Timeless Part 1 MaybeJustOnce

[maybejustonce]

This was a super fun song, granted everything by MekaPhil is, so it was a blast to work on. Nothing was replaced and guitars were amped through NeuralDSP Tim Henson. 

I know its been a while but Id really love for MekaPhil to hear this!

[aftercutrecords]

Great mix! Just a couple things I'd like to make note of:
1) I really like how you mixed the drums! They sound great.
2) I love the Tim Henson style tones. Meka is a HUGE fan of Tim Henson, and I'm a big Polyphia fan myself. I honestly think the tones you have are better than the ones we had on the actual album.
3) I love the vocal mix like 90% of the time and the bridge reverb and delay is spot on!
4) That lead guitar tone is really nice! I played the solo and I appreciate how much of a nice little fuzz it has, as that's my ideal kind of lead.

Now for the critiques!
1) The vocals feel really dry during the verses. I feel like a little more verb on them would be perfect.
2) The distorted screams at the end are a nice touch, though maybe a little bit less present in the mix?
3) The harmonies REALLY make this song, so if we could get just a little bit more of that blend up in the verses and maybe balance out the Meka vocal with the Phil vocal a little more during the chorus, it would be perfect. The idea for this song in particular is that it's VERY duet-y and the chorus isn't really supposed to have one or the other punch out too much, but rather the blend of our two voices make up the tone. If you listen to the reference version (which is the Album version) you'll notice that it's got this weird kind of chorusy feel on the blend of the main vocals. That's the intention! When he and I sing together, we create a unique vocal blend that we really enjoy

OVERALL I think you did a great job and I love the mix choices you made! Thanks a bundle for mixing this, and I hope you do more of our stuff in the future!!

[maybejustonce]

Thank you so much for taking a listen! I totally feel you on every critique, the thing I'm most upset about with my mix is how I didnt blend the vocals as well. I usually try to go in blind and listen to maybe a couple seconds of the original mix to see if i vibe with the song, and I'm kicking myself for not reading the feedback to others until after i had posted. The verse verb thing was intentional but a bad call (ive had problems with being too wet on my vocal so i dialed it way to far back). Thank you so much for posting y'alls work, i love jamming to it and working on it!

[aftercutrecords]

My single most useful piece of advice to you would likely be this:
Parallel reverb, sidechained compression.

So here's how it would work:
1) Send the vocals to an aux, a bus, or whatever with 100% wetness on a reverb plugin.
2) Put a basic compressor on that reverb bus.
3) Sidechain the vocals, pre-fader, to the compressor on the reverb bus. Adjust to taste, preferably with a long release.

What this will do is duck the reverb when the vocals are being sung, but allow the reverb tails to fade in after the vocals are done. This creates a VERY clean vocal while also allowing for the reverbs to feel really big after the vocal is done. If you haven't done that yet, I'd highly recommend it as it's a trick that has worked really well for me for a long time.

No need to kick yourself, this is one of the best mixes I've heard of this song, ever!