'Lost In Translation' - Mixed in Reaper - Critiques Please!

[reverbdk]

After tracking nearly half a year ago, I finally got the time to mix and master this song for my friend Aaron. It was my first attempt at mastering, and mostly my first attempt at using careful, active compression on a lot of the instruments.

Let me know what you think about it please:

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[Armistice]

I know you're going for the big big sound, but bit of a heavy hand on the reverb knob for mine. That rumbly thing you have going on at the start (and all the way through) actually lessens the impact of the kick sounds when they occur IMHO - I'd pull it back a little. And then when that "snare" sound comes in it just doesn't work for me any more. I'd be using a more natural tone if I were you.

That said, really interesting stuff - I'm just not a huge fan of the way you've put it together, but I can imagine myself liking it a lot if you made a few changes. Just my $0.02 - others will have other opinions, no doubt. General thumbs up from me on the composition though...

 

[reverbdk]

armistice,
thanks for the response. The reverb is present majorly on the drum tracksn the rumble of the deep kick as well as the delay on the snare sounds. Sadly, both of those effects were the product of my buddy Aaron's keyboard patches. We recorded the drums from his keyboard, however it was recorded via 1/4" instead of midi. I hadn't bought my Korg controller yet haha.

We talked about re-recording the drums with a more realistic sound on my new Korg, just didn't get around to doing so before we put the song out (i was getting antsy to at least get our latest additions recorded and finalized ) so I can certainly see what you mean about the drums taking away from the track. I will probably keep the drone/deep kick (called "Shogun drum"), but just tone down the volume envelope so the rumbling fades out after each hit. The rumbling does not need to be throughout the entire song.

How do the vocal levels sound relative to the rest of the instruments?