…So, after doing a quicky mix of this track on my Slate VSX headphone setup, I enjoyed the production so much, I thought I would move it back into my comfort zone and give it the “Full Deluxe” mix treatment on my studio monitors. I’m still far more comfortable mixing on them. Let me know what you think of the updated mix!
Oh, and in case anyone is curious… here is the video with the band’s release mix:
Sounds good. Certainly better than their pile of mud.There mix sounds pretty bad on my speakers
Yup the initial mix is crude. You did a great job cleaning this up for sure. Like the song a lot. Would be a blast to play.
Thanks Alan. I really liked the top end of the release mix, but from about 200hz down, it kind of descends into confusion. There is a lot of great tight interplay between the bass and kick, and a lot of fast kick drum work, but it is kind of lost in the release mix because of the lack of definition down there.
Yeah, I’m glad I got to finish the mix properly. I hate leaving things half-done. Cool song for sure!
Yep, comparing both mixes (original and yours) it sounds to me there is a decade in between: your mix has a 2000 flavour while the original mix has a '90 one, which is very suprising for this song.
And I don’t really know what to think about both mixes: on the original mix, drum sounds are very uncommon nowadays and vocals aren’t upfront that much.
Your mix really pushes guitars at the best place and I can hear them very easily, drums have a very produced sound (layering maybe) where they aren’t lost in the mix (as the original mix did on some parts).
The original mix sounds simpler to me 
At the end, it’s the artist’s choice and I really don’t know if your mix is better than the original mix.
I really like how you turned the song to be one of your mix with a very distinctive fingerprint.
A very nice work!!
That’s good to hear. I certainly don’t consider myself to be on the cutting edge of musical fashion, but you never want to be the guy who made a million dollars selling safari suits in 1971 who is still trying to flog them in 1987!
The drums have pretty much zero layering. There was quite a bit of hihat bleed in the snare top mic, and feeding that into the snare reverb would surely have gotten ugly… so I used a snare sample to feed the reverb only - that’s it! The actual sound of the drums is the actual drums.
My mix is a different take - I like my mix better, but that doesn’t really mean anything!
The only reason I mixed this was for practice to try out some techniques and gear. The song is from the Cambridge MT multi track library here:
https://www.cambridge-mt.com/ms/mtk/#AsWeAre
Thanks!
Your mix has a lot more punch, Andrew, and maybe that is partly because it is literally louder all around. That being said, your version probably does sound better on a playlist with more modern produced songs, and probably does sound better this loud mixed this way.
It does sound great on my Sony MDR-V6 headphones! The video sounded kinda wimpy.
I think the youtube version isnt balanced as well as yours. The instruments are a tad bit loud for me in the youtube version and the bass guitar has a lot of focus. I dont think it is muddy per say, just different.
Thanks Steve. YouTube turns down everything to around -14LUFs, regardless of what level the final mastered mix is. If you right click on the YouTube clip, you’ll see a panel that says “Stats for Nerds”. It says that the released mix was turned down to 71% of its original level (or by 3dB). That would mean the original mix was around -11LUFs. I can’t remember what level mine was at, but it was pretty loud - maybe -8LUFs… So the perceived “wimpy-ness” of the released mix might be somewhat lessened if you equalised the LUFs levels on both mixes.
Nonetheless, I’m glad you liked the mix! Thanks for giving it a listen and commenting.
Thanks Michelle. Yeah, I think you’re right. It is a professional sounding mix to my ears. I don’t think it is muddy per se either, but I do think it doesn’t make the most of production in terms of the definition in the low end, and the intricate interplay between the double-kick passages and the bass. Admittedly, that is probably not a big concern for the average listener, though. I felt that was one aspect of the production that deserved a little more love.
To my ears theres defnitly some nasty low mids in here .And their mix is terrable sounding