Saturday, April 30, 2022

Mei You Ru Guo by Fish Leong (cover song) -- but We Messed Up the Mix!

 

Hey guys, how have you been? We covered a song by Fish Leong, "Mei You Ru Guo." You may remember it if you have watched the Taiwanese drama, "My Queen." If you've never seen it, you should watch it, it's good!

We recorded the parts in two days and mixed it and posted it. Which leads me to the subject of today's post: Never do that!

Why? As it turned out, the mix levels were off. What sounded good that day turned out to be not so good. Why does this happen? Well, the problem with recording/mixing for an entire day is, after a while, your ears suffer from ear fatigue. Don't consider the song "finished" at the end of a long recording/mixing session. Put it aside. Come back to it after a day, or even two days. You want to listen to the mix with fresh ears.

The problem with our mix was that the lead vocals was too loud. Also, some of the other parts like the acoustic guitar and keyboards were too soft. It's funny how the levels sounded good to me at the end of the day, but the very next day, I realized that the levels were not correct. It's a rule I should always follow--always check the mix again the next day before you consider the mix to be finished--but I keep breaking this rule because I'm so impatient!

But don't be like me! Take your time! Let the mix "rest" and come back to it the next day.

Here is the song with the incorrect mix levels.


Mix levels need to be corrected


Can you hear it? So let that be a lesson for me. I don't have really good ears--I'm not one of those people who can really hear things like legendary mixers Bob Clearmountain or Chris Lord-Alge. I need to be pretty slow and methodical and not rush things, but it's hard for me because I'm impatient and just want to get things over with!