inigo kennedy - vaudeville mixing

[Chizmata]

i dont know if you are familiar with this album, but id describe it as ambient techno. the mixing here is quite unusal, interesting and maybe questionable. i think he tries to create huuuuuge spaces with excessive reverb (usual dub is tame against this). the bass section often appears pretty quiet but the punchy transients' volume is mostly on par with the other carrying elements so notable rhythm is created, while the decay and sub are really low. highs tend to be super-loud (imo simply too loud sometimes, like the shakers on petrichor), which adds to the "background" feel of the more pushing elements.

what do you think about this mixing?

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=P ... wD6Ycgihx7

more rhythmical tracks start at #3. obviusly just youtube quality.

[Lost to the Void]

If you look back his body of work, Inigo`s focus has always been on the music and the art. He`s not the best "perfect mix engineer", sometimes his stuff is a little tilted and out of balance, it doesn't matter, the music always shines through.
This is definitely music to be played on a good system, it covers a wide frequency range. I don`t find the mixes that unusual or questionable at all. It`s all pretty well balanced.
The only times I think things are "off" is areas where I think a lot of producers have problems.
It`s where the transients are inconsistent across the frequency range of a track. Looser, woollier low end, with very tight, crisp top end, can create a separation in a track, pulling it apart from itself, rather than pulling together cohesively.
It`s also something quite difficult to fix in mastering. I have similar problems with my own music and hear it in a lot of other producers who get a bit more experimental with their use of texture.
Shakers on Petrichor sound fine. I think it is your monitoring man. I`ve spoken about this before when listening to your music.

But no, I don`t find this album, in mix terms, that unusual at all, I think it`s actually pretty consistent and together and Inigo has done a fine job overall. It`s a lovely crossover between techno and IDM.

[Chizmata]

i just figured that the headphones i used to listen to it didnt do it justice, it sounded way more normal on studio headphones. seems to be a thing just between this album and these headphones. theyre not good but other stuff loses way less on them. still an interesting album to talk about i think.

[Lost to the Void]

It's a great album.
Inigo makes wonderful music.

[Will Frances]

The only times I think things are "off" is areas where I think a lot of producers have problems.
It`s where the transients are inconsistent across the frequency range of a track. Looser, woollier low end, with very tight, crisp top end, can create a separation in a track, pulling it apart from itself, rather than pulling together cohesively.
It`s also something quite difficult to fix in mastering. I have similar problems with my own music and hear it in a lot of other producers who get a bit more experimental with their use of texture...

Forgive my ignorance here, but I'd like to understand how you can hear this its guess its via a combination of analysers, mastering kit and ear experience? What do you mean by inconsistent transients ? You mean their timing relationships up and down the spectrum ? Would you be able to post an example of this for some insight? I find this fascinating, having the ability to peer into a and mix make such informed judgments.

Thanks

[collide]

It's a great album.
Inigo makes wonderful music.

Agreed!

The album is great - deserves to be mentioned in the album thread.

[Lost to the Void]

No analysers just ears. Well, bloody good monitors and a treated room helps I suppose.
It's the curse of being a mastering engineer, you listen clinically. It comes from years and years of working analytically.
Part of mastering is dealing with dynamics so spotting inconsistencies with dynamics is just part of the job.

A good mix has a balance of frequencies across the spectrum, but it also has a balance of dynamics (and tone and texture) as well.

Fast crisp transients make things feel close to the speakers or the listener. Rounded or smeared transients can make things distant and push them out (if the smearing is in the stereo domain) to the sides.

When you have a concentration of fast snappy attacks in the top end of a track, and then a concentration of rounded or smeared transients in the low end (or vice versa), it makes the track sound disjointed, coming from different places in a way that is not natural to the ear.
Your ear expects the music to "appear" to come from the same area.

There is an inherent difference between low end bias sounds and high end bias sounds anyway, when it comes to dynamics, but when that becomes pushed too far, it can cause a mix to separate or sound uneven.

[Will Frances]

Thanks for the valuable insight.

[daunzila]

No analysers just ears. Well, bloody good monitors and a treated room helps I suppose.
It's the curse of being a mastering engineer, you listen clinically. It comes from years and years of working analytically.
Part of mastering is dealing with dynamics so spotting inconsistencies with dynamics is just part of the job.

A good mix has a balance of frequencies across the spectrum, but it also has a balance of dynamics (and tone and texture) as well.

Fast crisp transients make things feel close to the speakers or the listener. Rounded or smeared transients can make things distant and push them out (if the smearing is in the stereo domain) to the sides.

When you have a concentration of fast snappy attacks in the top end of a track, and then a concentration of rounded or smeared transients in the low end (or vice versa), it makes the track sound disjointed, coming from different places in a way that is not natural to the ear.
Your ear expects the music to "appear" to come from the same area.

There is an inherent difference between low end bias sounds and high end bias sounds anyway, when it comes to dynamics, but when that becomes pushed too far, it can cause a mix to separate or sound uneven.

Some nice advice here about the spatial aspect of the mix, im trying to improve that on my stuff, if you have time to share more thougths about that ill be really gratefull man