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Upper Hand
#1
I experimented with a drier sound on this track as apposed to other mixes of this song, also I kept the main overall volume of the mixed down stereo track lower which I kinda like... comments/compliments/advice are very much appreciated Smile


.mp3    Upper hand.mp3 --  (Download: 5.27 MB)


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#2
I find that the tones are mostly right on your mix (with on exception, see below) and I don't hate the dry sound at all, however there's a few things that bugs me (as usual, feel free to ignore of course!).

- the dryness of the lead vocal would work better if the levels were set to make it sound like it's part of the band and not so much in your face and so much closer than anything else. I think a good 3 to 6db less would work.
- there's also some sibilance coming through that you might want to watch for... Perhaps a high shelf and some de-essing for sure, manually or with a de-esser/multiband.
- the dynamic of the vocal needs addressing, perhaps not necessarily more compression, but some automation for sure
- the level of most of the band is so much less than the vocals that it's hard to judge the mix, really...
- the Rhodes being panned hard left and the horns hard right are not that nice on headphones. Looks like you've adopted LCR as a strategy, but as much as some people swear by it and it makes it easier to achieve separation, I call it lazy and it's particularly painful on headphones. It can work for some short accents, but the horns sound badly mono and cheap on the left and the Rhodes as well on the right. Can you tell that I'm not a big fan of LCR mixing? Wink
- the lead guitar sound is quite bad. It seems that you did some reamping or used some cab emulation or something, and compared with the other tracks that sound rather dry indeed, this sounds too wet and a rather harsh. I think the raw tracks are sounding better than that.
- and finally the ending is supposed to be a fade (I said that in the sticky about this multitrack), it doesn't make any sense to end abruptly like that.

So all in all, I think if you address some of these issues, you idea of a dry mix would work a lot better. As of now, there's still work to do. IMHO of course! Smile
"Music, in performance, is a type of sculpture. The air in the performance is sculpted into something." - Frank Zappa

Some air moved here
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#3
Thanks! You gave me some ideas to play around with! (Yes I do like my LCR lol little bit of a CLA fan... Maybe a little too much...) I panned the Rhodes due to the fact that it lacks any melody line in the mix. But I will play with the mix because your right, it is a little too much in the ear. (your also right about the guitar I did reamp it!

Ja.

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