Spike Mullings - Mike's sulking

[pauli]

with a sparse arrangement, we can afford to turn up some elements in a mix more so than if the arrangement is a busy one with lots going on. is this a true statement? furthermore, the depth-field becomes far more important to employ strategically to create the illusion of space. simply putting stuff across the stereo width just isn't enough (especially if it ever gets down-mixed to mono!). or is it?

sounds like some very decent separation between the instruments, Jaun (in my headphones). i'm wondering if there's some scope to reduce some of the low-mid spectral elements a wee bit; the bass guitar especially appears to be taking up perhaps more elbow room than the mix can afford on occasion? i don't mean attenuate it, but tame it with some choice EQ notches so you don't lose it's....bass? i think one of the sacrifices you might have made in finding clarity has been rather more material in the HF zone than is ideal for comfort....my ears are experiencing a slight degree of fatigue because of this, or could it be some of the more sensitive frequencies around the 4kHz region doing this? it's difficult to say precisely without taking it in the studio and sweeping the range. i might suggest the cymbal action could be rolled off a bit? it's quite possible that in making some minor adjustments to your low-mids where there's a lot of stuff going on presently, that this will help clarity thereby enabling you to ease up in the treble range....but you're really not far off, so if anything, make adjustments in future tweaks(?), nice and gentle. something worth remembering, is that we don't identify an instrument (or sound) primarily on it's "fundamental" but it's overtones. while some instruments in a song might share the same fundamental (hello frequency masking), they will never share the same overtones. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overtone

check the dings at about 3:30...the last one (9th?) was painful - it was right in my sensitive zone, but the other dings i though were well sorted. if you listen over notebook speakers it might reveal the issue better?

vocal? i'm not sure about this, but i'm wondering if the song would benefit from a fader push here to bring him more forward in the mix. i know i'm on the perilous verges of subjective analysis, but you might find it works better for you. wiggle the fader about a bit and do some A/B'ing and see if you change your mind. some other ideas for tweaks which i think would help add some shine to an already well presented mix, might be to bring the organ out a little more, with EQ cuts in the mud-zone, and a little more presence in the mids without upsetting it's place in the mix (i.e. if you boost a certain frequency, make sure you adjust/attenuate the instrument's final output accordingly). and i'd also flag up automation as a chance to expose some of the instrumentation more during key moments (while pulling the irrelevant instruments back just a touch, which ever works best in your mix?). because as it is, it feels the mix is just a little "too well balanced", where all levels appear pretty similar - this doesn't convey a song's natural dynamic so well....by "dynamic", i'm not talking about compression, but how the song "moves", if you know what i mean?

i think with some fine-tuning, you'd have a really nice mix here mate! great work; Juan's back in business!

Might I add that almost every (small studio) overdriven guitar track can benefit from a low pass at 6000, sometimes all the way down to 3000? Electric guitars produce nothing but anharmonic noise from about 4000 up, and excess overdrive is going to exacerbate that and make it fatiguing. Sometimes a little anharmonic distortion in the high mids can help give a guitar a little more thrash, but it's going to come with the consequence of less defined notes, and potentially fatigue, so be careful what you let through, and remember that most crash cymbals are strong at 5000, so it'll be give and take if you want a little shriek from the guitars.

Taming electric guitars has been and continues to be my greatest mixing struggle... Can't really fault anyone for difficulties there, personally. I've been picking at this mix here and there for a couple weeks and can sympathize! It's tricky.