My contribution.
The cello during the bridge was too distracting for me. In my opinion it just doesn't work as an obligato and I like letting the song come down a bit before the final push. If a producer said it has to make the mix, I would, but that isn't the case.
The guitars have a lot of fuzz spread all throughout their spectrum. I don't use exciters much, but this is a good case of where it can help to add clarity.
I think the song is really good and the chorus is very strong. The bridge and the epic outro give a great contrast to the straight up verse and chorus. Has this band done a full release?
Paul Bissell
The balances sound really good, & I like the frequency treatments on the individual mix elements. The bass is sitting nicely - perhaps the kick could do with just a touch more attack in the top end to cut through comparative to the snare - they sound a tad at odds with one another sonically at present.
Vocals are nice & forward & sit pretty well in the mix. I like the way you added a "generated" harmony for the chorus - it works well. However I'm hearing a few "lisping" artifacts in the lead vocal that indicate you might need to back off the de-esser a tad. The reverb on the vocals sounds a little on the muddy side - perhaps rolling off the low end of the reverb would help, as well as maybe increasing the pre-delay to get the space to sit "behind" the vocal. One thing I noticed with the vocal on this track was that, because of the large amounts of spill in the vocal track, I get the sensation of the spill "surging up" during the vocal phrases (because of compression bringing up the low level details in the track) & then disappearing abruptly between the vocal phrases. This was very noticeable even on Mike's original mix. I don't think there is a complete solution to this issue, save re-tracking spill-free vocals... however, using some subtle delay on the vocal tends to lessen it's impact, taking some of the 'abruptness' away from the transition.
The long-term dynamics are great on your mix - you've really accentuated the whole contour of the track, which is really important with a track like this IMO.
Really loving the ending treatment - nice dynamic build on that. Top job!
Thank you for your comments.
There are all kinds of issues with this mix, and I suppose they are all solvable; certainly changeable
I don't see that mix anymore so I can't tell you what exactly, but I do remember that I couldn't gate anything as the bleed was so bad and I wan't going to do open heart surgery on it. Most things were expanded to 'help' what could be, and that is probably why I shied away from a stronger click on the kick - it would have brought up the snare and other bled things. Also, the upper midrange (where you would 'put' the click) was already jammed with guitars. For me, getting the guitars to some state of sonic goodness was the real fight. I just heard the uploaded mix, and it seems like I did give that top on the surging part coming out of the bridge. I can hear the click pretty strong there with the "double bass" style passages. I can also hear the bleed in that sound as well.
Sadly, there are quite a few phrases that he sings that I never really knew what the words were in the first place! ha ha ha Therefore I trust you with the lisping comment. But yes, I do recall that the compressor would suck all kinds of stuff up. Probably a lot more I could do, but again, it was hard for me to hear anything but the guitars telling me "We don't sound right. Please re-record us". ha ha ha
Again, thanks for your comments. I appreciate your time to write.
