I apparently need drum replacements. I wrote the entire 12 song project on these same drums, trying to be cohesive. BUT, everyone (on almost every song) has mentioned the snare, and the kick on most.
Strat: I'll look at livening up the up!
You know, it's funny. Sometimes you hear a song in your head and say, "that's not one of mine..." But then you track it and there it is. The modulation was hilarious, because I knew the singing was at my cap before I modulated the music, but that's what I heard. TBH, I think the vocals are more confident there than they were "in my range".
Rob: Thanks for the listen. Really appreciate the encouragement. I've been running a lot more practice before singing. I'm also doing 40-50 takes now, instead of 10-12 like I used to for each part. I bit the bullet and got Melodyne, but honestly (and this is the worst song I've had to correct recently) I only had to adjust 18 notes total on this (plus a couple of nudges on the Pitch Variance % where notes were a bit wild). Getting back into my breathing and practice schedule and starting to get my voice back (and some range I didn't think I'd ever get to again). I still slid every iteration of thank--you at the beginning of each chorus. The drum flubs were intentional, but there are too many of that particular thing, so I'll see about doing other things, or making the triple hit a bit more subtle. Lots of polish time between now and the end of July.
AFA Mixing...I'm learning a lot, and now I'm retaining. My first hurdle with over compression was a hard one to shake. Things are a little more natural now. Learning how to use the knobs: Ratio and Threshold are good buddies; Attack doesn't HAVE to be 1ms; a little here and a little there sometimes sounds better, but 11:1 slam in one shot sometimes sounds better, too; and I'm getting to understand where and when, and most importantly when to use NONE AT ALL. Still using what some would probably say are too many parallel channels, but it's a lot easier for me work with those for whatever reason, so I do.