Here’s a song I did with my wife and a friend. This is the first mix - I haven’t slept on it yet, lol. Thoughts? I’m open to tweaking the production as well as the mix.
(First mix):
(With feedback):
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Very nice vibe. Overall quite a captivating concept on that one!
I’m not a fan of the percussion pushed that far back. I would autotune the flute. Not 100% though…be gentle. I like the organic feel of it not being perfect, but that was a tad too raw for me. I would also add some distortion to the flute.
I really like the dry vocal. Absolutely perfect for this style, and it makes it sound current and not dated. But to me its missing imaging and the early reflection effects. I know its supposed to be dry, but to me, that’s almost the wrong flavor of dry.
Excellent stuff! Beautiful vocal tone. Love the understated, rumbling rhythm.
Although I can clearly hear a fairly heavily pre-delayed reverb halo off to the left of the vocal, I think I agree with Jonathan about the vocal just needing a little ‘sauce’ to help it extend back into the mix and connect with the other elements a little more cohesively.
The only other thing I noticed were a few sour notes in the vocal harmony - on the word “re-unite” @ around 2:30, the harmony goes out on “unite”, and @ 2:34 on the word “finds”.
Apart from that - really enjoyable!
I would echo the others on the vocals especially since you have the flute so wet.
wow!
i love this.
its very Celtic and dark sounding, right up my street!
songwriting is excellent.
love the vocals and backing vocals.
love the percussion however i do feel there could be a bit more body to it, especially the bass drum or whatever it is.
you should check out a band called Wardruna if you not heard of them, they make progressive Norwegian ambient dark stuff. very viking themed. make loads of weird natural instruments. you`ll love it.
anyway back to the mix, it all sounds good but the percussion side needs to be slightly more up there for me , especially the beats, they are the heart and soul of this kind of music and they lack body.
awesome work though dude, really awesome skills!
love it
yep, i second that.
overall great vocals though!!!
Wow, great advice! I agree with everyone’s advice about the the mixdown I did - the vocal ambiance wasn’t quite there yes, the tuning of the whistle was too far off, and I’d gotten the harmony tuning wrong on those notes, percussion could be punchier, etc… thanks for the help! And the kind words as well. My second version is hopefully better than the first… it attempts to incorporate all the feedback + feedback from the performers.
Once I’d tuned the whistle, I realized that I was trying to mask it being off in pitch by making it super wet, so it’s dryer now, too.
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100x improved! Nice.
The bass strokes and tone strokes on the djembe sound fine, but the slaps don’t play well with that verb. Did you over/under the drum mics? What mic are you using on top, and where was it positioned? I can’t tell if the problem is because of the reverb or because of the source.
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i would remove the breath in sound on the flute player at 1:04, its too harsh and upclose on the mic to get away with it and takes the listener away from the soft ambient tone of the flute. as its pre note (obviously) you can just cut it out completely or if u want too leave it in for some reason just reduce its gain.
second mix is great as the percussion , especially the low drum gives it that rhythmic beat that wasnt well enough defined in the first mix and gives music of this genre its soul.
i`m really keen to see how this ends up mate.
love it
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and again at 1:19
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Reminds me very much of Steeleye Span… I too like the vocals, so leave them as they are please. I too detected some mistiming between 2.30 and 2.34, but I had to listen hard!
I also liked the percussion as it is, sat in it’s nice little pocket in the background, gently rumbling on.
I felt that the flute sounded a bit harsh/overpowering. Maybe an autotune is extreme but perhaps bring it down a dB or 2?
To put some finesse on the track perhaps you could consider putting some medieval strings into the mix?
All said, it was a damn good listen, and I preferred the first mix… well done all of you 
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Hey, I listened to the reviewed mix. Nice and authentic sounding song.
Here’s what came to my mind while listening:
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The vocals sound a bit harsh to my ear in the beginning, like there is too much compression or not enough de-essing, or both. This becomes less of an issue when the mix becomes fuller.
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Around 2:36 on the “cus” part in “vision finds new focus”, the lead vocals sing a C natural while the chord progression (and the melody sung by the other vocals just before) suggests an A major 7th chord there, which sound unpleasant to my ear.
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I like the percussion ending, I would have probably chosen to emphasize this as the song’s ending instead of leaving the trailing sounds fading out, to give more drama to the lyrics.
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Listening just to the second mix. I’m enjoying this! I also get a Steeleye Span vibe, kinda Sandy Denny meets @Emma 
Can’t say I have much to suggest bash-wise… sounding good to me. The only comment I have is that the file seems to be truncated, like the render didn’t get quite to the end of the actual sound.
Really fine vocal performances! Nice work.
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Dude! This is so awesome! I could easily imagine this getting used on a movie. Easily!
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@m24p
O yay… this is lovely m24… I’ve dived straight into version 2…
Gorgeous crystalline vocals and I’m loving how the drums fit and the lovely sparse strings. A sense of Loreena McKennitt… lovely modal harmonies and tasty bell sprinkles…
Trying to think of possible bash-things… nope… just really enjoyed this. Am listening through my infinty speakers and there is a magical vibe coming through…
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wow this is an epic track and it really really sounds great as is. I hope you wont mind if i be picky on commenting. 
Im listening to the third mix by the way
the issues im hearing first hand is on the vocals and flute.
when the vocals do the sustained vowels, there is some harsh frequencies around 2-3k. this also happens to me all the time especially when using a sm57 for vocals. I usually fix this by using a multi comp.
this 2k harshness is also present on the flutes.
percussion may also come more alive if you use some compression to let the tails out a bit. not too much to hear but just enough to be felt. (my reference to this is in the terminator soundtrack( the part where arnold comes out and those percussions come in.)
also a bit more reverb for the vocals.
Just my thoughts though and i hope this helps. Im also experimenting on ethnic and orchestral sounds for a soundtrack. I hope you could also help me with the track I just posted. cheers and thanks for letting us listen to this awesome track and recording.
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Having a listen to the new mix - wow that’s quite different! I’m hearing some distortion on the harmony vocals @ around 34 secs in that I can’t remember being in the original - you might want to look into that.
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Right, that’s one thing I wanted to mention too and I forgot: there’s some distortion at times. These vocals have plenty of hi-mids, which can easily sound harsh by nature so you might want to scoop a little bit there as well as addressing this distortion issue.
Great work, listened to the earlier mix, then the last one. Something was off to me rhythmically in the first version, where it almost sounded like the percussion had a swing to it that didn’t quite fit, but it’s locked in perfectly now. The voice is very nice, and it is always great to get an immediate feel when you first hear something.
The wind in the intro is a good idea, could be stretched and faded in a little longer to set the scene if you wanted to. Maybe add a ship’s bell in the distance slowly moving across the backdrop. Then again, the speakers I’m using are pretty bad at work, so there could be a lot going on that I won’t hear properly until I get home. Either way, you know it’s well done when it gives you imagery right off the bat.
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