Mykey Massacre - Don't Please Stay (MIX/MASTER)

[Unknow Mixer]

Hello good people!
Posting my try for the project.
The tracks are so nice well recorded.
For my try i wanted to get the bigger sounds possible without being too noisy?
Maybe i went too much.
Anyway, hope to recive your perspective.
Cheers all!

Edit: New Remastered Version (V2) a bit less agressive
Edit #2: A new re-work added (V3), I think it sounds a bit better (Hope so)... 

[mikej]

Hi!

Thought I'd best check your mix out too. I actually prefer mix V1 to V2. The guitars have a bit more weight to them in the low mids, and the vocal is a little clearer. Snare is sounding pretty good here.

Couple of things I noted. Not sure which tracks you are referencing, as it can make a quite a difference to how you approach a mix. I used the library mix, but do let me know if you used other tracks, as it can sometimes help to see what sound you are going for in your mix.

For me the vocal could perhaps be a bit clearer and a little more upfront. Some bits of words are sticking out, whilst others are getting a little buried. Checking the library mix, for me the vocal is kind of taking more of the mids/upper mids, and the guitar is perhaps more balanced towards the lower mids, if it makes sense for me to explain it like that? This means the guitar and vocal are not fighting so much for that same upper mid frequency range, and you don't have to add so much 4k to the vocal to get it to cut over the guitars. The vocal has a little distortion on it too, which helps give it the impression of loudness, and also helps it to work with the guitars.

The other thing I picked up on is that the kick has quite a lot of room and weight in the low end, but I feel there is a quite a bit of space frequency wise between the kick and the bass / low end of the guitars. I feel the mix could do with a bit more in the 300Hz and below area to kind of bridge that gap? Possibly the bass needs a bit more volume to kind of fill in between the kick and the low end of the guitars. I find often it's the bass that adds the power to the low end of the guitars, rather than just the guitars on there own.

The balances within your mix itself are pretty good, it's just that I feel that overall frequency wise I feel the mix has maybe a touch too much top end, and maybe not enough low mids - so sorting out the low mids would help with that.

This is a good effort so far. I just thought I'd try and share a couple of thoughts with you that I feel might help move it up a notch. As you can tell if you check out from my early rock and punk mixes on this forum I struggled for years to get my head around mixing these kind of tracks, but I have been working hard at it and feel my last few mixes are getting a little bit better, so it's really worth sticking at it and to keep putting the effort in. I feel these are by far the hardest mixes to get right.

Hope this helps and gives you some encouragement anyway.

Cheers!

[Unknow Mixer]

Hi!

Thought I'd best check your mix out too....

Thank you Mike for passing by!
And thanks for you nice reply as well.
I tryed to make a 80's rock mix vibe (i know is not even close but i tryed my best =) ) so any rock band from the decade is a good reference.
So, i wasn't very happy with the result so i decided to make another try (if you wanna check it out, V3 version just added =) ) but yeah i totally agree with your kind and objective observation.

In relation with the tracks used, all are the provided mix recorded session, no samples, or amps simulation. or anything else.
So thanks again Mike, hope your doing well.
Cheers!

[mikej]

Hi!

Yes! I think V3 is sounding really good. Much better. Everything has it's spot in the freq spectrum now and is all working together. I know I said it before but I do really like that snare sound. I really like that vocal delay that goes into the solo at 4:20 too.

Nice work!

Cheers!

[Unknow Mixer]

Hi!

Yes! I think V3 is...

Thank You Mike for reply again!
Glad to read your kind feedback.
Not a easy one to mix, kind a bit tricky.
Thanks again.
Cheers!

[mikej]

For 80's rock mixing there's some good interviews with Mike Shipley (RIP) who mixed Def Leppard for Mutt Lange on Youtube. I think one good interview might have been on Pensado's Place. Bobby Huff has a youtube channel where he goes through a few of the Mutt Lange recording and mixing tricks. Mike Shipley and Mutt Lange were quite ahead of their time mixing wise. Their wokring methods were more how you'd approach mixing and arranging in the modern day DAW, but they were getting it done in the 80's on the SSL console. I'm not sure if Def Leppard fans realised how produced and crafted their stuff was back then. Mutt Lange and Mike Shipley were kind of the Trevor Horn of the rock world.

More metal than rock, but I do really like the more recent Judas Priest mixes, eg the Firepower album from 2018, and also the audio on the live shows such as Judas Priest Live From The Seminole Hard Rock Arena. Not sure about the live shows, but I think the album was mixed by Andy Sneap who is also well worth checking out as far as rock and metal mixing goes. He actually toured as a guitarist with Judas Priest too. The sound is amazing, it's like the classic metal sound - but mixed bang up to date. Really clean.

Just thought I'd pass on a few things that I think are well worth checking out mixing wise, and might be useful.

Cheers!

[Unknow Mixer]

For 80's rock mixing there's some good interviews with Mike Shipley (RIP) ....

Definitely am going to check them out! Thanks Mike for your advices for real, so much helpful. =)
You know, what would be the one of the best mixing courses in the entire planet? That probably should come from Bob Rock. I only can find some tips from him but not a full mix course =(. But, yeah. I am going to search more info from the mixers that you mentioned. Many thanks for the info again Mike!
Cheers!