Vocals & guitars - Ian Rushton
Bass - Shayne Williams
Drums - Michael Barker
Keyboards, production and mix - Eddie Rayner
Recorded at Roundhead Studios
Auckland, New Zealand
No Ordinary Day
This is no ordinary day
Save for one that may define
The chances, and the choices you will make
For the rest of your life
The road is lying here before you
Unfolding to your future now
Heed the signs
Your brand new destination
And it’s been a real hard day
Don’t imagine that anyone can do this for you
Don’t believe that anyone will hold you back
Don’t imagine that somebody could try and do this for you
This is no ordinary day
Don’t you analyse and don’t look back
The pages fall, the story you…
This man standing here right now
Who never found this life so easy
You’ve woken and now you’re on your way
Know life is tentative and precious
One you’d never even thought of
And it’s been a real hard day
Don’t imagine that anyone can do this for you
Don’t believe that anyone will hold you back
Don’t imagine that somebody could try and do this for you
This is no ordinary day
Don’t imagine that anyone can do this for you
Don’t believe that anyone will hold you back
Don’t imagine that anyone can do this for you
Don’t believe that anyone will hold you back
Don’t imagine that somebody could try and do this for you
This is no ordinary day
Don’t know about this one Ian.
I was listening under cans at low volume to other tracks
and when I played this one my ears were blown out,
couldn’t reach the volume knob fast enough and saw my
VUs peaking somewhere beyond Jupiter.
Has this file been accidentally double mastered?
It is very distorted and squashed.
Hmmm… thats interesting… burnt a CD for the car and it sounds OK - more or less consistent with the rest, BUT I know originally the first mix of this one was running real hot (-9dB 
) - but we went back into the mix and pulled it back down. I later then did a quasi-master of all the tracks for CD. I wonder if this is the original super-hot mix which I did upload at the time?? Better check that…
Doesn’t help that this is one of those poor-sounding Bandcamp MP3 streams either I don’t know why their encoding is so inconsistent. I have some tracks that sound fine, others have very obvious artifacts. This is one of them.
Anyway, just uploaded the mix I’m listening too here on CD. Visually, comparing the waveforms I can see this is on a par with the others. I did ‘master’ them all a little hotter than usual though (-11dB RMS) which I know is Ed’s usual target. So, if it still sounds uber-crushed and distorted it must be a Bandcamp issue! 
Also put it up on Soundclick, their stream sounds much better:
http://soundclick.com/share.cfm?id=11231185
That’s better, the molten lava mix rather than the thermite one. 
Enough with the metaphors already! Sheeesh!
Just listened to the Bandcamp stream… UN-farking-believably bad !! well, compared to SC anyway…
That’s interesting. The Bandcamp is definitely hotter than the Soundclick, like it has some sort of auto master function. Hadn’t noticed that before. Anyway, the “hot” comment could be due to the fact that the chorus is “turned up to 11” and just stays there. I think it’s the instruments turned up to 11, not so much squashing of the mix. Was wondering what you observed about Eddie Raynor’s mixing that you’re going to try to adopt in your own?
Sounds OK Ian, that wood block thing in the background is a bit annoying but overall, good stuff
Cheers
Phil
I find it unfortunate really that while Bandcamp requires you to upload a lossless file (FLAC or WAV) they then provide such a poor quality stream…sometimes. Actually, for some odd reason I thought the SC stream was sounding worse today too. Maybe I’m finally losing it… - assuming of course I had ‘it’ in the first place that is!
Was wondering what you observed about Eddie Raynor’s mixing that you’re going to try to adopt in your own
Ed did most of the mixing in isolation. He hates working with someone looking over his shoulder! I do too actually.
One thing I did observe once though was the way he split the vocal across across 2 or more tracks. I guess it depends on the song, but I know there’s a harsh 3.5kHz peak in my voice for example when I sing in a higher register. Sections of the vocal that are sung in that range are on a different track with correspondingly different treatment. I guess that’s just easier and more practical than trying to automate EQ’s etc etc. He used a fair amount of doubling too (from different takes) - something that I’d never really bothered with. With these mixes the FX on the vocal are more generous than I usually use, and I think delays are used in preference to reverbs, though I suspect with some mixes both are present. One thing I’d like to be able to achieve though is the overall warmth and soft/smoothness that these mixes have. They sound more analog and less ‘digital’ than my own mixes do. That may be difficult though as I suspect its due to a number of factors (live instruments, gear, plugins, expertise) most of which might be beyond my reach!
Another thing that sets these apart from my own productions, quite aside from the mixes themselves, is of course the level off musicianship and the tasteful and experienced musical asthetic that has been applied generally, noticable in many little elements in the arrangements. Sometimes its quite subtle the things that have been done, things that would never occur to me. For example, certain phrases on some vocals have been deliberately nudged a fraction late - its a subtle feel thing but it makes a difference.
But mostly, its the choice of snares that makes the biggest difference!
Woodblock thing??
The Bnadcamp encoding is pretty warbly but the quality of the tune and mix still comes across. And, again, the snare sounds great!
Bro that sounds dope nice job on the mix respect;)
Cheers Doug. 
Interestingly I reckon MY Bandcamp streams sound worse than others?? Listening to Jet’s latest for example, it doesn’t nearly as bad as most of the stuff I’ve got up on BC. So, I’ve swapped the link over to Soundclick but notice even that doesn’t sound all that great
Cheers!
Hi Ian
I like this song and sounds good.
Just a couple of minor nits.
[/b]
The snare/woodblock/verby sound thingy in the verses can be a bit distracting to me.
From a mastering point of view I would like a bit mpre dynamic between verse and chorus. Instead of lifting, the vocal almost sinks back. Probably caused by the introduction of the distorted guitars. Rather than sounding louder the overall level perception is the same to my ears.
Like I say, just minor personal nits on a good piece of work.
Cheers
Sidestick blended with a tempo-sync’d motion patch from Crystal VSTi that I used in my original version. Later Michael plays guiro which coincidentally and very conveniently was played with the same rhythm as this patch. I actually really liked this part and the way its been mixed.
From a mastering point of view I would like a bit more dynamic between verse and chorus. Instead of lifting, the vocal almost sinks back. Probably caused by the introduction of the distorted guitars. Rather than sounding louder the overall level perception is the same to my ears.
Yeah, it is a pretty full mix throughout. I did a quasi-mastering job on all the mixes but as they were already at a decent level I didn’t really push them any harder. Actually the preview mix I originally heard of this one was sitting at -8.5dB RMS It still sounded pretty good though I could sense that ear-fatigue that I usually notice on commercial rock mixes these days. That Steve Slate FGX compressor can really crush things with remarkable transparency though!
The final mixes were of course supplied at a more manageable level, and my ‘mastered’ versions are all set at -11dB RMS, slightly more than the -12dB I usually aim for (but substantially less that the -8.5 to -9dB that many commercial mixes are mastered at! ). I don’t think my ‘mastering’ compromised the dynamics much if at all on this one as I think the original mix was pretty full-on anyway. I might take another look at it though.
Like I say, just minor personal nits on a good piece of work.