9.19.19 - Still some things I need to change…worked on this for several hours. I know what needs to get fixed when I can change some things on it Monday, but if anyone wants to listen to it and take a guess what I’m gonna change, go ahead and take a shot!
I have to work this weekend…band is playing out of state, but if anyone wants to comment or ask anything I’ll be on the forum.
Edit:
Update 9.30.2019
Here’s version 2
good tension and sound to open. I am finding the kick drum to be a little to splatty and not boomy enough. It makes the track feel a little flat. Otherwise it is sounding good.
I love what you did with the synth and guitars, esp the guitars. Love the fullness of the guitar hits when they come in at 0:30. Very cool. Did you re-amp them at all? Or was that just EQ and compression?
The vox need editing. A lotta nasties going on in the original recording. I think that’s one of the toughest things in this mix.
Bring the bass up just a touch.
I agree with Eric, there’s something about the snare that doesn’t sound right to me, but I’m not good enough to know what that is.
There’s too much of a ring to it or something. Maybe it’s just too prominent/loud. I don’t notice it as much at 2:30+. Maybe just cuz the band is fuller there? Or did you do something different there with the snare? Kick sounds really nice to me.
You did a nice job isolating the drums from some of the background noise, esp the snare. I assume that was a gate. What gate did you use?
No. The only thing that’s re-amped is the tail of the bridge. I’ll write a quick run-down on what I used on everything in 10 days 
Yeah. Agree. On a project like this I typically wait until the mix is built up before doing fine-tune editing because sometimes you get the mix working then find the vocal is actually OK as is. But this one needs some work. I haven’t gotten to it yet. This is track needs a good 10 hours for a thorough mix.
I agree with both of those. The kick/bass relationships is huge for the overall sound of the drums. The last thing before running out of time I was fidgeting with was the snare volume. I was gonna fix it then re-run it but I HAD to get another project going before I had to leave town today. Definitely first priority when I get back in on Monday.
Nope! No gate lol. Believe it or not 
Love to listen but not in the studio for a week or so. Looking forward to hearing it!
How’s it sound on a laptop?
Man…these days I ALWAYS check on a regular MacBook. Believe it or not, I’ve found that feedback about how it translates overall is almost equally important as someone listening on hi quality reference monitors!
I have my iPad with me on travel along with a pair of Bose wireless so take that for what it is. I like the general feel of the mix, drier that what I do for live cuts but that is strictly an engineers choice and certainly fine. Snare has a lot of body, less bottom mic, again a choice that works. I am good with the vocal knowing the tracking could have been better. I am not a fan of the vocal mic in general, used them, did not care for them so I think people are only going to have so much success making it sound great. Over all a solid mix. I am interested to hear the final and especially in the studio on a good monitoring chain.
Hey Jonathan, I like the overall presentation of the sound and the band on stage.
I think it could use a little more detail-polishing, and maybe work on getting the vocal a little less muddy.
My personal preference would be for the soundstage to be a little wider.
Well. Here’s mix 2 (also added to the original post). Made revisions a/b-ing to Andrew’s rough mix. I left the snare a lot more natural and didn’t push as hard with the saturation. Also consciously didn’t mix it as bright. I have no idea where this stands in the contest right now, but its about all I can remember how to do lol. Unless anyone spots any huge problems with it, its probably pretty close to what I’ll end up submitting.
Added a ton of processing to the kick. If you get a chance, let me know if this is better!
It got a pretty good detail overhaul here. Vocal tuning, automation, added some FX…
I’m not really sure how lol. Maybe between this contest and the next one, I’ll spend some time experimenting with m/s processing. Last year I started to back off of it a bit when I realized I was throwing things out of phase trying to widen things too much.
…for some reason i was thinking today was the deadline. Since I just realized its not until the 12th, I’ll probably wait until tomorrow, give it a listen again, see if there’s any feedback then send it in
Sounding good. I like what you have done with the vocals. Drums are sounding good as well. Nicely done.
Sounds good Jonathan - only listening on crud speakers now, but the vocals are really noticeably much better. Have to have a listen at home.
Just had a listen on my studio speakers. Nice - a very warm, enveloping sound.
