Spektakulatius: Wayfaring Stranger

[The_Metallurgist]

Comments

Niccccceeeeee mix JJ! i can "feel" the hard work you put into this!

and advice for improvement are welcomed!

i'll flag up a couple of observations, if it helps.

you've put some distortion on her vocal? it's not so obvious in the verses, but when she belts it out, something's not right. the recording engineer wobbled a bit later on, and there's some pretty nasty distortion occurring from the oversight, all be it briefly. but i do think that whatever processing you've applied, is also making this appear a lot worse. i'm familiar with the genre, and distortion is at the wrong end of the spectrum from what we should be seeking in this vocal? the distortion also appears to be encroaching on the reverb.

now, this reverb/delay on her vocal. you have to be REALLY careful, because all the instruments have a clear ambiance in their delivery which is telling us the nature of the room in which they are performing. if you drop something over her vocal (or over the mix as a whole, for that matter) which carries the ambiance of a different space, it's going to clash - the mother-in-law won't notice it though, at least not consciously. another problem, is the timing. the delay is fighting with the musicality of the instruments, firstly because it's not correlated. i think i'd aim at taking out the delay, or at least tucking the effect right in close to the vocal so it's not directly apparent? i fully understand your logic in wishing to achieve a degree of proximity between the vocalist with the listener, and adding a pre-delay is great at achieving this illusion. unfortunately though, it's causing issues from my perspective FWIW.

i'm on the cans and the piano is skewing the mix with a bias towards the left channel on the low end. yeah, i'm being fussy on that point, eh?

you've chosen to place the piano on the left and sax to the right? this means the drums are the wrong way around for the audience.....but this brings some other opportunities for us to embrace in our mix vision. laters..

this is a mighty project and takes some courage to have a crack at. you've done a great job, especially in handling the low-end and all its RT60 hangover in the mic's. this kick certainly takes some spanking. the consequence of all those inherent delays occurring from the room's frequency response, is causing it to morph into a bit of a monster. another problem which doesn't help us in any respect, is it's fundamental of 31Hz? in the words of one John McEnroe; "You cannot be serious!"...slightly different context, but the expletive might be appropriate lol.

nice one mate.