Yeah, I listened to it after a few weeks, and not having my ears buried in the same sounds forever made me instantly realize that the snare sound basically just doesn't fit at all. Sonically its super close to the beat-boxing, and was easy to blend with that, but compared to the balance of the whole mix it would have been better if it was some sort of lower-pitched snare/African drum composite sound, with perhaps the attack of a snare, and the decay of a kenkeni or djembe, or something of that nature.
Since I did this I've studied Warren Huart's mixing process, and it's completely changed the way I do bass guitars, (double or triple multed every time now) and the way I think about reverb. Before I was super-scared of having a "muddy" or "woofy" mix, and I was high-passing a lot of low end out of my reverb on things like drums and bass guitars. Warren's a classic rock guy, and while I worked on one of his A-list productions and had access to the mix that he did for reference while I was working on my version, my ears opened to what is acceptable. Part of this hesitancy to add more low end to more different things comes from also mixing in headphones which don't have flat response so I was hearing more low end than was really there, but Warren is monitoring on 3 foot tall genelec's and his mix had so much more warmth that it sounded completely different and I decided to edge things more in that direction ever since.
I might have used the wrong compressors on some of the vocals, "H-comp" with the "analog" knob turned up does produce some distortion, I haven't really used it on vocals since, I've been leaning on RChannel, RVox, and the BF1176 mostly. The entire mix might also be limited more than it should be. Or I might actually be clipping inside plugins in my vocal effects chains and not noticing it, that's something that warren's videos also covered.
The synth bass I just included because it was there and I felt obliged, could just take it out or turn it down. I automated it up in a few places where it was doing more interesting things, that could be reverted.
The bells were a part of the dun-dun, sangban, ect. samples.
So yeah more reverb on basically everything, (Warren wasn't leaving anything completely dry in the mix that I referenced,) and more low end in a lot of the reverbs would make this sound better. I just had the wrong idea of what I could and couldn't do when I mixed this to begin with.
Also worth noting that since I did this mix I've learned how to use edit window shortcuts and tab to transient and my time spent editing drums has been cut in half or more. Its great!
Thanks for the comment!
Since I did this I've studied Warren Huart's mixing process, and it's completely changed the way I do bass guitars, (double or triple multed every time now) and the way I think about reverb. Before I was super-scared of having a "muddy" or "woofy" mix, and I was high-passing a lot of low end out of my reverb on things like drums and bass guitars. Warren's a classic rock guy, and while I worked on one of his A-list productions and had access to the mix that he did for reference while I was working on my version, my ears opened to what is acceptable. Part of this hesitancy to add more low end to more different things comes from also mixing in headphones which don't have flat response so I was hearing more low end than was really there, but Warren is monitoring on 3 foot tall genelec's and his mix had so much more warmth that it sounded completely different and I decided to edge things more in that direction ever since.
I might have used the wrong compressors on some of the vocals, "H-comp" with the "analog" knob turned up does produce some distortion, I haven't really used it on vocals since, I've been leaning on RChannel, RVox, and the BF1176 mostly. The entire mix might also be limited more than it should be. Or I might actually be clipping inside plugins in my vocal effects chains and not noticing it, that's something that warren's videos also covered.
The synth bass I just included because it was there and I felt obliged, could just take it out or turn it down. I automated it up in a few places where it was doing more interesting things, that could be reverted.
The bells were a part of the dun-dun, sangban, ect. samples.
So yeah more reverb on basically everything, (Warren wasn't leaving anything completely dry in the mix that I referenced,) and more low end in a lot of the reverbs would make this sound better. I just had the wrong idea of what I could and couldn't do when I mixed this to begin with.
Also worth noting that since I did this mix I've learned how to use edit window shortcuts and tab to transient and my time spent editing drums has been cut in half or more. Its great!
Thanks for the comment!