I’m hearing some slight muddiness/boominess in the vocal - more noticeable when it is exposed at the beginning of the song.
There is also a “whistle-tone” in that left hand crash cymbal. I think it’s around 8k. I don’t know if it bothers most people, but it was annoying the heck out of me so I automated eq to pull it out.
Ok listened just to the recent update so comments are based on that.
Really digging the balance overall. I like the vocal delay throws you put in there… puts a nice bit of “extra” into the mix. I like the synth treatment, fills the soundstage nicely. The vocals feel a bit dry for my tastes, and there’s some boomy plosives in the intro… I’m assuming they’re in the rest of the track too but they’re masked nicely by the low end stuff. I think you added some synth? I like!
Great listen though, I’m enjoying the extra delay stuff that’s in there along with the great balance of stuff!
Cheers!
Sounds good. I agree with what was said before about the vocal being boomy in spots, like right where it comes in at the beginning. I think it could also use some de essing. That delay thing you did is badass! I also agree with what coldroomstudio said about how it could be a little wider. I don’t think you would need to mess with mid side processing to do it either. I think I used Waves Reel ADT on the guitars and stuff in my mix just to make it sound a little wider.
Nope. Didn’t add a note. That’s all the original
Gotcha. I manually removed some of the boomy plosives, but I can turn the de-plosive up a notch (using the de-plosive plugin from Izotope). Easy to fix!! Thanks man
I used the Waves Xsplit and the Eventide Space. Hmmm. I can try ADT…Maybe Microshift? I dunno. Maybe I can go online and google how to mix wide guitars lol. Thanks a ton though for the pointers!!
What plugin is that? I’m not familiar with it. The esses and plosives on this one were nasty. I spent a ton of time editing manually. It’d be nice to automate that process.
Nice. I have the ADT and don’t actually use it that much. I’m not very good at making it sound good. I’ll have to try it on this song. I like the way it worked for you on the guitars.
https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/RXPost3--izotope-rx-post-production-suite-3
It scans the entire wave file and identifies the plosives. You can then go through and examine each plosive it identified then remove them, attenuate them, or have the AI create other wave forms in its place based on the information infront and behind the region it identifies as a plosive. Its pretty cool.
I use that plugin a lot for widening things. I think I just used the “2 guitars” preset on this one to make the guitars sound more doubled. I’d have to look but I’m pretty sure I used it on the vocals in parallel as well, blended in underneath just to give them a little width.
Really nice. It sounds quite good on my laptop. Band sounds full and well balanced. I really love how full the band sounds in when it comes in at 0:30 and 1:26. Love the vocal echo at 0:34 and 1:30. Nice touch. I was gonna do some of that with mine and forgot.
Vocal tone is quite good. Still needs some editing, especially in the beginning. Not just the plosives but there’s some whistling, nasty sibilance coming thru (e.g., 0:12), at least on my laptop. I’m eager to hear what the RX does. Fix that and you’re golden! Nice.
I just listened to my mix again on my laptop. I like my vocal tone but I have way too much air. Sounds great on my monitors and my Sennheisers, but on my laptop it’s pretty harsh. Yours is perfect. Nice job.
Ooh. Listening again, there’s a harsh spot in the vocals at 2:16 when he goes loud and high. Can’t tell if that’s distortion or clipping, but on the word “stree-eet” it hurts my ears. Anyway, nice, nice, nice, Jonathan. Very cool.
I see a few people posting in BTR for the contest. I did not realize that we could submit to BTR for comment prior to a contest.
Anyway, for the song… Feels really dry for a live off the floor mix. Don’t get me wrong, the mix sounds great but just almost no ambience from the room except at the end. But then again almost none of the mixes I have heard do.
Top to bottom balance is really nice. Bass sounds great which was a real pain (big clicks throughout). vocals sit nicely and the tone is spot on. Low end on my system is solid. I am fine with the kick sound, it sits well against the snare. mix doesn’t seem to have too much high end and my monitors are very revealing above 10K. All in all a really nice job.
I will say this, I really don’t find much to like about the mics they used for the vocals or room in the session.
