Hi guys! heres the updated mix in response to my last post. how’s it sounding on your systems? my deadline is on friday so i’d really appreciate any help i can get. thanks in advance 
sounds pretty good. Listened to on laptop speakers. I would be the least techie person on this site to give mixing advice lol
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thanks @Jon-Jon at least it sounded good on laptop speakers 
thats a major audio test actually
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Listening on headphones, will take a listen again when I get home, haven’t heard your first mix, here’s my feedback.
The drum intro is too long for me, it doesn’t really add anything to the song.
The ring modulation on the guitar is a little static, I would suggest adding a little bit of chorusing to smooth it out.
The guitars seem to be lost in the mix, what are you using for a reference mix? The track seems a little bass heavy for nu metal.
On first listen I got a little bit of a great discord vibe, theyre a bit more on the progressive side but I think the balance these recording strike would be a better fit for this song:
I’ll take another listen when I get home, the song is nice, I actually like it, I don’t think its very “metal” yet though.
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Thanks @tachin1 for the honest and in depth comments. I really appreciate it.
In terms of songwriting, my hands are tied because the song is not mine. Its from one of my clients.
the chorusing effect is a good Idea. I’ll definitely try it. the guitars were recorded “wet” with the ring mod but i think the chorus could still squeeze in. I’ll see what happens with some experimentation.
Thanks for having the time to review this.
If incase you review it on your mixing rig, here’s a newer mix. I think this one is more balanced. what do you think?
thanks again and cheers!!!
I still think the drums are way too dominant in the mix. They are just demanding way too much attention. It sounds like you are trying to make the drums both busy and loud, and that’s a really hard combination to do right.
Once the chorus kicks in, the drums blend a lot better, but before then, it sounds like the drums are supposed to be the focus of the song, and everything else is there just to support the drums. It should be the other way around.
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Hi Boz! thanks again for the review.
i have tried your suggestion and I posted the mix on the earlier thread. I think I was successful in getting the right level of the drums for the verses in that mix. but my biggest challenge was, when the chorus kicked in, the difference in dynamics was a bit big that it really exploded (not in a good way). I thought there was a lack of transition so the solution that i resorted to was restoring the level of the drums, but bringing up the guitars bass and vocals during the verses so when the chorus came in, there’s a smooth transition. That mix is what I just posted about 20 mins ago. That was the best solution I had at the moment haha. If you have any suggestions for another work around regarding the problem/s that I’ve encountere, I’d be glad to try em. I’m really desperate at the moment i would try anything haha. my deadline is on friday and its crunch time. thanks @bozmillar I really appreciate the time and effort you’ve given to help improve this mix. cheers!
I would try maybe automating the low end and maybe even the high end out of the drums during the verse. Give the drums somewhat of a lofi sound, but not so lofi that it sounds lofi, just enough to make it so that it’s not demanding so much attention. Or maybe bring down the close mics, especially on the snare.
The drums are just so up front and everything else is sitting behind them. Getting the drums to pop without dominating is a tough balance to find. Make sure you are listening to reference material. I’m often quite surprised about how quiet drums are in commercial recordings.
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wow thats a great idea. thanks. I’ll go at it right now.
I will, but I took a listen to it anyway and I do think it’s better balanced.
Hey nothing you can do about that, I get it. Maybe you can change the dynamics around to make it pop a bit more. The thing with the drums is that when the track starts, you hear the drums so clearly that when the rest of the instruments come in, the drums are now stuck in my brain as the focal point. The drum pattern is certainly very interesting but there’s little variation which is why it shouldn’t be the focal point of the music.
If I was working with this track I might try a few different things and hear how they sound:
Automate the drum volume and reverb, have the drums fade in with a lot of reverb and as the volume comes up, bring the reverb level down almost till it’s completely dry. Insert a beat of silence before the bass comes in. Have the drums come in at least 3 db below where they are now, bring them up to full volume on the chorus, they sound great on the chorus as is.
Do the old bit where you filter the drum intro to a very narrow band pass, something like 500hz to 1khz, that is nuke everything below 500hz and above 1khz, make the intro sound lo-fi like a telephone conversation, then have the song start normally for dramatic effect.
Change the reverb on the intro to a close room reverb sound with lots of early reflections, then open it up when the rest of the instruments come in.
That’s just a few ideas that might help change up the dynamics of the song so the drums don’t get boring quickly. Like I said, I think it’s a great song.
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Hey @tachin1 and @bozmillar @ColdRoomStudio here’s the updated mix. I’ve incorporated all your suggestions.
hows it sounding now?
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Sounds like a pretty good mix to me. I’m listening on headphones. The loud drums don’t bother me but I can understand where these guys are coming from with their comments.
This sounds more “Alernative” than “metal”…but I guess that’s just a matter of opinion.
The intro drums on your latest mix sound too thin and unappealing to me. Maybe you can get ad a little bit of the meat back into them but still contain the sound from being too big like they were in your earlier mixes. Just my opinion.
Ah, those drums sound much better. Now we can move onto the other stuff.
There’s an midrange bump on the vocals that resonates a lot that needs to be taken care of. If this was my mix, I’d wipe clean all the vocal EQ and start over. Figure out what problems the vocals have and take as few steps as possible to fix it.
Same with the clean guitars. There is a high midrange thingy going on that is pretty abrasive. You could get away with taking out a ton of high end away from those clean guitars, which would make room for the vocals to come through without needing so much EQ.
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Yes the drums are better, I agree with @bozmillar that there’s some weird frequencies in the vocals, I’d describe it as sibilance, but I’m not sure.
If this is suppossed to be metal then I would suggest that the bass, while it sits well in the mix, needs some high mids to make it more abrasive and the guitars need a little more growl, so a bump in the low mids and a little bit more distortion would make this more “metal”
Good improvement here. Great advice above about the vocals - I agree. I still think you could make the verse/chorus contrast more extreme. I would still like to hear the drums slightly smaller & “closer sounding” with less ambiance in the verses. Remember: You can’t have “loud” without “soft” to compare it to.
Perhaps some distortion on the bass for the chorus would help. As an example of that amp’d up intensity I’m imagining for this type of genre is this track: