Morelia, please skip this post! I don’t want my commentary to skew your vision in any way. Thank you!
Well, since the window for comments is open, I’d like to share a few thoughts on everybody’s work. Of course, I will be coming from my personal and highly questionable perspective, so if you find my babblings pretentious and useless (which they very well could be), skip this post. But just to encourage a conversation, here we go.
CarlosB: I like your vocal mix! Given that it’s considered to be the weakest link in this song, and generally vocals tend to require the most attention, I think you nailed it. The guitars are a bit boxy to my taste, which may be something you were going for, but I would give them a little less energy in the 300-400Hz area. The snare could use some more punch. I like to balance the kick and the snare in terms of energy because they usually are the driving rhythmic force in a song like this. And another thing for you to consider is the guitar solo. To me it sounds a bit separate from the rest of the mix, I feel like it’s due to the reverb you used. I like my solos to take place of the vocal and have a similar in-your-face kind of sound. For this reason I rarely - if ever - use reverb on my guitars, I go for a delay instead.
Philk: Very convincing work, bravo! (And very loud). Your vocal mix is good, it’s different from mine but it works perfectly. The snare is a bit bulky to me but that’s a matter of taste, of course. And your solo to my ears seems to fly away from the rest of the mix. I think that in a rock song like this the space should be uniform, some elements might be farther away, some closer, but overall it should feel like it’s the same space where everything happens. And I could be wrong about this.
stu b: Great balance! All the instruments are where I like them to be, and the bass is something quite special. I notice that you chose not to have a single singer in front like most of us, but went for a choir. It didn’t occur to me before but the song is actually about US, not ME (“we fly”, “we don’t care for anything you do” and so on), so it’s kinda clever. That being said, watch out for those Ss. Like Tony Maserati says – we only need one S if they’re in time, so you could get away with some heavy-handed de-essing on most vocal tracks. And watch out for the solo as well lest it flies off. It’s not as drastic in your mix as in some of the others’ but just a cautionary note.
Kirurg: Very clean and transparent work! Nothing is harsh, great job. What caught my attention was the snare having a little too much of what I can only describe as the bottom mic (6 to 7KHz?). I feel like the song calls for something tighter and punchier, the sound itself is good but just a bit out of character to me. The solo could come out a little bit, too.
BentLangerak: Some interesting ideas there! The guitar tone changes in some sections, and there’s a nice unexpected stop before the second chorus. I love that sort of thing, I think music needs to be entertaining. In this mix I would pay a little more attention to the drums, I feel like they could use some smearing with parallel compression and/or reverb of one kind or another. And I would bring up the kick a bit. There was one moment during the solo where I felt like something was distorting, was it too much tape emulation on the mix bus or something else? I couldn’t tell. Also watch out for those Ps in the vocal during the chorus. I remember that one vocal take had some explosive Ps, go harder on those, automate the low-cut if you have to. I like your creative approach, work on it and make it your asset, the clients will love you for it.
GGermaine: I like the clarity and separation in your mix, which is often hard to achieve in this genre. Am I hearing saturation distorting the mix bus? Some people will love that sort of thing, but I personally would tone it down a notch. Or if it’s a tape emulation I’d go for a lower ips setting which tends to focus the saturation area lower on the spectrum. Another thing is the snare. It sounds good but to my taste it sends too much low end into the reverb, it doesn’t really happen in real life, so I would roll it off up to 400-500Hz on the return, or even higher. The vocals are good apart from being a little too S-heavy but that could be due to the overall saturation of the mix, I really couldn’t tell.
Kevin Gobin: I really like the instrumental mix, it’s well-balanced and smooth. The snare is trashy which could be a taste thing, and like I said before – I would tighten it up for this particular song. Also I would advise caution with the reverb, the sibilants on the vocals give it away too much to my taste. Or is it delay? Either way. Same goes for the solo – I’d like it to be closer to the listener, exactly where the vocals are. I also think that the phrase “we fly” (arguably the main idea of the song) could be underlined somehow. For example on my mix it almost fades out into the reverb, and I don’t hear much of it on other mixes. Is it cheesy? You tell me
Jerze: Great mix, punchy and clear! I think I heard the left guitar’s reverb in the right channel, was that it? Classic! There are vocal lines that could be accentuated with a reverb maybe, particularly the final lines of the verses and the choruses. Think of the singer and why he/she chooses to use louder or longer notes on some parts – this is where the accent should be, otherwise these key phrases could end up a bit underwhelming. There is something going on delay-wise on the vocals, you could be more aggressive and deliberate with that. Is it vibrato on the solo? Whatever it is, I like it, very grungy and appropriate. I think I heard a similar effect on somebody else’s mix but I forget which. Cool stuff!
Please take everything I said with a grain of salt. Some of my comments may overlap but I tried to devote equal amounts of time to every mix and suggest a nudge towards my idea of improvement. I could be wrong about everything, feel free to hate me for it
I also noticed that the mixes are a lot more similar now than in Round 1. Somebody’s gonna have a tough time choosing.
Great job everyone! Hope I was helpful!
