I'm not really the greatest when it comes to mixing but I was wondering if I could get some feedback on this cover I just mixed! Please feel free to share your thoughts with it whether it be something you liked, something I can improve on, add, whatever~
Critique Requested 【UTAUカバー】 I can only Hear the Sound of Tears 【オウレ -DARK- VCV】
The vocal has a lot of high frequency resonances that sound pretty harsh in the 7k-14k area that you should EQ out with a few very aggressive narrow-Q bands at the offending frequencies (and then, if necessary, boost the highs with a wide-Q band or a high shelf to compensate, but be careful not to boost so much that you re-introduce the problem). You could also add some ~2k and cut out some ~1k to shape the tone of the voice to sound smoother and more up front. I also recommend adding a very short reverb to the vocal to emulate the room reflections you would get when recording a real singer, which makes the vocal sound a lot more natural and convincing. I also think the vocal could use some more compression with a relatively fast attack and release, because right now some of the transients are louder than they should but some of the sustaining notes aren't loud enough.
Thanks for the feedback! I'm still really new when it comes to mixing so I don't know how to fix stuff like frequency resonance ^^;
I think I'll probably try and fix the mixing when I do a YT upload for this
I didn't bother to compress the vocals actually cause I didn't want them to be too loud and my headphones aren't the greatest so it's hard to tell if the vocals or music is too loud
But since you mentioned it I'll try to fix that issue
You can fix the resonance issue pretty easily by just taking an EQ plugin, making a super loud boost (like +18 dB ) with a very narrow Q and then changing its frequency until you can hear it really amplifying the problem, and when it's at that frequency, you turn it into a cut instead. Keep in mind that everything sounds pretty stupid when you're boosting it by +18 dB with a very narrow Q, so you're just looking for the things that stand out as particularly bad. Here's a video demonstrating the technique (he's doing it on Pro Tools but you can apply the same technique to any digital audio workstation and any EQ plugin):
You shouldn't think of compression as a tool for making things louder, you can always turn the volume down later if the compressor plugin adds too much volume. Compression just helps you get the dynamics under control so that the volume stays at a more consistent level, which actually makes it easier to get a nice balance between the different elements. Without compression, very dynamic elements like vocals can easily be sometimes too loud and sometimes too quiet at the same time, like you have here, so compression prevents that from happening.
It's a good idea to find some professionally produced song in the same genre that you think sounds good, and then directly compare your mix with that back to back. That way it's pretty easy to tell whether your vocals are too quiet or too loud and you can adjust the levels accordingly until it sounds more or less the same as the pro mix. This is especially useful if your listening equipment isn't very good because it's hard to tell if it sounds good or not on low quality equipment, but it's still pretty easy to tell if it sounds the same or not, and you can usually be pretty confident that if it sounds the same as a pro mix on your system, it'll probably sound pretty good on most systems.
Ah thanks for the video! I'll have to check this out sometime~
And yeah that's true, I have used compression before but like I said sometimes I worry about whether one thing is too loud. But that shouldn't stop me from using it because like you said it can help get consistent dynamics owo
I'll try and do that more often and compare my own mixing to how others do theirs. It'll probably help me out in the long run heh
Mixing isn't really my forte so there's a lot of stuff that I'm still in the dark about, even with music making so I really appreciate the feedback on what to do and how I can improve it!
I think the peaking problem with some of the long held out notes is from the voice itself, cause I hear it in engine. I'm not sure what's causing that cause other held out notes sound fine... I'm thinking it might be the vibrato that's causing it but i'm not sure