Hey everyone,
This is my mix for this crazy catchy song.
Had problams downloading the tuned vocals so had to tune them manually.
It was really hard to find the right FX for the vocals, and the right balance for the accoustic and electric guitars.
Had to play with the comprassion for the guitars and drums to create power through the build-up of the song,
and to change the balance between the bass and the guitars as well.
It was really fun working on this one. Many Thanks to the band and BOZ for the opportunity to practice mixing.
Please leave your vote and comments
Cheers. Asaf.
I had to listen a few times to decide what to say.
My takecis tonalky things are ok except for the bass it lacks definition and lacks bite.
The high hat has the pronounced stick noise and mask the true tone of the hats. (I struggled with that myself)
That stick sound upset the balance of the drums.
Good mix, really solid effort and nice work on the balance. You got it spot onā¦love the vocalā¦only issue for me was the somewhatā¦flat bassā¦apart from thatā¦ACE!
Listening to this on headphones, sounds good, mind you Iāve heard this song too any times now but the sounds are nice and pleasant, it could stand to have a little bit more drive if you wanted to. The suggestions I have are:
The snare is a bit too hot, it competes with the vocals, if you bring it down a few dbās it will still drive the song.
The bass needs more definition in the high end, a few db at 6k with a wide Q would add a bit more snap and rythmic presence to the track and the guitars could use a small bump at 100hz to get them to mesh a little more with the bass and a little bit of 25 and 500 hz for a bit more meat and growl.
Thereās still a couple of places where the vocals arenāt fully in tune.
The little thing you did with the ending feed back is gold, wish I would have thought of it
I think your guitars, vocals, and sometimes snare are very out front while other elements are low or pushed back. The vocal verb is pretty strong, which might be fine if the mix was more dense, but as it stands the vocal is exposed with the thinner/subdued mix and a little too obvious IMO.
Kick and bass are a bit low, and therefore donāt tie in with the rhythm of the song and the guitars as well as they could.
That said, I think you got all of the sounds working pretty good. Just the levels and balance of the elements could be improved.
I like the feel of the mix kind of laid back. I took the same direction with my mix.
The overall sound of the guitars, bass and vocal sounds good.
nice delay throw at the end of the 1st verse. The vocals just seem to be out front a little not sure if itās a volume thing or maybe some EQing somewhere in that 2.5 range they just seem to be setting on top of the mix some. Also, vocal automation on the words (I never thought ) just to smooth things out needed .A little editing on the vocal and bgv vocal just to tighten them up some .The last things which was already mentioned the kic is lacking a little click to it and level. For some reason I feel the drums are lacking width.
Thanks everyone for the feedbacks and notes!
Because of you I noticed things I could get better and thereās nothing like trying a little help from friends to get better!
Thank you!
Stan_Halen&BunkerAudioPanama, I agree with everthing you two wrote!
Iām still learning how to set the drums to be āin your faceā but not too loud so they wonāt take focus from the vocals. I guess that the side-effect of that is that I set their volume too low and the vocals too highā¦
You guys have more technical tips?
Cheers.
Check my comment to Stan_Halen.
"focusing little on the volumes āper part and compareā could help polish this great mix you have going here."
Thanks for the advice and the kind words my friend!
Smashed sidechain compression on an AUX Bus helps a lot to get the smack and even out the drums while keeping the natural touch and feel through the original drum tracks. Be careful not to over-do the volume on this bus, we all tend to get carried away with the punch sometimes!
As a technical tip for riding the vocals or tracks, I would recommend using one of these for automation: Avid Artist Mix, Mackie Control Universal, Behringer B-Control which are 8 channels but if you are low on budget, you can look into the Presonus Fader Port or even a ādigitalā controller for pads or tablets like Pro Tools Control or DAW Remote HD.
Standard 100mm hardware units for the down to detail edits are always best but a pad/tablet version will help a lot more than a mouse when it comes to automation!
this one has the higher votes for what that means. comparing to a lot of others mixes, this one has a lot more dynamics(swinging of the needles). I also had to turn the volume knob up a lot to match most the other mixes.
the vocals and guitars are there, but the drums and bass seem back but that might be a key in getting better rating, because its not overcompressed and squashed?
interesting. seems like most mixes are 6-avg. and this got 7.
Nice entry. I do find that the vocals are too loud. When there is no vocals the balance of instruments is good. That vocal sounds good but it needs to be pulled back to allow the instruments to work with the vocals to create energy and movement. Thanks for sharing.
The first thing that caught my ear was that the snare appears to be flamming in the intro section from about 0:02 - 0:12ā¦ not sure whatās causing that, unless itās mis-triggering samples.
Overall, the vocals are too loud in the balance, so they tend to diminish some of the potential power of the mix. Sometimes, more dynamic control through compression &/or saturation &/or automation can help the vocal ānestā into the instruments while still retaining audibility and intelligibility.
As a result of the vocal level, the snare level is also out of proportion to the other parts of the drum kit. This tends to make the snare sound a bit disconnected from the other instruments to my ear.
One other thing I noticed is a slight sense of āboxinessā - a bit of a buildup in the 400-500hz region - possibly the guitars might be the main culprit there.
