Andrew Cole - Dead Roses

[k14studios]

Looks like there's a lot of back and forth here. But the biggest points that I picked up is that there is too much reverb on the vocal, which there is, and that you're adding that reverb directly to the channels as an insert.

A couple of quick notes. The music sounds very clean and true to the style that it's written in. I saw mention that the drums were too far in the background, I disagree. I think the drums are exactly where they need to be. I commented on another version that having the drums up front in this song sounds more like a rock mix than what it is. This is an acoustic song and I'm glad to hear that you have treated it that way.

As far as the vocal reverb, it is a bit thick. I think your biggest issue is not using your sends. If you were to create an FX bus and send the two vocal channels to it, you would have a tremendously more detailed level of control over the wet mix and the color of the reverb. This is true for most effects, especially spatial FX and compression. As well, with this technique, both vocals will now be occupying the same "space" giving them a more congruent sound.

As a rule of thumb, you shouldn't be able to hear the reverb in the mix. It should just add a subtle sense of space. You can hear it when the track is soloed, but not when the other tracks are added back in. An exception to this would be if you want the reverb to be an obvious or artistic feature, but I'm not sure this was your intention here.