The Black Crown: 'Flames' (first mix) - feedback wanted

[Richard Hayward]

Hi there,

Please have a listen to my first mix of this awesome song and let me know what you think. I'm fairly new to mixing and would appreciate any feedback people are willing to give me.
I would especially appreciate any constructive feedback - its fine telling me somethings not right but some guidance on how to possible fix it would be a great help to me if you could spare the time.

Cheers guys,

Rick

[NotJack]

One thing I am hearing is the toms are a bit too loud, and maybe the snare is a tad to low. During the tom+snare fills it sounds like the toms are causing your mix compressor/limiter to pump really hard, and you can hear the snare start to get lost in the mix.

The vocals are sounding a bit muffled too, I would maybe eq out some of the boominess (somewhere is the 200-400hz range) there and adjust the volume as necessary.

I can also hear some string chatter during some parts on the bass guitar, I would low pass somewhere around 4-6k to get rid of that, and boost in the 1-2k range to compensate, if necessary. I would also bring up the guitar solo up a in volume (the part that starts after the second chorus) to give the song more energy in that section.

Otherwise I think you did really good for a first mix! Much better than my first.

[Richard Hayward]

Hi there - thank you so much for taking the time to listen and to provide feedback! Really appreciate the comments and especially the problem ares and frequencies to tweak.
I have taken this on board and tweaked a couple of other bits that were annoying me and have given it another shot. Feel free to listen, and as always, feedback is most welcome!!

[Dangerous]

Hi Rick,

Listening to both mixes, I think the overall tonal balance is much better in the first mix. As for the toms, you might want to try controlling the resonant frequencies of each of the toms with some narrow band eq cuts. This way you can keep them present without them eating up too much of the headroom and overpowering the mix.

Great first mix!

Dave

[Richard Hayward]

Hi - thanks for listening and for your comments.
I listened back and I think you were right about the first mix being better overall (atleast tonally).
I've had another go so see what you guys think?
Cheers

[LukasL]

Hey Richard,

sorry to say this, but your first mix still is better the second or third one in my opinion.

The EQ curve on the guitar in the first one, had a lot of the mud and mid-range cut out, which made space for other instruments and also just sounded clearer. The only problem with this was that the vocal and guitars fought for presence in the mix.
I would say you fixed this problem in the third mix.

I liked the crashed transients of the drums in the first mix a lot (maybe a bit much), the toms were just to resonant and loud, but it worked great overall.
I suspect that just turning your drum bus up a few db might be great here, too! (Just watch your mix bus!)
The snappy punch in the third mix is also cool, but I miss the squashed sound. Maybe shoot for something in the middle. Also the drums in the new mix need a more open-sounding high-end.

The first mix also had more bottom end, the 2nd and 3rd one sounded a bit weak, as if someone had tried to cut out all the lows

TL;DR
- more lows, less honkey, muddy mid, more presence on guitar (like mix 1)
- keep the guitar vocal relationship of mix 3
- find a middle point for the transients between drums mix 1 and mix 3, with the open top-end of mix one
- make sure you have enough lows/low-mids (like mix 1)

Hope you find it helpful! Please don't hate me xD

Cheers,
Lukas