Actions - One Minute Smile. First try at mixing

[shawn.j.smith1]

Hey guys, first real try at mixing. Any feedback is greatly appreciated

[Dustin3P]

Not bad for a first real try at mixing. The balance is off but not much and the vocals weren't in time for a good part if not the whole song. But honestly if this is your first mix...great job!

[shawn.j.smith1]

Not bad for a first real try at mixing. The balance is off but not much and the vocals weren't in time for a good part if not the whole song. But honestly if this is your first mix...great job!

I think I definitely hear what you're saying with the timing, the problem may have been that I adjusted the timing on the guitars cause they were off by a bit but didn't think to look at the vocal as much, I spent most of my editing time on the vocal de-essing as they're pretty bad on this track with it coming autotune printed. What would you have done differently on the balance?

[Dustin3P]

The number one thing I would do is fix the timing balance with the vocal. Secondly I would check the mix in mono. Usually what I look for in a mix is for the vocal and the drums, mainly the kick and the snare, to hold there place with clarity when going from mono to stereo. You hear this with most if not all commercial mixes so you would naturally want to replicate that in your own mix. Thirdly I would check the frequency balances because there is masking still present. Also in the frequency balance I would check the guitars tone because the tone of the guitars is kind of light. Now when doing this instead of boosting the low or mid on the guitars to solidify them and make them thicker you may only need to use a LPF. Using a LPF on the guitars would also clear out room for the high end on the drums and the vocals as well as make the guitars sound thicker. After that I would maybe reference your mix to a commercial mix and see how it compares to the commercial mix as far as levels and pan spread. One thing I've personally started doing is paying more attention to the panning of my mixes. For example if you have 2 sets of guitars playing two different things and they are both panned 100 things wont be as clear but if you panned one set to 100 100 and another to even 90 90 or less that will tend to clear them up instead of being forced to use more EQ to clear out room for both guitar sets. A good example is on my mix for Daisy Daisy found on this website, its a punk rock song, I only panned the guitars 60 60 because at that pan setting is where the mix became solid and the guitars weren't to wide. Panning like that in that song also cleared out room for the overhead mics which is where the cymbal content was because the overheads were panned 100 100. Point of the panning statement is this, just because you can pan 100 100 doesn't mean you should always do that. Also you might want to bring the background vocals up as well. If you have anymore questions feel free to ask.