We Feel Alright

[pauli]

Confession: I'm apparently manifesting some pretty serious masochistic behavior, because I seem to make a point of attempting mixes for which my skills aren't ready.

I'm pretty unfamiliar with this genre, so I left creative decisions out for now.. what are your thoughts?

[juanjose1967]

I think it's pretty good! I remember I used a lot of voice effects on this track because it's a good track for such practice... I also payed attention to your snare. It sounds much better than mine

[pauli]

I don't think my snare sounds better than yours, but we did take a different tack with it. I'm curious how you got your mix to sound so wide and so clear, though. From the mixes I'm hearing of others I gave it way too much low end and maybe that's why the bass part bothered me so much. Possibly why the entire mix sounds so congested and thick to my ears, too.

Your mix was nice and clear, though, so if you don't mind sharing, I think I could learn a lot from how you worked this tune.

Thanks for listening and the kind words!

[juanjose1967]

I'm sorry, but I don't keep this Project anymore, so I can't tell you exactly what I did because my memory is not that good. But one of the things I can tell you is that I compare all the time the instruments' spectrum that play in the same range, so there is no conflict. So maybe that's why you hear everything so clear.

Another thing I do for making things wider is a stereo widener. I don't use it on the whole mix, but mainly on synths and pads. Maybe this will give you a hint about how to achieve a similar sound.

And again, I still like your snare better than mine

[pauli]

I'm sorry, but I don't keep this Project anymore, so I can't tell you exactly what I did because my memory is not that good. But one of the things I can tell you is that I compare all the time the instruments' spectrum that play in the same range, so there is no conflict. So maybe that's why you hear everything so clear.

Another thing I do for making things wider is a stereo widener. I don't use it on the whole mix, but mainly on synths and pads. Maybe this will give you a hint about how to achieve a similar sound.

And again, I still like your snare better than mine

Oh, cool. I had the same idea about stereo widening for the pad and the sweeps, but I went for an autopan instead (I like those ). The effect is a lot more dramatic on the sweeps, but there's a teeny bit of it on the pad. My idea was to use the pad more as a textural layer underneath the mix, letting it poke out here and there with the autopanning, but mostly using it to fill out the harmonic density a bit. Sounds a little TOO dense for me though!

I squeeze the boogers out of the bottom half of the bass and the kick drum to even them out a bit, so it's possible that I simply took it too far... there's also a mastering style compressor right before the limiter because I was trying to get the 2 to 4 kH to take a chill pill, and there's some bass boost there that I'm regretting at the moment.

[thedon]

I enjoyed listening to your mix it' sounds well balanced ,I like how you brought up the guitar solo in the intro !
As you mentioned maybe a little less compression on the bass and kick !

[Pharos]

Pretty nice mix! I might look at bringing the guitars up in the mix a bit. I might also look at changing up the kick eq. There's a good amount of top end on it so it sounds a bit hollow. The fx track is also a bit high in the mix in my opinion. I would also look at adding some top end eq on the lead guitar to make it scream a bit more, and some reverb on the vocals, but that's my personal opinion.

[pauli]

Thanks Pharos... this is an old one when I was still very very new to the mixing game. I agree with your observations completely a quick listen highlights lots that I'd have done differently if I'd known better. The bass situation in this song is really difficult to manage and I imagine I neglected a lot of other things, having been so absorbed by the low end.

[azwayne]

First, thank you for not using a limiter on this mix. I like having my volume control actually be useful instead of stuck set at 0.1% to keep from blowing my ears out.

Vocals are maybe a bit low when put up against other instruments that have not yet dropped out all the way (so the fix is to dip the instruments on their way out) but I like this mix. I think you managed to do a better job than I have of getting everything to come out but still blend. Nice job, pauli.

[pauli]

Thanks azwayne, glad you like it.