At first, I was going to bury the vocals a bit but then I decided that all they really needed was a little bit of love and a lot of compression to get all the nice, scrumptous details like the tremolo in the voice up front, then spent a few hours over a couple of days tweaking the drums. After that… I don’t know what happened, things have been busy lately
A week passed. Worked on the “wooo” till It “clicked”. Watched Outlander with the wife. Came back and gave it one last listen… and here it is!
Thank you to @Deviant, @OlliH and @Moa22 for your bashing, I tried to incorporate your suggestions in the final mix as best I could. If I had more time I’d go back and work on my gain staging, oh well.
It is nice having a community that you can get some great help with what you’re working on. :beerbang:
As for the mix rt of the low end has some problems with the kic and bass. They are fighting for space .The things to check would be there EQing and how much verb is on the kic. the verb check that you have the hi pass set start about 150 and adjust to taste just to limit the kic low end from clouding things up while you’re there check the hi end out also (low pass) if needed . For the Eqing you could buss the kic and bass to Span and check to see where some cutting or boosting needs to be done. There is a way to show both on the screen, but can’t remember tho. The guitars seem a little sizzling to me 3 to 4 k range.
Thanks for the shoutout! I’m glad that I could help in some way. I definitely hear an improvement in this mix compared to the one you submitted for bashing - great work. Let those thoughts bounce around in the back of your head when you’re doing your future mixes, and you’ll automatically turn out a more balanced product.
I am liking the mix overall. You did not bury the vocals in fact I think they are a little too far out front in the chorus especially. I also find that kick a touch heavy, I would cut back on the beater some and that would help it to sit in the mix better i think. Anyway those are my thoughts. Thanks for sharing.
Nice mix Damian! I like the drum sound you got, and the way you placed the vocals.
I’ll second @Jerze comments about the bass/kick relationship. The bass is rumbling away down there, but I think you could have cleared some space for both elements with a bit of eq. I also think the bass could use some boosting in the small-speaker-critical 800-900hz range.
One other thing that could have improved the mix is some automation on the rhythm guitars. For example, that section that starts @ 2:13 just sounds a little empty when the vocals stop. If you rode up the guitars significantly there, it would really help to carry some excitement through that section. Actually, when I want big guitars in a mix like this, I often sidechain the guitars to be ducked by the vocal. That helps maintain the balance between big guitars and vocal clarity all the way through the song. Even so, sometimes the guitars need a big shove forward at critical “excitement hinges” in the arrangement.
I think you have some interesting sounds and effects going on here. I felt that the cymbals are too high-passed or something, and seem really deep in reverb or some effect that causes them to sound a bit distant. A lot of reverb, I believe, pushes the drums and guitars back in the mix at times. The drums seem to lack some punch, and in some parts same for the guitars, but in others the guitars come out front and sound good. I did like the effect you did at 0:28 with one of the guitar parts coming out front while the rhythm guitar was pushed back - nice texture.
The vocal level was rather high for me at times, okay at others. It became a bit piercing, especially when standing more on it’s own because as I mentioned sometimes the drums and guitars seem pushed back in reverb. Also, the sibilance in the vocal stood out to me quite a bit. I think you could have taken a de-esser to that and perhaps also to the vocal reverb to reduce it.
