Great mixes!

[mikej]

Hi,

Firstly, many thanks for sharing a great multitrack for us all to practice with.

Also, many thanks for listening and commenting on all our mixes and offering to answer our questions.  It's much appreciated and very generous of you, as this does take up a lot of time.

My first thoughts when playing back the raw tracks were that this track was very well recorded and arranged.  I also really liked the choice of doubled parts, so there wasn't much to fight with in that respect.  This actually makes the mixing much harder, as all that remains is for me to go ahead and completely mess it up . 

My general approach is to listen closely to, and kind of live with, the library mix for a bit.  Then I pick out a few current tracks to reference with regard to general tone, etc.  In this case I picked out a couple of tracks from the billboard hard rock chart - just to try and get an idea as to what the ballpark current sound is. I feel that anything mixed today has to be able to hang in a current playlist (tone, loudness, etc).  The current charts kind of dictate what is popular and of the moment.  My feeling is if you don't do any referencing, you don't have any yardstick or direction and are going to be totally lost.  Also, I find referencing commercial mixes to be quite brutal and humbling, and really helps me to understand that my mixes do really suck and it drives me on to work at it and hopefully try and improve a bit. 

Things I picked out from the library mix that I really liked - and tried to get right - were the intro guitar figure, the lead vocal effects and atmosphere, and the excellent backing vocals.  The snare - the kind of low-ish mid reverb thing I picked up on I really liked. The bass runs, and also that great, explosive, fast guitar solo. The library mix was very loud, 5-point-something LUFS, and also is a good mix that would be tough to even try and match, let alone beat.

From the (commercial) ref tracks picked - I got that things are quite mid/upper mid focused, and that the drums are really quite fast, agile and punchy, rather than bass heavy.

So, that was basically my approach, and what I was attempting to go for in theory.

I really like your signature, and as it says, everyone hears it a little different. 

For me I am interested in:

What was your idea and vision for the mix of this track? 
Which aspects of the mix are the most important to you?
Are there any key points you think people are kind of missing?
What things have people come up with that have surprised/impressed you?

And if that wasn't enough wide ranging questions to be getting on with -

I'm curious - due to the high quality of the tracks - was this a studio production, or more of a home recorded thing?

Edit - and did you play and sing all the parts?

Another edit - Wow, ok, just checked your youtube channel - House Of Bedlam Demo '93. Amazing!!

Cheers!