Amber Skye: 'Howlin'

[takka360]

My mix

[Olli H]

I like the vocal sound very much. You rarely make mistakes in that area.

Opening sound is just great. But I was little disappointed the moment when the bass comes in at 0:43. Somehow the change is too little. Maybe the bass enters little suffocated, and then bg-vocals take too dominant role in the sound field. (I listened with headphones)

Around 1.17 in the quite part the close guitars are maybe too dark. In a sense they are near ear, but feel distant. ANd at the same time the distant guitar is very crisp. I maybe would try to solve that distraction by opening the close guitar a bit.

I'm already waiting your second version. You have a tendency to make a huge improvement with your revised mix.

[takka360]

Cheers for feedback Olli ,new mix

[Olli H]

I like the crude and brutal overall sound. It suits this animal song not to be so polished. But still, this is not yet something that I expect to hear from you. Typically your mixes are the most powerful mixes. At the moment this is very loud, but not powerfull.

For example around 0:32 kick almost disappears. Also something weird happens at 0:34. As if the overall energy level drops down for a moment. Also bass level drops in chorus at those "yuhu-uu" places. Listen for example bass power difference between 0:42 (no bass), 0:44 (low-bass) and 0:46 (good bass). Those are just some examples that seems to happen all over this mix at the moment.

Could it be that your are side-chaining something with vocals too much. Maybe it's the last final adjustement that went little over before printing this track. Listen for example the guitar solo around 2:30. There's those powerful drums that I like in your mixes. But when the vocals come in at 2:43 drums almost disappear.

So, I'd love to hear the third version where you combine the brutality with force.

[takka360]

Lol how much do you want to pay for 8 hours of my time,cheers for the feedback I don't think I can be bothered again mate.
2:43 drums almost disappear? I don't hear that and the bass sounds pretty consistent to me when there is bass playing.
Also something weird happens at 0:34? what? at 2:43 drums almost disappear.?i don't hear that ether

[Olli H]

Lol how much do you want to pay for 8 hours of my time,cheers for the feedback I don't think I can be bothered again mate.

I ask the similar thing from myself quite often: Why am I spending so much of my free time mixing music that I would never listen free-willingly if I wasn't mixing it? I have no answer for that.

2:43 drums almost disappear? I don't hear that and the bass sounds pretty consistent to me when there is bass playing.
Also something weird happens at 0:34? what? at 2:43 drums almost disappear.?i don't hear that ether

At 2:43 when vocals are present snare hit is clearly lower than the next snare hit when there's no vocals. The same happen couples of time in the row. If it's not problem to others, it may be an indication that I'm just splitting hairs and I'm concentrating to unrelevant issues.

Am I the only one to hear problems in sudden changes of low energy levels when those certain vocals come in? (Should be listened with good headphones) If so, maybe I should concentrate only on general comments.

[pauli]

Hey Alan, I don't how I missed your mix of this tune, I thought I'd heard them all...

I think what Olli is commenting on is related to my main quibble with the mix, which is that it is RED HOT. During the loudest sections I can hear the vocal reacting pretty strongly to a compressor, so it may be that the hotter vocal is masking the snare, or if there is a lot of compression on the master bus or during master, it may be that louder sounds are pushing the snare down, because I hear it too. Even considering that though I think there are a lot of good sounds going on, and some interesting ideas in the vocal tracks, such as the removed melody during the "howlin at the moonlight" vocal, making it more of a counterpoint to the melody. I thought that was weird at first but when I got used to it (after having heard my mix about 6 zillion times) it's growing on me.

I'm hearing the same bass issue that Olli is, too, and to my ears it sounds like overcompressing the master again. Rather than doing a full revision... you might try just easing off any mastering compression, or slowing the attack/release a bit. Or if you're using a mastering style compressor, you could mix in less of the wet sound. It sounds good to me in many ways, but the compression feels a bit violent. But I'm one to undercompress, so take my comments with that in mind.

Are the "arp" tracks a bit too abrasive from 10k to 15k? Maybe a little... sometimes those tracks sound like I was flossing my ears, they're so hard to mix.