which could be because of the gain levels I mixed. I focused a lot on the vocals and the beat/piano got kind of lost behind all the vocals; I could of mastered the whole beat at the end and maybe turned everything down and turn the beat/pianos up. I realised that the main vocal for verse 1 sounds slightly more bassy (lower frequency) and the second verse was more brighter (higher frequency)  I also could of done better with the EQ and maybe explored different frequencies and what they mean, this could of eliminated that problem with the noticeable pitching differences.