Really? Percussion overload?

[grizwalter]

Gave it a listen and I admit your snare is better than what were on the multitracks and the djembe sounds impressive and big.
I took a look at the soundfile and what my ears told me were right, it usually is
You compres or limit (or both) way too hard for my taste.
Would you care to upload your uncompressed 2bus file ?

That said you have another great imrovement in the sound to the left, kind of a sitar but it isnt, I suspect you used the guitar track ? Great call, sounds really interesting.
My suggestion would be to back of a great lot on killin dynamics, let them work for you instead. Silence and breakdowns are very underestimated imho

Another suggestion: the snare sounds great but separated from the kit, maybe because the kick cant compete with the helped snare. 2 solutions: turn snare down or help kick (or both)

I realise it sounds like I dont like your mix, thats not my intention, I just find it hard to judge from what I heard because of the little dynamics.

Really like that sitar sound. I should have thought of that ...

Hey hey good sir. Thanks for the listen and feedback.

No doubt I compressed this one a lot. Ironically, I did not do so on the Master Bus at all, however. Just tons of compression throughout the mix, so sharing the stereo mix wouldn't change anything! lol

It is weird...I agree with you regarding the need for more dynamics in modern music, but this song, imho, really kinda sucks (lol) and I just couldn't find any way to make it interesting or powerful without just pushing it to the limit. I mean, how many tracks of hard hitting percussion were there? Eight hundred or so? haha What to do with those? So I pumped everything hard. This was a judgment call based on my feeling that the song was a general lost cause as a whole, so figured I'd just go stupid on it. You are correct, it is a bit much, I admit it fully. I'm just not sure I'd like it without heavy compression much either. Although I will say, your mix was very "natural" in this regard, and that is one of the things I liked about it.

I wondered about the snare in the mix. Think you're probably right--it is a bit hot. I messed with it at different levels and am not sure I ever really decided what to do with that. Voelund has spoken, and now I know! lol

Finally, as to the djembe, I actually recorded and mixed a world music group called Nahda Brahma many many years ago, and learned a lot of tricks regarding the instruments and means to best capture them. That was always a pretty tricky instrument to handle correctly because of the importance of the thud combined with the need for the poppy smacks as well. In many ways like recording a tom, except the snap and the thud occur at different times and together both.

The "Sitar," btw, is just me having some eq fun to get the instrument to stand out in the mix. Again, just one of my processing tricks for this one (a highly processed mix as you know), because I felt the need to experiment a ton and get stupid with processing to try and make something interesting out of it. I might have overdone it though, based on your thoughts!

Thanks again brother! Really appreciate the feedback. What else are you working on mixing right now? Looking forward to some more listens and feedback for library songs. This site really is great, isn't it?!