Upper Hand - HB Mix

[HbGuitar]

Here's my take on another great PT track.
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New version, HB mix 1.1, uploaded below

[ptalbot]

I think that's a good first take HB, but I hear a few things that could be better:
I think the acoustic guitars sound rather compressed. They are also very thin, I think you went a bit too far with the HPF on these! All in all, they don't sound too natural...
The ambiance on the drums is perhaps a little bit too much, although that's really taste related. But I think too much ambiance there made you thin out other tracks to make room in your mix that could have been used to get better tones...
The Rhodes is very loud compared to the rest, it's not such an interesting part, as I thought of them more as a pad than anything.
The FX track is very loud too.
Overall the vocals could get a little push, especially against the Rhodes.
I think your mix needs some refinement still, some level decisions in particular are perhaps not the best. Keep it up!

[HbGuitar]

Hey Pat, thanks for listening and your comments. Plenty of food for thought!

In my defense i was trying to execute an aggressive type mix...so if the Rhodes came in i wanted to really push it for a bar or two...in my minds eye i saw this 70's type live gig with a genius keys player laying down a fat splat of Rhodes.....which obviously doesn't match your vision of a background pad . There's a fair bit of automation so it does blend more as the song progresses

Same with FX track....when it came in I wanted it to be a big herald for the next transition.

The acoustic guitars are intriguing...I actually left off the HP during the intro and then automated in only a 100Hz filter once the bass came in for the rest of the song. I'll have a dive back in a see whats causing the "Thin" timbre.

cheers, Simon

[ptalbot]

I see what you tried to do, not sure it works with this one though, but that's your vision, so perhaps it's just that you didn't succeed realizing it fully yet...
The issue with the acoustic guitars is possibly compression, I just know that they sound rather unnatural to me, I think you should use a less is more approach to processing on them, I believe the sources are not that bad and don't need that much... IIRC, I used a transient designer to smooth some transient and some EQ, but that's about it.

[HbGuitar]

New version - mainly re-balancing plus some work on acoustic guitars

[ptalbot]

The acoustics sound definitely better on this one!
I would say there's a bit too much reverb overall, but that's a taste thing, really.
Other than that, this version is much better IMHO! Good job!

[HbGuitar]

Thanks Patrick - I'm much happier with the mix too. I kinda agree about the reverb.....if I decide to give the mix a final tweak I'll probably shave away some of the fx.

I've since found out that i had blocked ears when i mixed my first version....I was suffering with flu. So aggressive fader moves mixed with blocked ears is hardly a recipe for success.

Thanks again for the tracks and the feedback.

Cheers, Simon