Dark Ride: 'Hammer Down'

[mikej]

Hi,

Well, initially I saw that you were posting a lot of mixes of this track and you seemed to be trying really hard to get this one right and not letting it go. Listening to those mixes I felt that I might possibly be able help give you a bit of a nudge in the right direction, having struggled similarly myself trying to get a halfway decent metal mix.

Getting the vocal level right in a mix is hard. I think the pro mixes of this track have the vocals kind of quite low in the mix. For rock tracks, if you have the vocals lower in the mix, it makes the guitars and drums feel a lot more powerful by contrast. Pop oriented songs have the vocals more out front as a rule. Whether up front, or more set in, I generally attempt to make the vocals feel the same 'distance' from the band throughout the track, if that makes sense? This does sometimes mean gaining up the odd section, individual word or even part of a word if required.

Cheers!