Daisy Daisy (BCS Mix) + NEW MIX UPDATE!!!

[bcs_mix]

A little confession : if you have listened to my mixes before (if not, please do), my confession is I made every single one of them in Garageband, using only stock plugins and free VSTs. Everyone knows Garageband isn't for professional mixing, but hey I think my previous mixes are fine and got nice feedbacks, thanks to this supportive community (again, if you haven't checked them, click my username, Find All Threads, and check my mixes out!).

Anyway, this is my first EVER mix in a full professional DAW. After struggling to find a good and free DAWs, I settled with Cakewalk by Bandlab. I was so impressed by how well they managed to emulate analog consoles and put them in a free program. Every single plugins sounds and works TEN TIMES BETTER than that of Garageband (well duh..). Some features that didn't exist in Garageband like Sends, Busses, and Routings are very new to me, so if you got some tips, help me out!

TLDR: This is my first mix on a real DAW, so it might not sound very good. I would really appreciate critiques and feedback!

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December 2018 UPDATE : NEW MIX FROM GROUND UP!!!

As I said, that was my first project on a full DAW. In hindsight, I agree it doesn't sound good. This time, though, I am a lot more experienced now. I now use Logic Pro X instead so the learning curve between Garageband and Logic was very short and smooth. This time I aimed for a better sounding version of the previous mix. Therefore, the overall tone is still familiar, but it sounds MUCH more upfront and clearer. Things fall together almost instantly. What I also did this time is editing (vocal tuning& time alignment, drum phase, tightening up the instruments, etc.), which surprisingly took way longer than mixing and mastering. Please check it out. Comparing how far I've come, I am really proud of this new mix!

[Bangbang]

I think something went wrong while bouncing or uploading. Upload again and i'll take a listen!

[bcs_mix]

Thanks for the notice! Never trust some random file converter, haha.

Now enjoy and thank you in advance for listening!

[Deliza]

OK, I'm hearing some really good things (drums sound huge and clean with a cool snare sound and a very good kick/snare balance) but I'll stick to the not so good:

Overall, that reverb is suffocating the band, especially when they do the stops. Sounds like an arena show PA, especially on the vocals which are a little low and have too much of a phone recording show feel.
I might be totally wrong, but it's pretty apparent you have a compressor on the master (either that or you did some mastering) and, even though you didn't go crazy with volume, it feels overcompressed and congested.

On the other hand, I'm dying of envy cause my mix feels pretty flat in comparison. You got a wide soundscape with a lot of punch and energy and it's probably not too far from a pro mix. You could look for a commercial tune with similar characteristics (instrumentation, tempo, the stops... I guess there must be a gazillion Californian bands with songs like this) and see what they do different, that'd probably be helpful.

Btw, I'm hearing like somebody saying something over the intro that I don't remember from the multitracks, was that on porpuse? It's a neat little touch!

[azwayne]

You used a stereo width plugin on the main bus or something? Much of the top end goes away when summed to mono but it sounds awesome straight up. Or is it all reverb that I'm hearing? Maybe a tad loud on them guitars though. Could stand to bring up the solo too.

I agree. That is a *really* big sound. Nicely done.

[bcs_mix]

Hi, thanks for the awesome feedback.

Looking back at this mix, I 100% agree with everything you guys said. This was my first time using pro plugins and I've realized they are far more aggressive/efficient than those of my old DAW. I cranked the reverb, stereo width, and compression WAY too much,. Yes, all of my mix that I posted here are already mastered. It's just a part of my mixing process (worked out pretty fine tbh). Anyway since I've settled down with Logic X Pro now, I'm afraid I can't really fix anything as of now.

I really appreciate you all, thanks.

[bcs_mix]

Ok guys, I've just dropped my new mix! Stated from zero again this time, but with moch more experience, I can assure you it is MUCH BETTER. Check it out!

[alexthebassist]

This new mix would really be close to awesome if there was less drums. Kick and snare just eat up everything else. Also, I missed bass definition, but that's probably because of too much kick.