Adam Buckley: 'Drag Me Down' is my first mix on this forum

[Cranky Emu]

I don't have the ideal setup, I mix on AKG's 144P ... / ... and check everything on my car. I try to do best with what I have.

I wasn't trying to put you or your gear down, so hope you did not get that impression. Just with the mix, it seemed as is you were over-compensating for what is lacking in your monitoring set-up. I can't comment on the AKG's, never seen nor heard them. Tried to google them but could not find anything.

Car stereos/speakers are really notorious for colouration of the sound. Your headphones would probably be far more accurate.

My headphones are by no means high-end either, nor are my main monitors. But we work with what we have.

in the original I can barely hear them so, what was the point of recording them?

Just because they are not in your face, doesn't mean they should not be there. A mix is a like a building, you start with a foundation, then build on that.

I don't know if you realized but, in the mix files there's also DI's for the guitars and in your mix you let the DI's almost as loud as mine, but without the distortion

Yep that is right, you don't always need distortion or massive amounts of it.

maybe my mistakes were on mastering. I use mostly 4:1 ratio for the compression

4.1:1 is a fair dose. But if it works... Mastering is a an art without doubt. If everyone could do it easily there would be no mastering studios in the world.

make it a consistent wall of sound....

Maybe that is where it is going wrong, trying to make that wall of sound.

As before, I think your mix is not the problem, the issues lay elsewhere. Maybe you are trying to make it something it isn't? Don't know. But to me there is just to much of everything.

Pity we had not connected earlier, I would have sent you my old Focusrite interface, I gave it away to a mate in America. Due to having balanced input monitors and the Solo having unbalanced outputs I having major earth-loop issues, so I upgraded to the 2i2, problem solved (balanced outputs on the 2i2).