Go Go Go

[The_Metallurgist]

... There is more distinction of players facilitated by eliminating the accoustic guitar which never had a place to be in the mix.

(only auditioned mix B)

in other words, you couldn't get the acoustic to fit into the ambiance because it was DI'd? i found the bloom on the egtr to be the challenge really, because it wanted to smother itself right across the sound stage; you did really well to contain this, i must say! awesome.

the problem you've created here, is the LCR approach, which really doesn't go well in a pair of headphones and makes the stage sound unreal. it's this glitch that makes it a distraction, but over the speakers it sounds super....but then it would because the room and the 60 degree separation makes it so. in the LCR era nobody had headphones anyway....and most only had mono record decks pretty much until the 70's, then LCR was dispensed with as desks were upgraded to real panning.

a major problem the LCR approach brings with it, is fatigue [i'm still talking headphones]. if you don't have instruments in both the L and R zones sharing the same frequency material, the brightest will be very fatiguing. i found this song uncomfortable to listen to, for this reason. i'm not saying your equalisation is at fault here; actually, i liked your judgement on that. but the guitar is bright and the keyboard isn't. and this is where the acoustic can come in to save your bacon....because it can be EQ'd to balance against the egtr IF they are panned to opposite sides.

i thought you got the balance between the close mics and the room well judged generally, but i must admit, i'd have liked to have heard that acoustic, especially given the genre more often than not has an acoustic in it somewhere. i agree it adds to the clutter a bit, however, that's what a fader is all about. how about perhaps bringing the gtr in during the chorus to drive the song a little bit harder, say, while keeping it out of the main sections to let the egtr and keyboard hold our attention? nobody wants to hear all instruments banging endlessly in a song, eh? we like contrasts and some variation.

another big challenge with the song, was getting the drum kit to sound like it was part of the performance? those close mics will present a forward and unrealistic impression of the kit, and that's what i got here. the kick is a good example of unnatural ambiance - very forward, very dry and very detached as a consequence.

the vocal was difficult, contributed partly by her poor mic technique. almost every word at the commencement of a new line is lost and lacks energy....then suddenly up she comes. smacking a compressor on her to try and overcome this problem, makes for an unpleasant performance, to my ears, most likely because there's already a tonne of processing taking place at the desk when it was tracked?

it's these sorts of things that makes this song hard work to try and get right, so you have my utmost sympathy and understanding!

my major comment regards the mp3 quality here. you've given us a high amount of data reduction which contains a hell of a lot of artifacts as a consequence. i strongly recommend that you try and teach your ears to hear these artifacts yourself and post 320kbps in future. quality audio needs quality ears....and quality ears help to make a quality mixer.

i'd also back off all your compressors.....this is a hot mix to my ears.

given the issues of live sound and all that stuff, i think you did a really good job. listening over speakers, not sitting in the sweetspot, and not critically listening, i'd be very happy with it. and lets be honest, who in their right mind wants to critically listen to a live recording anyway?

well done