jeremia, I took a listen to your mix and commented there. The hhat and guitars, along with the vocal sheen remark, combined with listening to your mix, made me wonder something about your high end response; I note it there. I hope some other people comment here so I'll know better. My speakers are pretty new to me (just got Rokit 8s before Christmas), so I'm fine tuning them, and my ears, with every mix.
Interesting to listen to this song using Addictive Drums because I'm also working on a mix using Addictive Drums too (which I'll post in due course). Just a few observations which may help; The hi-hat and cymbals are overpowering the general balance and there's an 'odd' loudness maximization happening which crushes the dynamics to a degree on the cymbals and hi-hat strikes. However, not knowing your setup, I've a hunch that just lowering the cymbals and hi-hat levels will get you more headroom, and, if you really want to compress at the master buss, the sound will be more natural if you're not to heavy-handed on the compressor. On the whole, the mix is moving in the right direction and these minor 'faults' are easy to fix without doing a complete rebalance. I hope this has helped in some way.
Hey Robert. Thanks for the listen and feedback. I took a listen back and see what you're saying about the hh being a little much. It isn't so much the tone of it (to my ears, it isn't harsh), but just stands out a bit too much. I think that's what you mean?
As to the compression, I'm not hearing that unfortunately, and I did not compress the master bus. I do use a program for mastering or premastering called A.A.M.S. which automatically masters the loudness of the song based on comparison to commercial reference materials. I've been very pleased with the program overall, but I am wondering if I should give myself more headroom in the mixes I do rather than push them hard, then let that program do the final nudge with mild compression. Not sure really.
Lots of attitude with that bass - sounds like Lemmy up there! I loved how you got that attack into it. Drum sound overall was nice. Maybe a bit too much cymbal for my personal taste.
Good job with the vocal balance, possibly got a little overwhelmed towards the end under the backing track.