Howlin

[bmullen]

Waded through this plethora of tracks. Thanks for the listen and any input

[Olli H]

I like your version.
Sound feels balanced and great to me.
I like that close vocal sound.

I personally like the dark overall sound, but at the same time I feel that this song might benefit of slightly more modern sound.

In chorus the high frequency whatever feels like a mosquito is flying around my left ear. It's so alone in left without balancing element in right. (I was listening with headphones.)

[pauli]

Waded through this plethora of tracks. Thanks for the listen and any input

I'm working on this one at the moment, too. You'll probably find it easier on both your mental state and your computer if you collapse the individual left/right tracks into stereo channels... and many parts can be submixed, such as the hihats, which don't really need or benefit from being processed individually.

I love this song and it's so well recorded.. a real privilege and joy to mix. The big challenge in my opinion is preventing our computers from crashing

[bmullen]

Thanks for the listen guys. Here it is a bit brighter and with the "mosquito" tamed a bit

[pauli]

Bob, I like very much where you're going with this. Overall, I like your balance decisions, and the levels seem appropriate for the most part. You've created an energetic mix that creates a feeling of urgency and forward momentum, which is often one of the mixer's most challenging tasks. The mix is a bit hot for my taste, but it's very comparable to commercial releases in that respect... which means you've given consideration to the target audience. I respect that a lot.

Opportunities as I see it:

For me the SFX tracks, specifically the crash and impact tracks, are too loud. In a few spots they're covering the vocals and drowning out musical elements I was wanting to hear. That could be a taste thing, but I think it might make someone listening on headphones jump out of his seat if he were listening at a typical pop music level.

In Mike Senior's book (which I love, by the way, if you don't have it... it's very useful and also funny as hell) he mentions how we become accustomed to high frequencies, only to find out the next morning that our mix sounds like "a wasp, shaving." That made me laugh when I read Olli's comment In this case, I think he's talking about the track called "arp" because I found that track to be a bit abrasive on the high end as well in both versions. Not enough that it spoiled your mix for me or stressed me out, but I think your work here could benefit from a low-pass filter up around 12 or 13 on that track. An added benefit to this tactic, at least the way I see it, is that it makes more room for those lovely airy frequencies in the singer's voice to shine.

I'm not sure what's causing it, but I think the sub frequencies in the kick drum are lagging behind the attack a bit, which muddies up the bottom end on occasion. It could be that any compression you're using is emphasizing the natural tendency of sub kicks to behave that way... but if you low cut it around 30 Hz prior to the compression, I think it'd help without hurting the impact of the music.

Great work... really nice overall sound.

[Olli H]

Pauli is right about the kick. Something is happening there. As if the kick is ringing some note that is slightly out of tune. A small change in kick's compression tactic will surely solve that problem.

BTW I just checked the Ben Lindell's mixing video of this track. He duplicates the whole drum buss and uses parallel compression for the whole drum kit sound. But he also uses hi-pass and low-pass there so that low-kick and cymbals are not going throygh parallel processing. Only mids.

[bmullen]

Thanks guys. Ill go back and see what I can do.

[bmullen]

Here's my attempt at fixing what you pointed out.

[bmullen]

Bob, I like very much where you're going with this. Overall, I like your balance decisions, and the levels seem appropriate for the most part. You've created an energetic mix that creates a feeling of urgency and forward momentum, which is often one of the mixer's most challenging tasks. The mix is a bit hot for my taste, but it's very comparable to commercial releases in that respect... which means you've given consideration to the target audience. I respect that a lot.

Opportunities as I see it:

For me the SFX tracks, specifically the crash and impact tracks, are too loud. In a few spots they're covering the vocals and drowning out musical elements I was wanting to hear. That could be a taste thing, but I think it might make someone listening on headphones jump out of his seat if he were listening at a typical pop music level.

In Mike Senior's book (which I love, by the way, if you don't have it... it's very useful and also funny as hell) he mentions how we become accustomed to high frequencies, only to find out the next morning that our mix sounds like "a wasp, shaving." That made me laugh when I read Olli's comment In this case, I think he's talking about the track called "arp" because I found that track to be a bit abrasive on the high end as well in both versions. Not enough that it spoiled your mix for me or stressed me out, but I think your work here could benefit from a low-pass filter up around 12 or 13 on that track. An added benefit to this tactic, at least the way I see it, is that it makes more room for those lovely airy frequencies in the singer's voice to shine.

I'm not sure what's causing it, but I think the sub frequencies in the kick drum are lagging behind the attack a bit, which muddies up the bottom end on occasion. It could be that any compression you're using is emphasizing the natural tendency of sub kicks to behave that way... but if you low cut it around 30 Hz prior to the compression, I think it'd help without hurting the impact of the music.

Great work... really nice overall sound.

I do have Mike's book. I think it's time to give it another read