21-01-2019, 11:55 PM
Hi jeffd42! This is another interesting new perspective, with the congas much more prominent in the balance and centrally panned, and a lovely smooth, expansive Hammond sound. The overall mix tonality feels rather low-mid-heavy, so I'd definitely give it a bit more sub-80Hz to start with. Be careful with this, though, because something in this mix is generating some powerful subsonics -- I suspect it's the kick-drum. Whatever it is, even just high-pass filtering it at 20Hz will help avoid people's subwoofers complaining or any master-buss or mastering dynamics processors from reacting unpredictably. If you do boost the sub-80Hz frequencies, though, you'll also probably want to cut at around 150Hz as well to avoid muddiness. At the upper end of the spectrum I'd suggest pulling back the 4kHz in favour of some added 10kHz, so you can brighten the tone a bit without adding too much harshness. You might have to rein in the 6-8kHz range of the hi-hat a little, though, to keep that from getting fatiguing in a brighter overall mix tonality.
The kick's character seems a little out of keeping with this kind of reggae-influenced style -- it's low-end woof and upper-spectrum slap sound more in a rock vein. If you toned down those higher frequencies and gave it a bit more weight in the 80-200Hz range, I think you could balance it a touch higher overall to drive the rhythmic groove more solidly, as well as anchoring the prominent conga rhythms. The congas, for their part, do feel a bit too upfront for my liking (something that's exacerbated by the spiky-sounding edit glitches), so I'd probably try rounding off their high frequencies a little and adding a little ambience reverb to pull them a little less forward of the lead vocal.
I can see the thinking for the bass part's added distortion, in that the extra midrange harmonics will inevitably improve small-speaker translation, but I wonder whether the treatment you've used in this case is maybe throwing the baby out with the bathwater, because it seems to be softening the instrument's rhythmic definition significantly. Switching to a parallel distortion setup might help with this, by letting the sound's undistorted attack phase through more prominently. In general, I reckon the bass could simply be faded up a bit too -- it's just more interesting musically than you've given it credit for in your mix balance.
The solo guitars feel a bit stark and upfront without any effects tail, and they're also balanced rather high at times, distracting from the lead vocal, especially in Choruses 2 and 3. The Hammond's timbre is lovely, but I reckon you've probably overused it. When it arrives it feels like it's flooding the mix a little too much, masking the lead vocal and compromising the mix clarity. I'd suggest carving away at both Hammond tracks with EQ to try to make them a bit more 'efficient', in other words, so that they're not adding too much frequency information where it's not really needed.
The lead vocal has low-frequency consistency problems, for example notice at 1:01 how the low end of "but I just thought of something really well" suddenly balloons for the last four syllables compared with the first six. This is something that multi-band processing or region-specific EQ can sort out, and that'll help keep your vocal more solid on different playback systems. Other than that, the vocal balancing isn't bad already, although there'd still be some room to improve the lyric intelligibility by micro-automating consonants and bring up swallowed syllables. Oh, and the missing "the" upbeat to Chorus 3 feels strange.
The stereo width and mono-compatibility both seem fairly sensible, but the effects and balances do feel a bit static, so long-term dynamics aren't as strong as they might be, despite the nice stereo 'opening out' that you Hammond timbre affords.
Hope some of that is helpful -- thanks for posting your mix and getting involved!
The kick's character seems a little out of keeping with this kind of reggae-influenced style -- it's low-end woof and upper-spectrum slap sound more in a rock vein. If you toned down those higher frequencies and gave it a bit more weight in the 80-200Hz range, I think you could balance it a touch higher overall to drive the rhythmic groove more solidly, as well as anchoring the prominent conga rhythms. The congas, for their part, do feel a bit too upfront for my liking (something that's exacerbated by the spiky-sounding edit glitches), so I'd probably try rounding off their high frequencies a little and adding a little ambience reverb to pull them a little less forward of the lead vocal.
I can see the thinking for the bass part's added distortion, in that the extra midrange harmonics will inevitably improve small-speaker translation, but I wonder whether the treatment you've used in this case is maybe throwing the baby out with the bathwater, because it seems to be softening the instrument's rhythmic definition significantly. Switching to a parallel distortion setup might help with this, by letting the sound's undistorted attack phase through more prominently. In general, I reckon the bass could simply be faded up a bit too -- it's just more interesting musically than you've given it credit for in your mix balance.
The solo guitars feel a bit stark and upfront without any effects tail, and they're also balanced rather high at times, distracting from the lead vocal, especially in Choruses 2 and 3. The Hammond's timbre is lovely, but I reckon you've probably overused it. When it arrives it feels like it's flooding the mix a little too much, masking the lead vocal and compromising the mix clarity. I'd suggest carving away at both Hammond tracks with EQ to try to make them a bit more 'efficient', in other words, so that they're not adding too much frequency information where it's not really needed.
The lead vocal has low-frequency consistency problems, for example notice at 1:01 how the low end of "but I just thought of something really well" suddenly balloons for the last four syllables compared with the first six. This is something that multi-band processing or region-specific EQ can sort out, and that'll help keep your vocal more solid on different playback systems. Other than that, the vocal balancing isn't bad already, although there'd still be some room to improve the lyric intelligibility by micro-automating consonants and bring up swallowed syllables. Oh, and the missing "the" upbeat to Chorus 3 feels strange.
The stereo width and mono-compatibility both seem fairly sensible, but the effects and balances do feel a bit static, so long-term dynamics aren't as strong as they might be, despite the nice stereo 'opening out' that you Hammond timbre affords.
Hope some of that is helpful -- thanks for posting your mix and getting involved!