Deny Control (BCS Mix)

[bcs_mix]

Dark Ride back here again proving it from time to time it's all about getting the quality right from the start! I don't really work on music much anymore so my skills are very rusty, but this does bring back the butterflies in my stomach. I've only spent around 8 hrs on this one so it definitely the final form it deserves yet but I'm very busy with college so here goes. Definitely tell me where I should take this mix though I'll try to find time to work on it because this is pro-quality stuff. Don't wanna wait and let the discussion train over.

Going for the modern 'Alex Bent' Trivium/ GGD/ Josh Wilbur kinda mix. So yes to the bass.

UPDATE (After Reply#3): Mix 3; A little more 'open' and crispier sound. Kick Sub automation is the main goal. Wouldn't say it's necessary much, much better than Mix 2, but I might stick with this one. Let me know what you think.

FINAL UPDATE (After Feedback from Blitzzz): Mix 4.5; Personally my sweet spot tonally between Mix 2 and 3. But mainly I improved upon Blitzz's comment. I present my final submission here. Looking forward to more quality projects like this.

[Shul]

excellent mix man... the only thing for me the guitars are a bit too saturated so the upper mids are sounding a bit uncomfortable mid song. other than that i love your drum work.. solid compression and punch. Bass not sounding too bad either.

[bcs_mix]

excellent mix man... the only thing for me the guitars are a bit too saturated so the upper mids are sounding a bit uncomfortable mid song. other than that i love your drum work.. solid compression and punch. Bass not sounding too bad either.

Yeah man I can see where you're coming from about the guitars as I did use plenty of saturation although I have to say I don't think it's too much imo . Could you be more specific about the uppermids though, give me a timestamp atleast XD.

Thanks, though. As I said, mixing this heals me in a way. Will check out your mix too.

[KineticSoul]

Great mix man! Drums sound punchy, overall mix has a nice glue to it, it all comes together so well. I don't think guitars are too saturated personally, for this type of music i think it fits really well. Maybe guitars sound a bit too loud compared to vocals. Nice to listen too all the way through. Keep it up!

[bcs_mix]

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UPDATE (After Reply#3): Mix 3; A little more 'open' and crispier sound. Kick Sub automation is the main goal.

Also, now that I've got a conversation going on here. Why hasn't anybody said something about the media player being scaled at 300px width? This has been the case since that time the site got a new overhaul quite some time ago (a year? idk anymore). Is it just me? I've always had to manually fix it back to 1440//1080px using inspect elements. How do we get Mike Senior to fix this?

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[Blitzzz]

To be honest: After reading the comments, I expected the worst but was pleasantly surprised. That doesn't mean that Mix 3 would get a greenlight from the band (it wouldn't), but there is more right than wrong which is more than you can ask for So, here is the feedback from the band.

Pro:
- The energy is great
- The bass solo is great

Con:
- Right from the bat: Drums sound distorted, especially the Cymbals. The cymbals sound more like a source of white noise in the background than actual hihat/cymbal hits. I guess you are using a limiter, and it's too aggressive right now. There is almost no attack left on the cymbals, they sound undefined and washy. Is there also reverb on the cymbals? It almost sounds like there is, and it exacerbates the problem even more.
- Screams and Carstens main vocals in the first verse are too low
- Vocals in the 1st chorus are way to low
- Where is Nicos voice at 1:45? It's barely audible? Why? This is part of the main vocals.
- There is a supernice little bass part at 1:46 that deserves a place in the spotlight.
- Why is the short guitar solo at 1:52 so quiet? It needs to be in the center, loud and proud, because it's job is to replace the vocals
- At 2:21, the washy cymbal sound slowly takes its toll on my hearing. I really miss all the small hits/details on the cymbals
- 2:22 - the vocal solo deserves a place in the spotlight
- The snare sounds really distorted in the more open parts of the song
- Again, why is the main guitar solo on the backseat at 2:58? It's a guitar solo, written and performed to be in the spotlight
- The additional vocals at 3:18 are too low

Takeaway: It won't be an easy task to keep the energy and make all the suggested changes, but most of the cons are not really messing with the balance/energy of the mix. Main vocals need to come up by roughly 1db, and all the vocals that are buried under the guitar/bass wall need to be as clear and loud as the main vocals, too. The guitar solos need to be in the spotlight (center, not to the side, roughly on the same level all the vocals), but please don't drown them in too much reverb/delay. The biggest task would be fixing the cymbals. I don't know you're routing and setup, but I would probably route the cymbals to a single stereo bus that's not affected by the drum bus compressor and reduce the limiting/compression so you can clearly hear every single cymbal hit again. Then I would slowly introduce them back into the mix so they can be heard well and use an eq to get rid of the harshness. Just don't overdo it and suck the life out of the cymbals. After that, I would do as many automation passes as necessary to bring certain crash/splash/hhat/ride hits into the spotlight to breathe some life into the performance.

[bcs_mix]

Hi again, I finally got the time to pour my final effort into this project. Mix 4.5; Personally my sweet spot tonally between Mix 2 and 3. But mainly I improved upon Blitzz's comment. I present my final submission here. Looking forward to more quality projects like this. I appreciate all your comments. Thanks.

[aftercutrecords]

It's pretty scooped and the vocals could to do come up, but I like the drum's punchiness. That's REALLY important for a track like this in my opinion. The balance is good aside from the vocal thing, and the tonality is good across the board. This FEELS like a metal mix. I LOVE the bass solo in this one. It sounds really dope and I can actually hear it. I'd give it more midrange there in the 500hz ish place so that the guitar solo doesn't pop into existence, but rather feels like a natural progression of the bass solo.
I like it! Good mix!

[bcs_mix]

Yeah you know what I do agree w/the vocals. Whether it's music or my usual film works I always get comments about quite vocals/dialogues, haha. It's just a me thing and it's hard to cure without a sit-in session (for reference, I like shoegaze so there you go, drowned vocals .) Though if I already push the vocals louder than Mix 3 so maybe I should back off the deesser to make it perceived more upfront, instead of pushing for more volume?

Not sure I feel about the scooped mids though as I barely messed with the mids at all in Mix 2-3, and a LITTLE dip around 300-400Hz in Mix 4.5 because I find the bass still a bit wonky in some places. Maybe it's just because The instrumental mix is louder than vocals that it's perceived this way? I went for the loud instruments sound because the song has a very simple and upfront production, so loud wall of guitars help widen the mix a bit so I'd believe if you say I had gone a bit too much. Also, my mix is late 2010's style. Iirc the band and the original mix had the mid-late 2000s KSE style, so different purposese, ya know

Helpful comments, Thanks!

[bcs_mix]

The idea for the bass solo came from Spiritbox's 'Rule of Nine' by the way. I think I've implemented that sound to this less modern sound quite well, I'm proud of it and happy that people are noticing it and like it.

And to prove it to you that I really intended for the modern sound, the snare room sample I used for the hard hits (2s & 4s, not blasts) are from Matt Good (From First to Last, Asking Alexandria)! That's the only additional sound I added, though. The rest is originally from the very good source material.