Andrew Cole - Dead Roses

[Mixinthecloud]

Hey man, I like your levels and overall mix of the instruments, however, I feel there may just be way to much verb on some things that need to be more upfront, like the vocals and the drums. Especially the male vox, its trying to be in the middle and very present, but the verb just keeps it just away from being where it should. As for the female vox, it may be just too much decay on the verb and maybe lower the mix of wet/dry a tad too. However, at the very end of the song, that little "howl" part, the verb sounds great.

I think its kinds funny, cause what you did to the vocals, I think you should have don't to the Electric. Its kind of dry and panned right a tad, where I would have made it wetter. Just a few thoughts.

David,
Thanks for your input. I have a few questions, if you don't mind.
The vocal reverb on the male and female are identical (these are inserts on their individual channels). That being said, can you expand on your feel of those envelopes? I think the differences in the decays being heard are based on the frequency content of the voices which may be a bit sibilant. I agree the female vox might be too up front in relation to the male lead but I really liked her voice and the presence of each even with their reverb. I wanted them to stand out against the background of the instruments and drums. Do you think the female vox is too loud during the duets or just when she sings alone? The reverb tail at the end of the song is just an automated ramp up of the dry/wet mix to make it disappear into the distance. You are spot on with the electrics. They are bone dry, and that was a conscious decision based upon how I wanted them to lay against the drums, bass and vox.

All good input.

As for the playing and timing, there were some notes about this I read somewhere about some beats being off a bit, which you can notice, but my Melodyne skills are lacking when it comes to quantizing and aligning performances. I think it would be interesting to tackle some of those to see if it can tighten the song in places.

When Im referring to the verb, I guess I'm referring to how the trails are very obvious, which isn't natural, especially against a dry band. Not saying its a bad thing, just not natural, and it stands out to me. My goal in my mix of this song, was to make this sound like a band in a room playing. More live off the floor.

After taking another listen to your mix (not the new one, the one I originally listened to), I feel like the spacial balance (forward backward balance) is opposite, where the band is dryer they feel closer to me, more up front, although their volume balance, tells me they should be further back, like behind the vocals. But, the vocals feel back, because they are so wet with verb, but their volume balance is up front. So, the whole mix is almost battling itself to place the parts in the mix. Does that make sense?

With all that said, the low end sounds great to me, something I know I need work on.

David,
In my interpretation of this piece, I classified this as 'Country' song. Listening to a lot of those mixes, especially ballads, adhering to the 'band on stage' approach is hardly a rule. As a live sound enineer, I certainly understand this concept and when appropriate adhere to it. With that in mind I mixed this song to try and capture the individual qualities of each element and to exemplify the vocals which carry the emotional content of the song and use my environmentals in a tempo-based application of them. The vocals called out to be treated in a distinct way to give this song a particular character. Reference the history of vocals in ballads which I pulled from include folks like Linda Ronstadt and Aaron Neville really don't keep to a 'band on stage' mix and I took that approach here.
That being said, I think we can agree there is no right or wrong here, only a matter of personal taste and approach. There are a ton a really good mixes of this song here.