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Never Ebb, But Flow (BCS Mix)
#1
Been REALLY busy this couple of months that I hadn't been mixing much and pretty much ignored this site, but I'm (kinda) back! I got quite rusty, but still managed to mix this to some degree. Anyway, this is what I've got right now, I want to know what you guys think of it! The tracks are very well recorded, but the chorus vocals were quite a chore to work with, and 54 tracks may have gotten the best of my 2010 macbook CPU.

DAY 2 Edit (BCS Mix 4): addressed the issues of the previous mix according to feedback. Also did a lot of automation, and some adjustments in the master chain for a more glued mix. This maybe the final one for a while. Please check it out.

FINAL EDIT (Alt Master) : so I went into a huge rabbit hole try to adjust everything and after 9 revisions, this hopefully is gonna be the final one before I lose my mind. Also, I'm removing the Mix 2 but keeping Mix 4 for comparison.


.m4a    Never Ebb, But Flow (BCS Alt Master).m4a --  (Download: 7.6 MB)


.m4a    Never Ebb, But Flow (BCS Mix 4).m4a --  (Download: 7.6 MB)


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#2
Anyone? This is day2 and I'm looking forward to making some advancements, just wanna hear some notices first to keep me on track.
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#3
Quick listen. I'm not a fan of the overall distortion on various parts. Mostly the on the acoustic at the top and the bass? I think. It feels really compressed. Tonally, it works. But it feels like you can take a step back and let the whole thing breath more. It feels like you're trying to force the mix to be something it's not.

It's a lot of tracks but not a lot of parts. I'd say don't be afraid to maybe make some separate session and submix some sections and import those into the master session. To me this kinda feels like a Queen song sometimes. How much did they have to work with? 16? 24 tracks? and some outboard? Make some stems and open up some CPU power. Give yourself some headroom.
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#4
(08-12-2019, 04:56 AM)RoyMatthews Wrote: Quick listen. I'm not a fan of the overall distortion on various parts. Mostly the on the acoustic at the top and the bass? I think. It feels really compressed. Tonally, it works. But it feels like you can take a step back and let the whole thing breath more. It feels like you're trying to force the mix to be something it's not.

It's a lot of tracks but not a lot of parts. I'd say don't be afraid to maybe make some separate session and submix some sections and import those into the master session. To me this kinda feels like a Queen song sometimes. How much did they have to work with? 16? 24 tracks? and some outboard? Make some stems and open up some CPU power. Give yourself some headroom.
I can see where you're coming from about the distortion (since he wants a telephone fx on the break vox anyway, so I thought it would fit to saturate the acoustic guitars as well), but compressed? There are a lot more compressed mixes on other threads, and for the context, this one is already mastered. Seems like I'm gonna need some time off this one and come back later then.
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#5
new mix at the original post addressing the issues!
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#6
Think you have a really good balance going on! Drums sound great, overall I think you could feature the vocals abit more prominently and for my taste there seems to be a roomy reverb sound on some things that seems to slow things down/ take away from the energy and impact. I could also do with a bit more low mid tone from the bass - all subjective of course, nice job!
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#7
I think mix 4 is definitely an improvement. I'd just echo what lm425 said above, with the exception of the bass tone. I think it feels ok but I'm on earbuds so I defer.
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#8
so I went into a huge rabbit hole trying to adjust every minute thing, and after 9 revisions, this hopefully is gonna be the final one before I lose my mind. Also, I'm removing the Mix 2 but keeping Mix 4 for comparison. Gonna have to leave this for a while because I think I've pretty much lost track of my original vision for the song. Hopefully this one will be it.
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#9
Well done imho.

Little remarks: I think you could apply a (shorter) fade-out; I suppose you gave the vocals some reverb, I like it especially in the chorus, it sets the vocal in the middle of the mix; in the bridge the (telephone style) vocal quite suddenly disappears, I find it distracting, maybe you did it on purpose?

Happy mixing! Rob

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#10
(11-12-2019, 09:45 PM)Rob Brand Wrote: Well done imho.

Little remarks: I think you could apply a (shorter) fade-out; I suppose you gave the vocals some reverb, I like it especially in the chorus, it sets the vocal in the middle of the mix; in the bridge the (telephone style) vocal quite suddenly disappears, I find it distracting, maybe you did it on purpose?

Happy mixing! Rob

Well thats a pretty unexpected comment. I didn't use any fade-off at all, and in fact, had to use gain to boost some of the phrases that was 'cut off' in the original recording (in verses, you probably have noticed). About the bridge vox, I also didn't do anything to it except EQ for the telephone voice in the mix note, but that means I didn't compress it either and that might be the reason why you found it suddenly buried in guitars, but to me it sounds find so I don't want to go back into the mix and risk overdoing things again. Thanks for the remarks!
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