16-03-2016, 11:38 AM
Big Dave, kudos on on the work you have put in here, it's genuinely admirable. The arrangement is first class and drew out every ounce of emotion throughout the entire length of the song. It was engaging, interesting and played out like a story. The overall song length is also ideal and comfortably fits into the 'radio mix' category, in my opinion. No doubt you have put some serious hours into this and that's what it takes to craft a quality mix. Congrats.
Now for some technical nitty gritty. As always, there is a subjective element and some of my suggestions may well be preference-based, however to my ears they are still fundamental concerns that my ears are picking up:
- there appears to be some frequency overlap between the beater of the kick and the guitars starting around 0.35 seconds which is causing the kick to get a bit lost (the guitar tone is very nice, by the way and I particularly like what you have done with the midrange here).
- the pre-delay on the reverb for the rimshot/sidestick seems too long and seems rhythmically a bit out of place.
- there is an overall brittle tone to the lead vocal which to my ears sounds like it might be caused by a modulation/doubling effect? I would like to hear a more natural, thicker tone.
- the choice of reverb for the LV sounds a bit 'cheap-and-nasty' to my ears (apologies for the crude description, I don't know how else to describe it!), this may also be contributing to the brittle tone. To me, it sounds like one of those stock DAW reverbs which are quite often harsh and digital sounding. A good work-around if you are limited with reverb selections could be to EQ the return and pull out some of the harsh frequencies. In an ideal world, a nice Lexicon 224 plate from UAD would be lovely.
Thanks for providing us with an inspired mix, very refreshing indeed.
Cheers,
Mick
Now for some technical nitty gritty. As always, there is a subjective element and some of my suggestions may well be preference-based, however to my ears they are still fundamental concerns that my ears are picking up:
- there appears to be some frequency overlap between the beater of the kick and the guitars starting around 0.35 seconds which is causing the kick to get a bit lost (the guitar tone is very nice, by the way and I particularly like what you have done with the midrange here).
- the pre-delay on the reverb for the rimshot/sidestick seems too long and seems rhythmically a bit out of place.
- there is an overall brittle tone to the lead vocal which to my ears sounds like it might be caused by a modulation/doubling effect? I would like to hear a more natural, thicker tone.
- the choice of reverb for the LV sounds a bit 'cheap-and-nasty' to my ears (apologies for the crude description, I don't know how else to describe it!), this may also be contributing to the brittle tone. To me, it sounds like one of those stock DAW reverbs which are quite often harsh and digital sounding. A good work-around if you are limited with reverb selections could be to EQ the return and pull out some of the harsh frequencies. In an ideal world, a nice Lexicon 224 plate from UAD would be lovely.
Thanks for providing us with an inspired mix, very refreshing indeed.
Cheers,
Mick