Hi all! Here’a pretty straight ahead mix of Why Wait’s “Personality.” I tightened up the drums, copied LVs to make doubles in the choruses… I copied some gtr stabs into the bridge, which I thought should be a solo of some sort. I also changed the ending a little… 
MIX-OFF ENTRY:
MIX 2 (with forum tweaks (thanks guys.) Better bottom, smoother acoustics, more focused lead vocal, etc.):
Mike K’s Mix 2 of Personality
0 voters
Nice - Sounding great! LOVE the ending - sweet!
Vocals and guitars sound excellent. Loving the guitar edits in the instrumental section before the last chorus.
Low end is well controlled and tight. I haven’t heard many mixes who have done that as well as you have.
I can’t put my finger on why, but for me the bass and kick could just gel a little more. The kick is sitting “on top of” the bass to my ear, but when they do hit together, they don’t seem to be acting as “one instrument”, which is my preference. I find sidechaining the bass to be ducked by the kick really helps with that, but I think this might be an eq thing…hard to tell from this POV. In any event, I’m being super picky
About the only other very small nits are:
The first round of guitar feedback is a bit overbearing, and doesn’t segue into the first verse as well as it could to my ear.
The acoustic guitars are a little on the “too pick attack-y” end of the spectrum. Maybe some fast attack compression or transient processing might have helped tuck those in a little.
All in all, this sounds sweet - very nicely done!
@ColdRoomStudio: Thanks for taking the time to listen!
Kick & bass: I’ll look at that. I think I had them better defined, but moved the hi-pass on the bass which probably made it too similar to the kick. Good ear(s)!
The feedback was supposed to be jarring, but maybe it shouldn’t have been! It hit me every time it went by, but I thought it was a good thing.
And genius idea on the acoustic guitars. I’m using Waves’ Eddie Kramer PIE compressor cuz I like the sound on acoustics, but it doesn’t have an attack knob. The transient designer (and maybe another look at the EQ) should do it though.
Excellent advice! I will steal it and make it my own. Just let me know where to send your royalty fees… 
Great mix, no doubt about it.
I like the role you’ve given to acoustic guitar. Maybe a bit too loud, but still great move.
I think the vox could have some more focus.
Very good overall sounding mix. Several interesting ideas in arrangements (I proceeded to my mix more straightforward and simple, more “punk”). In some parts I miss a little bit focus on vocal. Acoustic guitars now and then fights with (otherwise good sounding) snare. And maybe I could use little bit more level
/focus of bassguitar - especially in comparison with the kick.
But good work, Mike.
Alright man do i love that use of the guitar stabs that you have added. That is the kind of stuff that makes me excited and creates nice movement within the song. Cool ending as well. As far as suggestions: i would pull back on the acoustic all together and that is it i think this is a really good mix. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks Olli. I think the 16ths on the acoustics keep the track moving along, but I put a little zip (Pultec 12K, maybe 10) on the 2Buss at the last minute and it brought the acoustics forward a bit too much… Stupid, because I have separate MUSIC and VOCAL busses that I tweaked too…
What are you hearing on the vocals? Others mentioned this too. Are you talking about the choruses? I thought vocal doubles would give the choruses contrast, but maybe it’s too Pop for this kind of track? I’d love to hear your thoughts…
Thanks again!
Pyhos: Thanks! Yeah, I realized I never actually rode the vocals, which is kind of inexcusable… 
Agreed on the acoustics. Thanks again for taking your time; much appreciated.
redworks: Thanks. Yeah, I thought the bridge sounded unfinished, as though a solo should be in there. My kazoo is in the repair shop so I tried to make it a building jam… Agreed on the acoustics. Thanks again for your time and thoughts: much appreciated!
Oh yeah: I don’t see anyone else including links to their mixes. This is common in the few other forums I’ve been in, but I don’t see it here. (I now realize I should have been using the hyperlink function, which I will now do, so it doesn’t take up so much space…) Is including one’s own link frowned upon here? I think it just makes listening and commenting easier, but maybe I’m missing something… Thanks!
I don’t do it because the idea of the scoring system is that you are rewarded for commenting and helping each other out. So people will check out each of the mixes when and if they can. As is pointed out in this post. http://indierecordingdepot.com/t/how-to-win-a-prize-in-the-manic-mixoff-an-observation/ . That is how i see it anyway.
Sounds awesome! My favourite mix so far!
I like your arrangement!
IMHO a bit more bass and glueing more with kick could sound better.
Red: I guess I see your point, but I only put my link in posts of other mixes I’ve listened to and commented on… So I think I’m holding up my end of the bargain–and making it easy for others to improve their standing by returning the favor. So either I’m improving things–or being a jerk. I’m the new guy here, so I don’t want to step on any toes… Maybe one of the moderators will weigh in…
Thanks for your response, I really appreciate it.
I don’t think it is right or wrong just two different ways of doing it. So i say keep doing it as you are.
Thanks Sean. I put another mix at the link below (if you care. ) My kick was partially out of phase because of some heavy filtering I did on a parallel track. (I copied the original kick & filtered so it was only low end. It was fine when I started, but once I changed the filters, it was quite different.) Moral: check phase/polarity after adding parallel EQ! I tweaked the bass, acoustics, lead guitar and voices too, most of which was in response to the fine people at this site.
Thanks again! -Mike.
It makes sense to me, but what the hell do I know? Thanks for getting back to me.
Have a good (what’s left of the) weekend.
Hi Mike, I think there’s nothing wrong with vox as such, but the small problem that I’m referring to is that the band has more density than vox. As if the current vox is a (good) placeholder for the star who will join the session later. As your mix was very good, I know you could have easily fixed that kind of issue if you had spent 15 minutes more with this one.
But remember, I was just nitpicking. With most other mixes with that vox sound I would have said “excellent vox”
I listened your second mix (dropbox version), and I think the small adjustment what you made to vox was just perfect. And especially in choruses the more natural version sounds much better to my old retro ears. As if the vox is more mono and thereby more focused in center. Or am I just fooled by 1db change in volume?
Generally speaking it would be nice if one was allowed to change one’s mix until the deadline. At least I would be more motivated to give more detailed and hopefully helpful comments if the commented person had a possibility to make adjustments to her/his mix. Now I feel more like an afterwise pedantophile…
OlliH:
Very well said. This kind of “nitpicking” is the reason I join communities like this. Thank you.
I made a few changes in Mix 2, but for the vocal I finally rode it by boosting clip gain (I think Cubase calls it a Volume Envelope) 2 to 5 dB in parts. This is pre-processing, so it doesn’t raise the track that much, but the lower bits now hit the compression and effects more evenly… I’m sure you know this, but I wanted to show you you’re not the only pedantophile around here…
I know what you’re saying, but the real value here is to become better mixers, which the comments accomplish. Your tip about the vocal reminded me squeeze every bit out of the lead vocal. I take that lesson with me, contest or not. (Only one will “win” here…)
Anyway, thanks again for the chat!
Mike_K, pedantic philosopher.