I tried hard to copy Mike's drums, and I'm fairly happy with how they turned out - especially since I kept the original snare which was a royal pain to work with.
The synth parts are a little warmer than Mike's version because I felt the low end need a little help since the bass doesn't come in until the first chorus.
The vocals were tuned using Samplitudes built-in Elastic Audio tool (similar to Melodyne.) I also used Melda's free MAutoPitch plugin to auto tune my corrections even further. The vocal echoes in the chorus are done based on Mikes description in his Mix Rescue article. Very cool effect!
There's probably some masking still going on, but I'm not sure what to do at this point to clear it all up without destroying what I have. Let me know what you think! Suggestions and critique are strongly encouraged. Thank you.
Very nice job this, and I can't argue with most of what's going on here. If I get my pickiest hat on, though, I'd probably try to clarify the chorus textures a little more. You've got an impressively clear and spacious sound to the verses, but the choruses then seem to cloud over a little, to the detriment of the vocal presence. I wonder whether it might be one or two reverb tails too many there, or just that you need to do a bit of EQ'ing of the returns. It's a bit too heavy rock rather than pop/synth/rock. I'd also like to hear more of the some of the synth arpeggiation details, so perhaps you could make more of their attack phases to bring them out?
My main suggestions would be to question the section dynamics a bit more, because some of the transitions don't quite work as nicely as I'd like. For example, the transition effect 1:24 seems to rob the following chorus of its impact. (That said, my own pre-ch3 transition is probably overcooked a bit too!) And then the middle-section doesn't really seem to go anywhere new from a mix perspective, which means that the final choruses don't feel as much like a 'triumphant return' as they might.
Thanks for posting!
Some more automation work (and perhaps a decibel higher level?) for the chorus vocals might be a good idea too, because they feel like they're getting a little lost -- especially for "outspoken English actors", where a couple of syllables are being swallowed.
19-02-2013, 01:07 AM (This post was last modified: 19-02-2013, 01:08 AM by DanUpdegraff.)
Thanks for the suggestions Mike! I added a couple dB to the synth parts in the chorus and dropped the guitars 1dB to mold it more into the pop genre. The biggest improvement was automating the lead vocal syllables that were getting lost, bringing them up anywhere from 1 to 5dB. Not sure what you meant about the bridge, but I added an automated echo to the vocoder vocals to make that part a bit more ethereal from the rest. (I didn't repost the new version - didn't want to monopolize this thread with my mixes. lol)
Again, thanks for the tips. I enjoy refining things to make the mix better, and learning in the process.
(BTW - Loved your appearance on Graham Cochrane's TheRecordingRevolution.com!)
