As you know I have been recording a jazz/ fusion inspired band recently as a major project. I have decoded to analyse the reference track they have sent us. I am also going to delve into some of my references I am using specially for mixing that they have approved as well.
As this was a live recording I asked the band to give us a reference of a live band that they liked this mix and over all balance on. They picked a KEXP that I was familiar with and I agree is a very close representation of their style. I think that their is a few things in this live mxi that are a little. out of place but I shall talk about that later. We are also going to mix this in 5.1 surround. I shall be touching on this in this post as well even though the set isn't available to be played in 5.1 I have some ideas I'd like to share.
The instrumentation of this floating points KEXP live performance includes a guitarist, a keys player who plays two different synths through out the set, a bass player and drummer. This is a similar set up to Aubergine only instead of guitar they have a trumpet/flute player. However to concept regarding the song structures are similar. For instance in floating points they keys and guitar play the melodies at the same time. This is the same with Aubergine only they have their trumpet player. The guitarist in Floating points also adds a lot of strange and experimental textures to the band. Aubergine have a more clean cut style when is comes to experimentation. It is defiantly experimental but not to the point of Floating points. I find Aubergine to have a more easy listening set compared to this.
Okay lets have a look at some of these textures and tones in the Floating points set. The drums are something that we have worked hard to capture a good over all image while recording Aubergine. We picked some microphones based on this set. The hats and aymbasls in Floating points are very non offensive. They site quite far back in the mix and are a little washed out with reverb. There is defiantly a roll off on the hats to get rid of the high harsh tones that I generally like to leave into my over head drum sound. We used some small diaphragm DPA microphones to try and capture a more precise over head sound rather than large diaphragms like I usually would. This has paid off and given us a nice range of over head tone to work with that I feel we will be able to mix similarly to this mix if the band desires. The panning of the over heads in this mix is very straight fowl L and R. This is something we have replicated in our mix.
The snare is something that I don't really love about this KEXP mix for the first few songs. The over all tone is rather lo fi. There is little clickyness or any clarity and I find it sounding a little washed out. However I feel like the over all thickness of it works really well. I think that by using this as a reference for the over all resonance and level for Aubergine will work really well. However, by boosting some hight mid frequencies as well as the low end I think the over all vibe of this snare will be there. There will be some more a bit more clarity in the over all sound by now low passing the over all EQ however. I think this will suit the style more. After the first few songs I feel as is if the EQ is lifted in the KEXP mix and there is some more clarity. This is what I will use more as a reference for the mix.
The kick sits very solidly in this whole entire set. I feel like the drive is super important as there is a lot of dynamic range. This keeps the vibe going the whole set even when there is almost silence. there is a very little of the beater sound in the kick in this mix. I really like this as it is more subtle. There seems to sound as if there is a more sub frequencies as well as low mids. This sounds really great and blends well with the bass. The bass had arms grit to it that also differentiates it from the kick. I really like the tone of the bass in this mix however I think that the band want to keep it a little cleaner. I think that I shall try both then they have choose and potentially have the grungier bass for some songs and the nice smooth one for others. I think that the bass sounds a little bit over driven however the sound is warm. I could achieve this sound by sending the bass to an AUX and adding the distortion here then EQing out the very high and low frequencies. The bass sits relative to the kick most of the set and pops through when there is little bass riffs. I think there isn't a lot of compression on this allowing the dynamics to flow through the song and the little bass inflections to stand out naturally. This makes sense for a live mix and is something I will consider when mixing Aubergine.
The Keys have been DI'd in this mix like we did for Aubergine. The effects appear to be happening in the keyboard now added after the recording. This is something we noticed before recording Aubergine and decided to allow Oli the Keys player to create the effects he wanted as he went. I think this worked well in terms of mixing. There are many different sounds that are sued through out this set and I can imagine that for this recording they maybe just compressed them and left them pretty raw with no added effects. I think that for our set we may use some EQ but would have to slept the tracks up the EQ them separately or automate the EQ. Both these are options we will play around with. If we decided to use some analogue EQ and compression we will have the split the tracks up but if we decide to use a DAW then we can automate it. Something I noticed in the KEXP mix is that there is some really cool panning going on with the keys. I am not sure if this was done in really time before editing but it worked really well. We need to extend our stereo feudal with Aubergine and I think that the keys tracks are a great place to do this. We can use this panning technique I can hear in the KEXP mix by panning L to R slowly and specifically through out the set. We can also use EQ on the L and R channels to create a difference between the stereo channels.
Something I notice about the over all stereo image of this set is that is is rather mono at times. The main things that are stick out to me are the over heads and the keys being panned and automated through out the set. They also use the guitar panned to the left sometimes and the keys to the right when they are playing the same melody. The hat is panned to to the left most of the set as well. This worked well with this visual element which is something we need to consider as well. As this is an audio and visual experience we ned it to make sense panning wise. The set was drums and Trumpet on the L and Bass and keys on the R. I don't think that we ned to go too hard on the panning but making subtle decisions regarding the keys and Trumpet especially will make a big difference to our stereo image. This worked really well for the KEXP mix and has defiantly inspired me to replicate it for the over all experience of our project.
I haven used a different reference track for the trumpet tones. As floating points is a great over all reference I needed something more specific for the trumpet. I found this tiny desk I thought would be a cool reference for the trumpet style. We don't want to mess around with the origin sound too much as I don't want to take out the natural resonance of the coronet sound. I think that this is good starting point for a reference but is defiantly not perfect as there are added things we need to consider such as the effects that are on the trumpet we recorded. I think this is a good place tor start regarding levels and features. Such s when the player has a solo or plays a melody it is much louder than when blending in more with the band. This band also has flute that I think makes a good reference regarding levels for us also. As far as the tone goes its hard as I was unable to find a flute played through an organ simulator example on the internet anywhere. Let alone the context in which we had to record it.
I think that after listening to these examples and really analysing some of the most important elements we are going to try and replicate I am confident in the stylistic and aesthetic choices I have made so far. I especially like the use of panning in these examples and will begin to work on this first when Mike and myself continue mixing Aubergine!
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