12-07-2014, 01:20 PM
i enjoyed it. feedback much appreciated 
14-07-2014, 12:38 PM
14-07-2014, 04:12 PM
Take another look at the bass instruments... it's lacking in definition. The delays on the vocal are a nice effect but I feel they should be limited to surgically placed moments in the song, or at least should only sound after the vocal phrase is complete so as to maintain vocal intelligibility and relieve the mix of much of the overall congestion, although I think it's well placed in the mix, contrary to MSF's opinion... just keep those delays out of the way of the melody. The pads could uses some judicious EQ cutting to make room for some of the other upper frequency instruments.... in my opinion, unless a pad is KEY to a songs sound (and this is almost never the case) they are generally the least important instrument in a mix and should be mixed last along with flavorful percussion instruments like shakers and tambourines to make sure the stars of the show have room to express themselves. Keep in mind that bass is non-directional and works best when the energy is shared by both speakers equally, so as to deliver them more efficiently... try a mid/side EQ with an aggressive highpass filter around 150, and you'll find that it focuses the kick and bass better.
Consider summing the stereo bass synth to mono as well, because a stereo bass is gonna give you all sorts of hell, especially given it's so busy and most speakers can't reproduce such a fast sequence of LF notes (kick+bass), any many common PC models have very high crossover frequencies (mine is 553!) in the woofer... so a 2 to 3 inch driver is trying to push a 16th note bass pattern, a kick drum... and the snare drum and guitars, and most fatally, the vocal, all have very important contributions in these areas, so a mix that performs admirably on high spec monitors in a well controlled acoustic environment will fall apart on the average listeners equipment... and in the car it'll be a health hazard
. Combine this with the notion that the bass isn't being evenly driven by both speakers, then the spectral regions requiring to most energy to drive will be delivered inefficiently while also sacrificing the most important data in the snares, guitars, and a big part of the vocal warmth, and you have the perfect storm.
Having said all that though, the bones of a good mix are here. The guitars sound great and I enjoyed the ambient nature of your mix (although this is hard to assess given the congestion, try EQing any reverb/delay effects you're using, too, especially in the low mids!). The vocal sits well in the mix, and I bet you'll find you can "push the levels" without any sacrifice at all if you clean those low frequencies up, especially in the side channels. If you keep the delays confined to the last word of each phrase (duplicate the vocal track, trim out everything but the words you want the effect on, and set the delay to 100% wet, 0% dry) the effect will be very, very nice. Aggressively high-pass your reverbs, and a low shelving cut around 400-500 wouldn't hurt either, and the ambiance will be very nice as well.
In fact, you have a lot of really good ideas here that just need a bit of technical refinement to support their contribution.
I'd also suggest you reconsider your stance on the loudness war, as master buss compression and limiting do not have to be considered a sacrifice so long as you're using them to control the unnecessary transients that limit your ability to "push the levels" without distortion. In fact, using such techniques does NOT have to be about maximizing loudness, persay, but making sure that a consumer could put your track on a CD with a bunch of other songs he likes, listen to your mix at the volume he likes, and not have the following song blow his brains out! You'll want your mixes to be consistent in level with commercial releases of the same genre also because radio stations ALWAYS use multiband compressors for various reasons (mostly so they have their own unique sound) and keeping a consistent level will make it much more predictable how it will perform under those conditions. Compression and limiting doesn't have to be a sacrifice... as long as you're not sacrificing anything anyone is gonna miss! Done properly, this mastering technique will actually make your music sound better by "gluing it together..." by making the unavoidable level differences between various instruments ever so slightly smaller, resulting in a fuller sound.
Just my opinions... you're doing well (especially if you're new to this), but some technical refinement will take you a long way.
Consider summing the stereo bass synth to mono as well, because a stereo bass is gonna give you all sorts of hell, especially given it's so busy and most speakers can't reproduce such a fast sequence of LF notes (kick+bass), any many common PC models have very high crossover frequencies (mine is 553!) in the woofer... so a 2 to 3 inch driver is trying to push a 16th note bass pattern, a kick drum... and the snare drum and guitars, and most fatally, the vocal, all have very important contributions in these areas, so a mix that performs admirably on high spec monitors in a well controlled acoustic environment will fall apart on the average listeners equipment... and in the car it'll be a health hazard
. Combine this with the notion that the bass isn't being evenly driven by both speakers, then the spectral regions requiring to most energy to drive will be delivered inefficiently while also sacrificing the most important data in the snares, guitars, and a big part of the vocal warmth, and you have the perfect storm.Having said all that though, the bones of a good mix are here. The guitars sound great and I enjoyed the ambient nature of your mix (although this is hard to assess given the congestion, try EQing any reverb/delay effects you're using, too, especially in the low mids!). The vocal sits well in the mix, and I bet you'll find you can "push the levels" without any sacrifice at all if you clean those low frequencies up, especially in the side channels. If you keep the delays confined to the last word of each phrase (duplicate the vocal track, trim out everything but the words you want the effect on, and set the delay to 100% wet, 0% dry) the effect will be very, very nice. Aggressively high-pass your reverbs, and a low shelving cut around 400-500 wouldn't hurt either, and the ambiance will be very nice as well.
In fact, you have a lot of really good ideas here that just need a bit of technical refinement to support their contribution.
I'd also suggest you reconsider your stance on the loudness war, as master buss compression and limiting do not have to be considered a sacrifice so long as you're using them to control the unnecessary transients that limit your ability to "push the levels" without distortion. In fact, using such techniques does NOT have to be about maximizing loudness, persay, but making sure that a consumer could put your track on a CD with a bunch of other songs he likes, listen to your mix at the volume he likes, and not have the following song blow his brains out! You'll want your mixes to be consistent in level with commercial releases of the same genre also because radio stations ALWAYS use multiband compressors for various reasons (mostly so they have their own unique sound) and keeping a consistent level will make it much more predictable how it will perform under those conditions. Compression and limiting doesn't have to be a sacrifice... as long as you're not sacrificing anything anyone is gonna miss! Done properly, this mastering technique will actually make your music sound better by "gluing it together..." by making the unavoidable level differences between various instruments ever so slightly smaller, resulting in a fuller sound.
Just my opinions... you're doing well (especially if you're new to this), but some technical refinement will take you a long way.