Carol Dant_Do Not Stand_mix Tommy Marcinek

[tjmtruth]

Hi Tommy,

Overall a cool sounding mix, the chorusing/widening on the vocals is a nice touch and makes it feel like you're being surrounded by the vocals. The extra samples were a good move from a technical point, however the point of the loop is for it to be dirty and cold sounding while the choir, bass, and rhodes provide the warmer sounds, a contrast.

If you keep the extra samples in for the whole mix it loses the natural build of the piece, it's just big all the way through and this track needs to build right to the end, notice how sparce the intro is and how the instruments start to get more dense as the track goes on. make one thing bigger in the intro and it takes away from the end. I would introduce those samples in at a later point in the piece, more towards the end. The vocal effect could use the same kind of approach, keep the intro dry, add the delays in during the first section of edited vocal, and the rest of the way use the chorus.

In my mix I added in some programmed drums towards the final section of the track in an effort to add some drama at the closing section, and a shaker a little after the drums and vocals drop out to give a tighter resolve. This track is a great musical sandbox because of the low track count, so the mixes of this track should be really cool to hear because of how many places you can take the arrangement.

Cheers and hope this helps,
Doug

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Doug, thanks for the overall positive comments. My take on it is this: The drum loop was constant throughout (except for the break in the middle) but the quality was just not there. I really don't think it was the intention of the artist that the track be so decimated and in mono like that. By my introducing samples and other additions, I kept in the spirit of the original arrangement by keeping the drums with the enhancements exactly the same as the original in terms of arrangement.

I purposely kept the "new" drum sound consistent as was in the original. And, if you notice, the vocal does a lot of work in the beginning section but then she is quite sparse toward the end. So, to contrast what you said, my opinion is that the song does not require a buildup of sounds in the drums, but rather, being true to the song's structure provided by the artist, it cried out for a descending sort of feel, almost a macabre and ghostly thing happening, and then fading into the distance. I felt approaching it that way made the song completely coherent, consistent, and most likely the intended feel the artist was going for. But, again, this is only a guess and I approached it entirely with a "producers" hat, etc.

I thank you again for your input.

Tom