Overall, this week I have focussed a lot on mixing and improving the song’s mood and atmosphere. I did this by working with more effects, sends and types of automation to create movement and interest. Using different things like EQ has helped to improve the overall quality and brightness of the song as I have made the flute and many other instruments brighter, and combining this with automation proves for a well-driven and flowing song which keeps the listener interested the whole way through. However, I still need to work a little bit on mixing and get some feedback on my progress, and then I need to move to mastering after as I don’t have long left until the deadline, but I am confident that I can get it ready for then.
Progressions And Strengths
One of the main things that has changed with the song this week is the break and the flute solo. I made mainly creative decisions on the break, adding a low pass filter as a send and putting the instruments through that to make the break feel more interesting and to give it more movement. I did this by automating the send so it comes into action at the start of the break and turns off at the end of the break; all of the instruments go through this send to make the drop back into the final section more powerful. One of the most noticeable changes here is the flute; it has a massive dip in frequency and is slowly brought back up, and I accomplished this by giving the solo its own low pass filter and automating the 8th band so it comes back up over time.
As well as working a lot on the break’s structure, I then went to mixing the flute together as a whole; I mentioned this in my evaluation last week. I then put an EQ on all of the flute tracks (rolling off the bottom end and upping the mids and some highs for brightness and presence, then cut the frequencies at around 5k as you can get a lot of unwanted ambience like breathing and tapping of the tone holes). I used compression on the main melodic flute and added a sidechain to the drum output so it sounds more bouncy and audibly interesting rather than just holding on one note. Here you can see the automation of the low pass filter and the EQ I used on the flute solo. As well as this, I automated the vinyl plugin to increase the wear of the sound closer to the end of the song, and to use the spindown effect at the end too. It also has an autopan for the final solo and a delay for the very end of the song.
To make the song sound more dynamically interesting, I used automation to dip the volume of some instruments in and out, depending on what else is playing in the song. For example, I chose to lower the volume of the drums and percussion during the break, and just the drums during the verses. I then bring the volume up for the choruses and it gradually fades out along with the other instruments near the end. I made the chord stabs louder for the verses, and the final flute solo is a lot quieter than the solo during the break. When I bring the volume of instruments down, I also automate the wetness of the reverb as well. Having more reverb when things become quieter brings depth to your track and makes the sound seem more distant than it actually is.
Improvements
I would say the song is 90% mixed, I just need a tutor to give me some feedback on it so I know what to change and what to keep the same. For example, I know need to work on compressing certain instruments. I could perhaps do some improvements on volume balancing to make sure no channel overshadows the other accidentaly. Listening in the control room with the monitor speakers will help the mix a lot so I plan to get a lot in there for both mixing and mastering. The mixing next week will mostly be correctional but if I think of any creative ideas during this I will most definately try it out. I also want to improve the stereo field by making more use of panning and using more stereo wideners on main melody lines like the flute.
Next week, I need to master the track after finishing the mixing process and then put it on Distrokid as soon as I can. I now have the plugin that Lewis used to master my other track this week, so I want to have a little bit more control over the mastering process this time as with my other song, I just sat back and learnt. Mastering the track on my laptop will also save time as we won’t have to transfer files back and forth. I don’t feel confident mastering yet and would need someone to help out but I think being more practical with learning this will help a lot as I can get more of an idea about how to master using the plugin, compared to just letting someone else tell me what they are doing. However, I can’t spend too long on mastering because I am wanting to get the song onto Distrokid the same day so it will hopefully be out by the 28th.
Targets For Next Week
-Finish the final mix of the track.
-Master the final mix.
-Get the song onto Distrokid as soon as I can.