Forkupines - 'Sleep By The Fire, Bloom In Water' - mixed by mick2015

[The_Metallurgist]

the trouble is, that it seems like everyone is trying to get an in-your-face mix going. while doing so, they are totally ignoring the need for ambiance and providing the subjective illusion that every instrument is in the same performance space. the vocal here, as a prime example, sounds like a sound booth. it's missing all the necessary time delays which we humans take as invaluable cues, to place it in a "space". all music is produced in a space....unless you were intentionally seeking a "synthetic" laboratory/studio/ambiance-free sound, of course. so, the fact that this sounds unreal makes it a distraction. most average, non-musical, non-audio types like the mother-in-law, will focus primarily on the vocal.....so it's gotta shine if it's to engage their subconscious? if you are not giving it the right and appropriate exposure, then the song is more likely to fall over than if the snare, say, wasn't quite spanking hard enough....or the lead guitar had an overly wide Q at 473Hz.

it would be interesting to hear this mix with some ambiance and instrument placement....i think it will transform it.

one of the traps of the multi-track is that it's had the treble rolled off on everything before we got it, resulting in a fairly steep cut for the song overall, from around 5kHz onwards? if you boost treble on any instrument where it's not naturally present in the tracking, it's going to make it as brittle as hell......and it is. compression is your enemy here too, because of the way it impacts the trebles.

Cheers,,,