The other guitar player from my band didnt show up to record today, so I thought I would give mixing this a try. Here’s what I have so far.
I am digging the vocal tone. I think maybe it could use some dessing in the first verse/intro. After that it seems good. I find the synth is a little harsh as well. Otherwise good stuff going on there.
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Cool, I can fix that.
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Hey man. Sounds great on a laptop so far! Really nice work! 
That snare is obnoxiously loud. Be careful with the high frequency distribution on the snare and rooms. It can cause the drums to distract the listener from the vocals.
I would also see if you can get those tambourine hits so the bleed isn’t rattling all over the place.
Those were the first things that stood out, but this is a really really good submission so far. Make sure the cymbals when the drums crash in on the pre-choruses.
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Awesome, thanks! I will work on that as well. I’m a little confused what you mean about the cymbals though. Make sure they what?
??? I swear I typed this. I blame it on the server lol.
Make sure the cymbals don’t get brittle. Watch out for the sustain becoming harsh and abrasive. You still want them to ring, but you want the splatter from the cymbal hit to be smooth, warm, and even…with the perfect balance of body, brightness, heaviness, and shimmer.
I had a hard time dialing the overheads to where the cymbals worked harmoniously with the snare. Its a real challenge in this mix.
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Just listened again with fresh ears on my studio system.
Can’t really fault much with the EQ and balances. I think this mix is very nice. Didn’t notice that weird 5k/8k brittleness in the cymbals that I did on the laptop yesterday.
I might consider doing some more automation in random places, but there’s not much I can add to this other than looking out for potential translation issues. Again, very very nice.
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Thanks guys. Ok, I de essed the vocals a little more, and slightly de harshed the synth and the cymbals and brought the obnoxious snare down a couple dbs. Pretty subtle stuff I did, so its possibly it wasn’t enough, or too much… This is the point in a mix where I usually start ruining things lol.
Checked on the laptop… brittleness is gone. Since I didn’t hear it on the big system it probably wasn’t a bit issue, but I think those helped. Most of everything else is the same…right?
Haha…hope that didn’t come across the wrong way…wasn’t saying your mix was obnoxious, just that the snare was hogging the spotlight from the vocal lol. It made a pretty noticeable improvement…Don’t you think it fits better?
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Yeah, everything should be pretty much the same, I mainly just tweaked the overheads, snare and synth.
Lol, that’s snare was obnoxious lol. It was one of the last things I was messing with when I finished the first mix, and I turned it up too loud. I agree it needed to come down.
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Yeah man that seems to be on the right track. Nicely done
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I messed with it a little more, I think this one will be my submission though.
Listened to most recent version… sounds great! Really nice snap on the snare and the kit sounds really good in general. Enjoying the guitar balance too. Personally speaking, I would like the synth to have a bit more depth, but I think it sounds fine as is. Love the nice growl to the bass tone, but is it a bit aggressive for this style of music? I dunno… I still like it! Overall sounds really good… thanks for sharing!
Generally speaking though I wish there was a de-tambourine-izer plugin, but we’re all stuck with it.
Cheers!
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How would I go about adding depth to the synth? Reverb or something? I have no problem making things wide, but I’m a little unsure about depth. I’m pretty happy with the bass tone, but if I tweak this mix again I might mess with it.
Yeah that tambourine is quite annoying! Right in the overheads. I thought about automating that section down, but then I’d be turning down the rest of the overheads as well, which actually might not matter because the tambourine is drowning everything else out anyway.
For me, it’s just some low mid boost, or just lowering where the high-pass filter is (if that’s what you’re using to thin out the low end)… give it a bit more “balls” if you will. Then make sure it’s not stepping on the toes of something else in that frequency range. Sometimes on those kinds of synth sounds, if you high-pass them a bit too high they lose that depth and can start to sound shrill. That being said, I don’t think yours sounded shrill!
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I’m listening to the 3rd version in Post #12. I think it’s sounding pretty good. I like that big crescendo at 1:25, it sounds like you really played that up well. Nice wideness in your mix. I had to work with that synth too, it sounded thin to me. I beefed my up a bit I hope, just trying things until it sounded better and more substantial.
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I like it toned down too (mk iii is best). The only thing that feels slightly unnatural is the stereo delay on the guitar at the start/ intro. I would mono that down and pan leftish to give greater impact later. The rest is pretty well balanced. great job, nice width.
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Thanks. It’s too late to change anything now, I already entered it. The final version is a little louder than what I had here, but no drastic changes.
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Damn, my final version would’ve been a tad quieter than where I first mix it, lol… I hate the loudness bug, it just fools you into stuff. Anyway, I thought your mix was quite big in an eq sense (like it was already mastered) but still sounded cool… so best of luck. 
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I didn’t make it crazy loud, but after comparing it to the other mixes mine was the quietest, so I made it a little louder, still not as loud as I usually go for, but this song is kind of mellower and I thought it should keep some dynamics.
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