Gotta Love the Pop in this Song!

[grizwalter]

Not my style of music, normally. But I'd say when it comes to catchy, melodic hooks, Mr. James has it down.

Here's my shot at the mix. Feedback would be awesome, for better or worse.

Thanks!

[Olli H]

Not my style of music, normally. But I'd say when it comes to catchy, melodic hooks, Mr. James has it down.

I agree with that. Al James has done great job with this one. THis if tough genre, for you cannot hide behind guitar walls. In this kind of music the melody has to be perfect. I'm still suffering of the fact that I found myself humming this song in my head.

I listened your mix with headphones. Comments might be different if I could listen with my monitors.

Sounds good, overall balance seems to be ok.

I noticed that verses sound much better than chorus to me. Maybe the mastering limiter is just fine in verses but chorus hits it too hard. It might happen that little less of limiter and most of the problems I'm hearing would disappear.

- snare is almost inaudible in chorus, but just right in verse. Listen for example chorus around 0:45
- in verses bass sounds just right to me, but in chorus it somehow disappears. It feels like the compressor setting changes. Listen for example 0:50 area. Is the sound different or is there something masking it?My final guess is that the effect is caused by too heavy mastering limiter.
-Maybe strings and pads could use some hi-pass filter to give better room for the bass.
- is the effect in vocals good or bad? I'm not sure. Maybe little brighter vocals with the same effect could be just fine to my ears.
- 2:08 vocals become suddenly much louder.

Some background effects were very nice. If I remember correctly this song, you have made some extra work on that area.

I'd like to hear what would be the difference if you take away the limiter totally. It may happen that with one bypass-click you'll have a great mix.

[grizwalter]

I may try that (no limiter at all) idea of yours and repost it. At least you could give it a gander; it is a neat idea.

Pretty much everything you mentioned (vocals, bass and snare) in the choruse I pretty much agree with. Funny thing about that though: I am not an expert in this genre of music, but like you, can't seem to stop humming the damned thing. Back in my earlier days of engineering audio, I remember listening and listening and listening again to different artists and engineers. A couple stood out in my head specifically over the years because they somewhat broke the mold yet the records were major hit sellers. U2's Achtung Baby Album was one (very warm, almost uncompressed, even to the point of suffering from digital distortion on a vocal track). Another was The Cure album Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me, in which a very heavy guitar oriented song found its way above the drums to the point of the snare becoming an idea more than something one could actually hear. lol.

Anyway, one thing about this song I knew I had to do was make sure the voice was in front--I generally blend the vocal in more, even tuning vox into the song--but not this time. So I focused a ton on doing that (which also goes to the vocal effect--I wasn't sure on that either, but after listening to a lot of mixes of the song, felt my general direction with it pretty much fit the course). That said, in the chorus, there is a ton of energy from all the guitars, etc. I didn't want to lose that, so took the approach of letting the vocals, snare and bass all sit back and just be a thought--I could almost explain my logic as that of someone assuming everyone who hears the song will know the words by heart, so they'll just "feel" them.

I think you are right though--if I picture this song played in a club or festive poppy environment, I expect the satisfied crowd would expect punch, punch and more punch.

I may work on it some more (if for no other reason than to hear it 50,000 more times? lol), but first I'll take your suggestion and pull the limiter off the master channel entirely.

Thanks a lot for the feedback sir! Really like the stuff I've heard from you here. Keep it up!