A first attempt

[Frostware]

Here's my first attempt at mixing a multitrack from this site. I'm pretty proud of it; but please give me some feedback.

I've been mixing with a set of Bose desktop speakers and some Shure SRH440s, using Acoustica's Mixcraft 6.

[CKlive4656]

Not bad - biggest thing I would say is the vocal is too loud. Really drowns everything else when it comes in.

[londonmatt]

Hi there,

First welcome to the site. Second I'd really encourage you to comment on others' mixes, it's the best way to improve your own listening skills.

Regarding your mix, the vocal is too loud and I think the whole thing is seriously overcompressed - you can hear the level of the band pumping when the vocal comes in and out. You've also applied so much stereo widening to pretty much everything that there is no longer any centre to the mix at all - even the snare drum sounds incredibly wide. A lot of stereo widening effects work by putting things out of phase, which then means when they are summed to mono, they collapse. I've attached a mono version of your mix which as you can hear sounds almost acapella because everything else is so artificially widened.

Next time try backing off on the compression (a lot) and also creating stereo width by panning, not by using phase trickery. If you've only got a single guitar track, then double it, stick one version through a mild amp sim or something to get a slightly different tone, and pan those hard left and right and create width that way.

Hope that helps, cheers, Matt