The English Actor

[pauli]

This mix would have probably been pretty easy if they'd recorded it a whole step lower so the poor guy could hit the high notes in the choruses :/

[takka360]

Nice balance here so well done for that,is the chorus a few db too loud?
Is there a tad too much room?.
Good work pauli

[pauli]

Nice balance here so well done for that,is the chorus a few db too loud?
Is there a tad too much room?.
Good work pauli

Thanks for listening and commenting! You're probably right about the choruses... those sections are limited and the rest isn't. I only pushed it up a db and a half but I mixed those sections louder too so it's probably overdone.

I wasn't sure about the room... these guys were probably shooting for something a lot more like what mike came up with but my gut told me to go for more depth. There are maybe 4 or 5 reverbs going on so yeah, there's probably too much room, too

[The_Metallurgist]

Nice balance here so well done for that,is the chorus a few db too loud?
Is there a tad too much room?.
Good work pauli

Thanks for listening and commenting! You're probably right about the choruses... those sections are limited and the rest isn't. I only pushed it up a db and a half but I mixed those sections louder too so it's probably overdone.

I wasn't sure about the room... these guys were probably shooting for something a lot more like what mike came up with but my gut told me to go for more depth. There are maybe 4 or 5 reverbs going on so yeah, there's probably too much room, too :P

yo gang!
i agree with Alan...nearly. for me, the verses had too little 'go' in them, especially the intro which was sonically uninteresting and missing emotional energy. the choruses were banging nicely :)

compositionally, it takes 24 seconds before something different happens from the nonchalant drone of the intro...and even then, it's only the vocal that makes it different. we have to wait a full minute before the chorus! in 2014, that's tantamount to suicide; most kids would have hit the skip button 5 to 10 seconds in and i wouldn't blame them! nightmare. an interesting question which stems from this, is whether it's the ME's duty to make it more engaging...or even cut out some monotony and help save us from enduring the torture(?).

second to this, my main concern was regarding the vocal. you are losing the end of his phrases quite dramatically. this was perhaps the 100th take of the day and his reserves were running low? i'd also note that there's too much sibilance and the reverb is adding to this drama. this is occurring in both the verse and chorus...so it's not your dynamic processing on the stereo buss that's doing it though i'm sure it's likely contributing to the issues. depending on your choice of strategy to address the lost phrases, you could make the sibilance worse, so be careful in that regard.

looking forward to hearing v2

laters..
Dave

[pauli]

Thanks for commenting and your observations; I agree wholeheartedly. I think the compression's contribution to the sibilance issue may be related to the timing... And the raw vocal tracks during the choruses are very, very out of tune, with many of the all important high A's undershot to a somewhat flat G#! And pitch processing, without soul crushing hours of fine tuning has a nasty habit of screwing with sibilance, so I'll be checking the timing of my corrections.

As for the overlong intro, that's certainly an easy thing to fix. I've already carved the arrangement up like a thanksgiving turkey, so why not trim the fat a little more.

And I really would have loved to hear this song performed in a key more suited to this guys range. He has a nice voice which reminds me of an odd cross of Bono and Peter Gabriel, and my ears are sensitive to even the best pitch processing when the corrections are this severe :/