Hi Joey, and welcome to the Discussion Zone.
This multitrack has been one of the more popular downloads in the library, but I think it's actually quite a tough one to tackle, because it feels like there are almost too many options -- a lot of sonic and arrangement decisions seem to have been deferred until mixdown. You've had a good old stab at it, though, and the main aspects of your balance are pretty respectable.
My first point of concern would be that the drums seem to lack a bit of punch. This particularly applies to the kick, because although a clicky tone is very much par for the course in this kind of style, I think it does also need a well-controlled dose of low mid-range and upper low-end (the 80-300Hz region) to balance that. You've given us a bit more low end than on the preview mix, which I do prefer, but that seems to be concentrated in the lower two octaves where it feels rather stodgy, and comes more from the bass than from the kick it seems.
The guitars feel a bit on the spongey side too, for me, so I'm assuming you've tried to make the best of the amped tracks rather than reamping any DIs. I honestly don't think I would be able to get a guitar sound I was happy with unless I did some reamping here, even though reamping is something that I try to avoid in general. As for the vocals, there's pretty much no winning position to be had in this style, but I do think I'd probably go for a different compromise between vocal audibility and guitar tone, carving away a bit more of the guitars to allow the vocals to come through more audibly. Some extra 600-900Hz feels like it would do the vocals the world of good too.
Quote:Used a lot of buss compression and parallel compression on stuff...maybe too much but I love the sound of buss compression on vocals.
It's possible that you might have overcooked the buss compression a touch -- that's often a reason for drum softening. Also, I have to say that I'd probably avoid using compression on the guitars (if you are), because it feels to me like they need all the dynamics they can get.
Hope some of that is of use!
