While I still learn to use some hardware, here is another quick mix to keep practicing.
(it comes from Mike’s library)
Thanks for stopping by!
Interesting. it is thumping and rather dry. the whole thing feels very compressed to me except the electric guitars. Thanks for sharing. I would be interested to know if i am right about the compression.
It is dry, but I kind of like that. I like the treatment of the vocals. Really nice treatment of the bass. Only thing I do not care for is the strings in the beginning. The “line” is good and fits, but something a little “creamier” – a little wetter – would do wonders. It’s just too thin and harsh and has MIDI written all over it. Some kind of a string pad or warm pad with a smidge of verb. I like this dry but maybe a touch of verb to the vocals would bring it to the next level. Do that and you are GOLDEN with this.
@ncls, you played the bass on this? Very nicely done.
Thanks for your comment!
About the compress side, I try to reach low dynamic range (-11) and most of the work was coming from parallel comp and limiters on the master track.
The instrument who gets the most individual compression is the bass guitar that I tried to get consistant during the “song” (extract) without burying every thing else… is it working? I hope so…
Again, thanks for stopping by!
I think the song calls from contrasts (dry/wet, empty/full) and even with a slow tempo, some parts are a bit quick. So, to me, a long reverb is going to kill parts that get some.
I went for something short and closed just to add some color adding lengths to tracks.
I should say I don’t really know what to think about this one: the sound is a choice done on purpose to sound cheap, odd, mechanical (short notes for some string sounds) and I leave it like this except I found it harsh as well.
On the revised mix, I try to apply your suggestion, you tell me.
Nope, again, from the great Mike Senior’s huge bank of songs
Thanks again for taking the time commenting all those details, I do appreciate!
Here is a revised mix, ready for bashing!
is the whole mix sort of skewed slightly to the left ? Its not too apparent unless once fixated on it. Maybe a bit more panning to the right on some elements could help.
Vocals seemed great, the kick can use a bit more tightness.
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Just a quick listen on my MB Air to see how it transfers; FWIW, it transfers nicely to these ditsy little speakers. The vox might be a smidge loud. Dang, I love the sound on your bass. Would love to know what your plugin chain looks like there, and anything you’d like to share about your eq settings, etc.
THe guitars could come up a bit. Really, really hard to hear “on these ditsy little speakers.”
Oh, and I’m listening to your remix. I do like what you did on the vox. Nicely treated.
I’m not at my main computer, but before I go to bed I’ll give a listen there too.
Yeah, this is sounding good.
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Listening on my Sennheisers. Does sound good. I like the EQ on each of the tracks and they blend well.
I’d bring up the guitar, and drop the vox a tad. Nicely done, though.
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I like this - it sounds pretty good to me. Nice work!
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Hey, interesting little piece of song. Not much to say on the mix on my end, everything seems balanced. One comment though: the stereo image sound quite narrow. The drums, specifically, sound like they’re essentially mono.
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Great point, I opened the right tool for that at the beginning but closed it too quickly. I’d try to fix that.
Ok, I’ll have a look, thanks for your helpful comment!
Nice to know that, I only checked it on few systems I didn’t know how it sounded otherwise…
Ok then, the bass sound is actually two tracks: one synth muffled and a bit buzzy, with a hi pass filter at 70 Hz to give the kick drum some room, a fast comp sidechained by the kick, and a 1176 with 2 dB of gain reduction to keep it consistant.
The second track is the more obvious one which is a kinda clavinet sound on top of the previous track with no processing.
I’ll try to address those in the next revised mix below.
Again, many many thanks for your comment, I do appreciate!
Thanks for stopping by Mr “Certified Golden Ear”, it means a lot to me!
Hey, thanks for taking some time commenting this little extract.
I’ll try to fix this in the next mix… I would use some stereo process to address this, I don’t know if it works or not… 
So, here is the 3rd revision
Enjoy bashing 
By the way, I really would thank everyone for sharing your thoughts, it’s really helpful!
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revisions sounds real good. Great improvement over the original.
Stereo image is better and beats are tight! 
well done.
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Thanks for your feedback, it’s really helpful!
Nice. Thanks for this. Wow. I guess I need to learn to be more creative with my bass, cuz this is nice.
Thanks for your comment.
For this bass, the raw tracks are right without any processing, so there is little things to do.
And the comment coming from the library says:
Thus, it’s not so much “mixing”…
ncls,
Thank you for reviewing my songs! Now your song/mix. I listened to the first mix: it did sound dry, which did not seem to be a bad thing for a first listen. My first impression: I think the song works well, except the synth string thing doesn’t fit with the song, in my opinion, and I’m into synths. The vocals are kind of all over the place pitch-wise, but I like them overall. Then I listened to the third mix: I don’t know if I got used to the string synth part (the mix sounds a bit more wet; I think it works better than the first mix) but it sounds better. Seems hard to believe a little reverb would make that much difference; I think part of it was I just got more used to the string synths. Now I’m listening to the second mix. Back to the third mix again; I like it best overall. I like the wah-wah guitar in every mix. Maybe because I listened to the mixes several times, I got more used to the vocals. Perhaps the pitch (note-wise) is identical every time, but the vocals seem to have better pitch control with a little reverb on the mix.
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Many thanks for your very detailled reply.
For the synth string part, I admit I not very of that choice (like as cheapo mellotron sample or so ) but I goal was to mix the track whatever it is.
As everytime I mixed a song that’s not mine, I tried to understand what’s the purpose of each track. For this one, I think I would be part of the distinctive thing for that song (you gonna remember this one better than drums of bass) of to counterbalance something else (from my POV, I would say the main vocal). But with no hint.
Very interesting thought on the vocal tuning, I didn’t notice this…
Again, thanks for taking this time listening and commenting!