Blues Bastards - Sugar - a lower calorie mix by boomaga

[boomaga]

   Well recorded, this !   A lot of lovely guitar tones here.   And some nice eerie keyboard patches.   There is fat to trim, though.   All these sounds, that are printed with effects and atmosphere, can't call live on the same floor of the building and there aren't enough stories for them all to have a penthouse suite.   A couple of ornamental sounds I kept, a few more I ditched completely.

The acoustic guitars in particular I found to be brassy and lovely.    C414 ?     I wanted to start and end the song with those  so I kind of did an artificial fade out ending with just the acgs. 
    The drums are very nice, tasteful, appropriate, and in the pocket with swing feel.  I compressed the room mics.  The top and bottom snare were already phase shifted I believe.  The stereo separation of the OHs were good enough to place the toms pretty exactly.   I wish there was a ride mic, but eh.   The Bass DI low and high shelved and kept just a 160 band, and took the rest of the tone from the Bass Amp. 
   The guitars all knew their place and I appreciate how the parts were double tracked with a different performance.   I did a mono sum monitor and made adjustments from that.  There was one guitar part I completely jettisoned and that was the single high A note the electric guitar.  I found the intonation just really annoying and I didn't want to tune it.  I DID however tune the lead vocal.   I used to use the actual Antares Autotune manual grid VST  plug and pushed the shapes up and down by hand...  but this is my first time tuning a vocal extensively with this DAW and it is fantastic.  I finished the tuning in just a few minutes judging it to be artifact free.  

[Roy]

Just curious, how many languages do you speak? I've found this to be a very international forum and that's what makes it great. And everyone tries their best to communicate in a common language. As an American, I'm glad it's English even though I speak it as poor as anyone. Luckily my Bronx accent doesn't come through. That said, I can't express anything in the native language of a lot of of the most prolific posters. I can't speak Japanese or Russian. And I'm sure I'd butcher Australian as Dangerous Dave would acknowledge (yes I know it's english, I wish 'barrack' would gain ground in the US. I'd root for it! (why all the laughter?))

As for the mix, it's a bit dry and brittle. I never felt the vocal needed tuning but on causal listening I don't hear any artifacts from doing so but also no improvement. I miss the bridge vocals. The snare is a bit up front and on top of everything. The bass guitar is a little anemic. It feels generally empty and I think some of the synths and strings would fill in the space better. Overall it just feels very...light. It's not horrible but the mix doesn't barrack (see above) the song very much.

[Mixinthecloud]

Yeah. I don't think those are the lyrics, but they seem to be deliberately obfuscated so I made no attempt to try and clarify them. Went for tone and melody .

[boomaga]

Just curious, how many languages do you speak? I've found this to be a very international forum and that's what makes it great. And everyone tries their best to communicate in a common language. As an American, I'm glad it's English even though I speak it as poor as anyone. Luckily my Bronx accent doesn't come through. That said, I can't express anything in the native language of a lot of of the most prolific posters. I can't speak Japanese or Russian. And I'm sure I'd butcher Australian as Dangerous Dave would acknowledge (yes I know it's english, I wish 'barrack' would gain ground in the US. I'd root for it! (why all the laughter?))

As for the mix, it's a bit dry and brittle. I never felt the vocal needed tuning but on causal listening I don't hear any artifacts from doing so but also no improvement. I miss the bridge vocals. The snare is a bit up front and on top of everything. The bass guitar is a little anemic. It feels generally empty and I think some of the synths and strings would fill in the space better. Overall it just feels very...light. It's not horrible but the mix doesn't barrack (see above) the song very much.

   ... Okay, so, again, my having a bit of fun once again has been taken as with dead seriousness by you.  So: step one, removing the funneh misheard lyrics.  
     You know there IS a serious point being made about enunciation, about lyric writing and singing being a storytelling medium, and that unintelligible lyrics can hamper a song's success.   I couldn't begin to sing anything in Suomi, but then again, I'm NOT TRYING to sing a rock ballad in Suomi.   If  the Blues Bastards are singing for their home market, fine, if they're singing a Spanglish style mix of Suomi and English, fine.   It seems to me he was trying to sing completely in English for each line, though, and there are sung lyrics that I sincerely didn't know what the intended words were even having isolated the vocal track and listened many times.   I'm not DOGGING him for not speaking perfect English, my God.  With their educational system any average Finn is automatically going to be smarter than me, I can guarantee that.  It's got nothing to do with what languages he or I or you speak.  Lyrics are part of producing.   This is a ballad type song that leans heavily on the vocal part, highlights it.   Misheard lyrics are a concern for a producer.   
    The tuning is worth it.       
   I've noticed you mix very wet.   A lot of mixers on this forum mix just sopping wet.   I don't like so much reverb.   Muddy, soaking wet mixes predominate.   Sorry, it just sounds bad to me.     I hated the "Down down down down,"  I did add as much of the synths and strings as was appropriate.   I don't trust my monitoring system so the high-mids might be too prominent conversely the low end underpowered.

    I don't know what "barrack" means.   Slang from military barracks ?    "mix doesn't barrack"   whut ?  Help a native English speaker out. 

fwiw  I do speak some German, French, several years of Japanese, took enough Latin to get by.   I've been trying to Duolingo Chinese but it's my first time at a tonal language and I suck, it just won't stick.

[Petrenious]

Well done mate! Like your balances in this mix. But honestly, i think your approach to dry that song just does not work. Yeah. it feels much cleaner, but you've lost epic and fullness of arrangement. Complex of arrangement gives lots of opportunities to automate parts and make them different. Snare drum feels too roomy for me. Cant hear strings well. You've made some good descisions but, honsetly, i feels that its not worked well for that song. (IMHO)

We have used MJE "Hulk 990" (MXL 990 w/ Michael Joly MJE-K47 + Premium Electronics Mod) throug TAMPA pre on acc. gtr and SOYUZ 017 TUBE VER. through Herritage 73 pre and api2500 comp on Kolya's vocal. Hope it will help.