Dark Ride * Piece Of Me

[FOHEngineer01]

Hi, this is my first stab at mixing this track. A good in-your-face crusher!

Mixed using Reaper and a few Waves plugs on a Lenovo laptop ... My SSL4000 G is in the shop   I wish!

Any feedback is appreciated.

[FOHEngineer01]

After listening to the MP3 a few times (after it was uploaded and streaming) I decided to bring up the kik a bit and mess with the intro. I also brought in the Piano a bit more and a few other adjustments.
Thanks for listening and any feedback you care to make.

[Blitzzz]

Guitars, bass and vocals are fine. Drums... well, not so much. I don't like the snare sound, it's too dominant for my taste. It has too much "smack" and the snare reverb is too dark. I would probably reduce the attack a bit to make the snare less hard-hitting and maybe give it a bit more weight with a small lowend boost (or add a beefier sample to the mix). And I would also change the character of the snare verb. Is this a dark plate? Try a brighter one.

I also miss the cymbals in your mix. They are buried underneath everything else for most of the time.

Other than that it's a good mix.

[FOHEngineer01]

Blitzzz, thanks for listening. Nice to have an objective second set of ears. I've been a live mixer for many years and usually the only mix feedback you get on a show is either it was great or it sucked. So this is a nice change to be getting constructive knowledgeable feedback.

I'll revisit the snare and mess around with it a bit and see what else I can get out of it. The rev is a medium room (waves H reverb). I'll try something shorter and brighter and see how that fits.

[Blitzzz]

No problem, I occasionally check this place and try to give some constructive feedback. I think it's quite valuable if you get feedback directly from the artist because in the end we ultimately knew what we were aiming for back when we wrote and recorded those songs. Piece of me is not an easy song to mix, because it's not only about balancing all the different tracks and parts. You also have to show that you can put energy and feeling into a song by making the right choices and using the right tools at the right time.