*Falsetto* YEEEEEEAAAAAAHHHH!

[Red2d2]

This was so much fun to mix, METAAAAAAAL!!! The vocals were nice and strong and with feeling which makes all the difference, guitars sounded great but a bit grating in some freq ranges but a bit of tactical EQing sorted that out. The drums were pretty good, Kick lacked a bit of punch and weight but good otherwise. I used an amp plugin to give the bass a more ballsy driven sound and SC comped from the kick as per usual. The only standout things I did on this were a nice gated reverb on the snare cuz... ya know... 80s! Also I automated the send on long notes of the vox for effect. I panned the solo in parts to give a call and response feel following the phrasing.
BTW that guy can shred!

Enjoy! \m/

All comments/criticism welcome.

ps I might add a mastered(ish) version later

[JohnSmith]

Welllllll done man !

Yeah ! reminds me of good old' Iron Maiden, with a sort of modern Alice in Chains vocal harmony (love that fifth use!)
Just listend to it on my crappy PC speakers and it sounds pretty well balanced ! Maybe something is jumping out to my ears at such a low volume on PC speakers : to me the choice of kick's texture/sound doesn't match with the power the snare has ! It may be a good idea to seek for a more moderne sound to match the rest of the mix' feeling. I don't know if kick is triggered or recorded, but maybe adding a sample layer on it could add the top end crisp it deserves (to my ears...). It's like the kick sounds 70' as the guitar and snare sound 80's and vocals 90's
Maybe a few days without listening to your mix, and putting your head into old good records of Iron, Alice, Metallica, Superior, Malmsteem and co could help to imagine a texture that could make your mix more coherent and original !

You're on a good way to make it sound "new" ! For a sort of music which sounds rather "old" !

I'd love to hear a V2 ... with or without mastering, doesn't matter at this stage !

Great job. It made me smile, remembering my musical past, and gave me pleasure ... is this not a sign to a successful mix ? I'd guess it is !

Let's here it tomorrow on real monitors to see if it hits me in the stomach !!!


Cheers.

[Red2d2]

Hey Thanks a lot for the comment. Glad you enjoyed the mix It was a great song to work on. As far as I'm aware the drums are all Steven Slate Drums, I really agree about the kick, it didn't sit right at all for me, the bottom has no punch or weight and the top has no presence at all, which doesn't leave much to work with. I was tempted to replace it with a nice multisampled DW kick that I've used a lot but I wanted to see what I could do with what was in the download pack.
Again thanks for taking the time to listen and comment.

[JohnSmith]

Listened to it on main monitors.
Maybe your mix is very "mid and low mid centered". Or is the mp3 encoding not that good (maybe you have it on wav. on Soundcloud or equivalent ?). But there could definitely be more top end.
On cymbals it's evident...
A little blury in the low mids/high bass region maybe too. Now i hear the bass, and i also thinkg its responsible of that blury sound. Maybe you should tweak it to lower it's power in the 100-200Hz region and make it much higher in frequency so it'll match with the guitars and can be heard on small speakers !

But i confirm it's a good mix !

I love those soli ... so much "80's" Makes me laugh... i used to play guitar like that... now i'm more "the few the better"... !

Cheers

[Red2d2]

Thanks for the feedback again!
With regards to the top end I'd say the encoding isn't the problem, I'd say it's more my own fault. My monitor placement and room really suck, I A-B with headphones but that only really helps for bass because my cans aren't that good in the top end either. I'm also a bit afraid of repeating old habits, a lot of my old mixes have a very harsh pronounced high end.
I found I had to do a good bit of roll off on the highs on a lot of the material, most of the tracks high ranges sounded a bit harsh or brittle to me but again that might be my monitors.

Glad to hear you enjoyed it nonetheless! I may try turning the high shelf switch to -3db on my monitors, might help even mixes out!

Rock on \m/

[Red2d2]

Here's a loud mastered(ish) version with a bit more high end and a nicer sounding kick. I just hope I haven't gone too overboard with the highs, they sound a bit harsh to me but maybe I'm just imagining it. Also I put some filter motion on the intro guitar to make it more interesting.

[mikrostudios]

mix sound great love the dreamy rev you used
the bass has some points were the compressor you use failed to hold back and it punches thru my sub like crazy your attack and rel. times could fix this but all in all good job

[Red2d2]

I hear what you mean now, I'm mixing in a square, untreated room which makes for a very uneven low end, I had to move around and sit in a corner to actually hear this problem. Something I'll have to be aware of in future. Thanks for pointing this out!

[Mike Senior]

[I listened to the second mix version.]

You've got a bit too sharp an edge on the highs in this mix, especially the kick, which seems to have masses of 4-6kHz. Although this region can be useful to get a metal kick to cut, it's really making your kick sound like a typewriter here, which isn't as rock 'n' roll as I'd hope. It's also very fatiguing on the ears. However, once I'd put in some super-fast multiband to take that out of the equation I do like the fullness and power of the balance and effects you've got on offer here. Lots of guitar body and aggression; lots of drum sustain with nice smooth cymbals; great vocal intelligibility and control -- not really a foot wrong, beyond perhaps a touch too much 4kHz, which is very easy to do. I'm always in danger of that myself...

So all in all a great addition to the canon! Thanks for letting us hear it.