Please evaluate my mix

The vocals were too far out front for me, especially with that heavy reverb or room ambiance that made them less attractive than they might have been. The other instruments--bass, guitar, fiddle, mandolin--seemed well played. I'd like to have heard more of them, especially the fiddle. A good idea would be to A/B your mix against a bluegrass recording that has a balance you like. Then see if you can figure out what they were doing and do something similar.
 
Almost all the instruments need brightened up. Banjo, mandolin and fiddle are a bit dull. Hit them with a little 8-10k air. Guitar sounds great.
As mentioned, the vocal is too prominent (and the room ambiance is all over it giving it a tinny sound).

Pretty good performance with just a few quirky vocal notes. Love a good mandolin solo :).
 
I like the song. I like bluegrass.

The vocal sounds like it's in a different spot from the instruments. Not sure how and where they were recorded, nor what processing was done on them.

Instruments sound pretty good. Might be missing a little high end in general. But they don't sound bad.
 
I dont like the reverb on your vocals...I'd prefer if it were really dry. But I dont think it degraded your mix...I think that is a matter of opinion.

But the song is cool, you have a nice voice and your mix sounds nice!
 
tmelvin said:
I'm not really a vocalist so not concerned of what you think of my singing other than how it sounds with the other tracks.
https://soundcloud.com/tmelvin-950716356/day-by-day-2
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Everyone missed that part LOL, but yeah you did drown your vocals. You could pull it off if you practice more though LOL. The music was cool, but the vocals are covering up too much to really tell how the music is mixed. They're just taking up way too much buddy. During the solo the music/mix sounds tight.
 
The music part sounds pretty good. It's a little distant but it seems to be blended well. Your singing really don't sound bad, they just need to be blended into the rest of the mix better.
 
Thank you all for the feedback. I wanted to make sure the vocals were heard above the instruments but guess I went a little overboard. Looks like I need to fix: Vocals-lower volume and little or no reverb. Instruments-more treble/less bass? BroKen_H, what did you mean by 8-10K air? Unfortunately, I didn't save my original unedited vocal track so I guess I'm going to have to re-record it.
 
I agree with previous commenters. Bluegrass needs to be salt of the earth and equally dry.

The backing track is such a different quality, maybe you could play it on a speaker in the room and sing with it so things fit together on the recording?
 
I agree - the vocals are too loud in the mix but the solo part shows the underlying mix is pretty good. Great playing all around.
I'm not sure what you've used for reverb or eq but it's not working for me. Maybe try a plate reverb which is a little more transparent.
For eq you just have to fiddle until you get it to a sound that is as smooth as the instruments. Right now it seems to have more mids or something.
It could be just the volume. Hard to tell until you balance it out a bit.
If you're redoing the vocals, take a bigger breath before the high part - sounds like that's all it would take to smooth out the last word in the phrase.
 
tmelvin said:
Thank you all for the feedback. I wanted to make sure the vocals were heard above the instruments but guess I went a little overboard. Looks like I need to fix: Vocals-lower volume and little or no reverb. Instruments-more treble/less bass? BroKen_H, what did you mean by 8-10K air? Unfortunately, I didn't save my original unedited vocal track so I guess I'm going to have to re-record it.
Click to expand...

Sorry, I'm late getting back to this. Play with a high shelf on your eq around 8,000-10,000 Hz to add that "air" that makes things brighter and fuller. i.e. more treble. the bottom end sounds good.

Try to record in a bigger, more open room that gives you a bit of a natural reverb when you retrack the vocal. Make sure you're getting plenty of air in so you're phrases are less pitchy toward the end. You've got a good voice! One more time...:)
 
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