24-12-2018, 09:32 PM
(24-12-2018, 08:19 AM)dcp10200 Wrote: Don't obsess over loudness in the mixing stage! When mixing your concern should be the overall tone of the mix and the overall balance of the instruments, when your music is released onto Spotify, Apple Music, Tidal, and Youtube it will be volume normalized anyway, the louder your mix the more these streaming services will turn it down with volume normalization (the exact opposite of your goal!) Overall I'd say the balance of your mix is fine, but due to the hyper compression going on it's losing most of the impact (compressors will also mess with the low end of your mix as well if they're set too aggressively).
Your mixing environment is definitely playing tricks on you here, the reverb tails on your snare are very muddy sounding and clouding up your mix (the compression is exaggerating that as well), the distorted synths are more full now which is fine, but because they're fuller sounding, they're starting to compete with the low end of the rhythm guitars, the 200-400 Hz region of the bass, and the reverb on the snare. This also has a side effect of making what was supposed to be a delicate and more sparse verse just as dense and heavy as the chorus, it's like if a boxer were to punch someone hard and then keep rubbing his/her fist on the opponent's face instead of pulling back and going for a couple of quick jabs, all the impact and contrast is gone and there's no reason to listen to the rest of the song. If you're working in a monitoring situation that isn't ideal or you're unfamiliar with, reference tracks are a must, not so much for "copying" the mix of another song in the genre but to give you an idea of how other tracks sound through the system you're mixing on, plus it gives you an idea of how you're mix will sound in context with other songs when it's put into a playlist with other tracks (just be sure to level match that reference track to your mix so it doesn't fool your ears and make you think "Louder is better").
What I would do in this situation is start from scratch, remove all your processing, and switch back to the stock rhythm guitar tones, and just work with the faders. Get your mix sounding balanced before you start hitting things with Eqs, Comps, Saturation, ect. and work from there. These tracks are pretty decent sounding on their own and really just need minor tweaking here and there (I found myself doing more cuts than boosts and only compressed some tracks like the snare, bass, and vocals just to dirty them up a touch). Once that's over with, that's when you can focus on effects and the more creative stuff like guitar effects and reverbs (the last 5% of your mix). On here it's fine to mess with effects and other things because the artist isn't generally going to hear your mix or release it as an official version of the song, but when you're auditioning mixes for a potential client you're better off focusing on the balance and the overall tone of the mix, especially if you're not the producer and you didn't take part in the recording of the track, they'll be far more impressed with a well balanced basic mix than they will be a super experimental version of their song.
Overall I think you can do much better, and that you really need to listen to the mix on something other than laptop speakers and headphones, the ultimate test will be in a car stereo, especially if that car has a sub. Keep cracking on and if you want an idea of what most streaming services will do to your mix visit https://www.loudnesspenalty.com/ and let it analyze your mix.
Cheers and hope this helps,
Doug
Thanks for the help, Doug. This all probably boils down to the fact that I'm using cheap headphones without references and squashed it too much. I usually don't spend much time on mixes since I'm a busy man, but I might try this mix again when I'm back home and have my good speakers. Also, I'll definitely be sure to check out that website.