Hey Everyone,
A big thanks to
@cristian_condrea for evaluating my mix and including me in round 2!
I am using my first wild card for this submission. My left channel was +0.11 dB in round 1, so hopefully, I didn't screw that up this time around...
Here are his original critiques with my attempted fixes and descriptions for each.
1. I'm not really liking the sound of the drums. Maybe that's a compromise you had to make in order to make the bass sound that good. I would consider more punch for the kick and more body for the snare. But then again, it's your choice if it comes to compromising with the bass guitar.
I worked to bring out some more sub energy on the kick drum and fullness in the snare with additional eq. I think I was able to keep the original bass guitar mix you liked. This was done with some lower-frequency sidechain compression on the kick drum.
2. The sound of the GTR - acoustic solo part seems ok, but I would consider lowering the drive/distortion of the signal. It sounds quite aggressive for my taste.
This was my own preference getting in the way on the acoustic part. TBH I was attempting to step away from the DI tone by trying to achieve a faux-electric sound. Obviously, this wasn't your original intention and I appreciate your candor. I removed a lot of the overdrive, rebalanced levels, and added a little bit of chorus to give some depth.
3. I like the sound effect you created at 1.07, but then again, I would consider decreasing the volume by around 2db. The same goes for the back vocal that creates a 3d interval for the lead vocal "the smell of your perfume..."), till the end of the second chorus.
I brought down the "sound effect" and its associated sends. I also rewrote volume automation for the vocal lines here.
4. The "uuuuu" back vocal close to the end is almos not there (2.33), make it louder, so that it is perceived as a filling element.
I made sure to bring this more to the front of the mix.
5. The back vocals in the last chorus (from 2:34) that has to overlay the lead one are barely there. I would think of it like two lead vocal parts that creates something close to polyphony.
The background vocals were re-mixed for this part of the song. Additionally, I took the chorus/canon part and tried to bring it out to the sides with a bandpass/hi-pass effect.
Thanks again for your critique. I hope you enjoy the changes/final mix and look forward to the results of the Mix Challenge. Best of luck to everyone else!
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1FQhTSH ... sp=sharing