17-11-2016, 02:40 PM
Interesting approach here, making more of a feature of the electric guitars and turning it in more of a pure rock direction. There's a fantastic crunch you've got on those guitars -- you've managed to give them aggression without them getting too fizzy, which is always a bit of a balancing act, so well done there. It's got a lot going for it. For a start it makes sense of the thick and slightled gated snare sound on the multitracks, as this is much more stylistically in keeping with a mainstream rock sound. The transition into the Mid-sections is also great, because of the way the cleaner panned call-and-response guitars contrast so beautifully with both the chugging stabs underpinning them and the more aggressive HMF-emphasis in the preceding riff section. Overall the balancing is pretty slick too, as I've come to expect of your mixes, and I like the lead vocal tone as well, which is both meaty enough to be taken seriously, and cutting enough to demand attention at all times (with the help of some careful automation, I imagine).
In terms of what I'd try to improve, I'd say the main thing is that the bass guitar feels underpowered at the low end, and therefore the mix as a whole feels a bit lightweight. The bass recordings are in general quite light on fundamental frequency, so you'll have to do some processing to tackle this, otherwise the instrument's first and second harmonics will bloat the mix sound before you get the low end solid enough.
The toms sound rather dislocated from the rest of the drum sound, and particularly the snare -- check out the fill at the end of Verse 4, for instance, where the snare has lots of ambience, but the toms sound like refugees from a Supertramp record!
I'm completely in tune with the idea of blending the snare in the way you have, but if you're going to do that, then you have to give the toms some of that sauce too, I reckon.
On a more general level, though, I think there are also some downsides to this more traditional rock vision. One is that it seems to lose some of the rootsy character of the raw tracks, which I think's a bit of a shame. But, that aside, relying more on the distorted elements robs your mix of a certain amount of internal movement and dynamics (electric guitars simply aren't as dynamic as acoustic guitars) and this combines with the tightly controlled drums to give the mix a slightly static and constricted feeling. If you're going to go with this vision, then I'd try to introduce a little more interaction and movement within the balance. This might be partly a case of more automation, but I think letting groups of instruments hit slightly more audible compression might also be a strategy.
One other thing -- the noisy consonants on the backing vocals are really jumping out. I'm assuming it's on account of the compression scheme you're using, so it might just be a question of lengthening the compressor's release time to avoid it pulling things like that up. That said, I quite like the tone of those vocals, so if you can't change the compression without sacrificing that, then just program a bit of automation in post-compressor to rebalance the consonsonants.
Another great new slant on this multitrack. It's really cool to hear everyone's different takes!
In terms of what I'd try to improve, I'd say the main thing is that the bass guitar feels underpowered at the low end, and therefore the mix as a whole feels a bit lightweight. The bass recordings are in general quite light on fundamental frequency, so you'll have to do some processing to tackle this, otherwise the instrument's first and second harmonics will bloat the mix sound before you get the low end solid enough.
The toms sound rather dislocated from the rest of the drum sound, and particularly the snare -- check out the fill at the end of Verse 4, for instance, where the snare has lots of ambience, but the toms sound like refugees from a Supertramp record!
I'm completely in tune with the idea of blending the snare in the way you have, but if you're going to do that, then you have to give the toms some of that sauce too, I reckon.On a more general level, though, I think there are also some downsides to this more traditional rock vision. One is that it seems to lose some of the rootsy character of the raw tracks, which I think's a bit of a shame. But, that aside, relying more on the distorted elements robs your mix of a certain amount of internal movement and dynamics (electric guitars simply aren't as dynamic as acoustic guitars) and this combines with the tightly controlled drums to give the mix a slightly static and constricted feeling. If you're going to go with this vision, then I'd try to introduce a little more interaction and movement within the balance. This might be partly a case of more automation, but I think letting groups of instruments hit slightly more audible compression might also be a strategy.
One other thing -- the noisy consonants on the backing vocals are really jumping out. I'm assuming it's on account of the compression scheme you're using, so it might just be a question of lengthening the compressor's release time to avoid it pulling things like that up. That said, I quite like the tone of those vocals, so if you can't change the compression without sacrificing that, then just program a bit of automation in post-compressor to rebalance the consonsonants.
Another great new slant on this multitrack. It's really cool to hear everyone's different takes!