OVERALL, the mix and song are good. All elements are strong, the performing, the writing, the mixing ... good stuff. But I"m here to analyze and learn ... so get a meal in front of you, take a pee cuz here goes
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FIRST LISTEN : (Consumer Grade Mid-Level Jambox)
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I won't take credit for this bit of critique and mixing advice, but starting a song with only one element in one stereo field could be called 'abandoning stereo', and it is one step away from 'abandoning the listener' ... now ... it's NOT MONO, because then sound would be coming from both speakers.
It is kind of distressing to hear only one of your speakers working in the 'beginning' of a song. That can put a listener off. And it's kind of an amateur technique, and maybe you are ... 'thinking like others' ... who have sucessfully used this technique, and now you've got me wondering how to pull it off effectively ... hmmmm
IMHO ... one solution for this mix technique is to put a tiny bit of the same track, (duplicate the track), and pan it almost at a sub-audible level extreme stereo right, put a lot of delay or reverb on it ... create even more distance. So instantly, the listener's head is jerked, (literally and physically, to stereo left), and remember, you are being very demanding of your listener here ... if the listener is put off after starting to think their stereo right field equiptment is in distress, they can then scrutinize the right stereo channel and find something, rather than examining the right stereo channel and 'find nothing' ... all the time missing out on what is going on stereo left.
If they do scrutinize stereo right ... and find something ... as their attention wanders back to the strong presentation on stereo left, BAM ... you got em right in the middle of the mix where you start to crank things up ... but you gotta have that tickle working in stereo right.
I like when the other elements come in. Things are very tight and there is significant sonic seperation between the elements. A detailed effort at stereo placement in heart region of the stereo field is serving you well here, and it's not to wide. You leave yourself a lot of openings and flexibility to proceed from here in this mix, and as I suspected you have left a hole open for the lead vox to fill, I'm beginning to suspect that you have some experience in these matters.
There is generally some room for a touch of reverb and delay on the guitars, being tasteful at all times of course.
You do allow the lead vocal to enter very nearly outfront.
IMHO in this genre the lead vox should enter as 'the star' in all it's glamorous beauty.
The drums are considerably louder than the lead vocal, as they are pushed out stereo left about 8%, this makes them even more 'apparently louder'. The snare is much louder than the verse rythm guitar that is stereo right.
You might be 'suffocating' the lead vocal, and while there is potential for a 'mix hook' here, be careful with this, as an OUT FRONT Tom Sawyer like lead vox here is much more radio friendly.
The rythm guitar in stereo near right is challenging and 'looming over' the vocal jsut a bit. The sonic range the guitar is in here, is a much more powerful range than the vocal.
The vocal is a high tenor, medium throat texture and medium mouth with respect to diction and pronuciation, it's a generally 'clean lead vox'. So this crispier, mids heavy guitar on stereo near right is much more dominant ... naturally ... so you can reduce the volume by 3-4db, and it will still be very effective here. The natural sound of this guitar ... a little shredding, a little tube and some overdrive is a very dominant sound all by itself with no volume boost in the mix ... you don't have to push the fader up on this type of instrument to get it to 'sound strong' ... it is already strong ...
This is a good lead vocal singer, don't challenge his vocal in this genre, especially in the verse. Think 'Tom Sawyer' ... almost.
I want 1db more on the vocal fader in the first verse at the very minimum, 2db preferable. And you can get that by creating 'headroom' for the lead vocal by lowering the drums and guitar.
Don't push the vocal fader up ... unless you have plenty of room, and that's usually not the case. If the drummer is in charge of the mixing here ... clue in
if the guitar player is in charge ... what is his bias
, unfortunately the lead singer is almost never in charge of the mix, and if they are, they are usually to insecure about thier vox to front it.
If you are all the same people, they have doctors for this type of problem
!
I know when I put
my SONY MDR-7506 on, the vox is going to lose a lot, as I begin to hear more of the other instruments. This genre DEMANDS a clear, strong vox that is never challenged. If anything we should be struggling to hear the rythm guitar and only 'feel' the drums, the drums peaking out at buildups and turn-arounds ...
The chorus vocals are a little louder, by virtue of the addition of tracks, the cumulative volume increases the overall presence of 'vocals'. But you have no real headroom underneath the lead vocal to display the harmony and/or backup vocals to the listener, they are only 'color' beneath the lead, and there is little seperation between them, which requires even more headroom on the lead vox.
You create headroom by pulling the fader down on all the elements in the song except for the lead vocal, then you have headroom to make mix decisions within ... you can always close that distance as you 'create the mix with headroom' ...
Let the lead singer front this song like 'A STAR'
. then you can put some vicious delay on his vocal, and back off on the reverb, and that would sound totally cool. But he's got to be hot and out front to do that, otherwise you totally lose him in the delay. Don't put any pre-delay on this singer, he's not crisp enough. Use a 30 milisecond to 40 milisecond delay, once you get the headroom.
Back off on the reverb to bring him into the small club the other instruments are already in.
With the vox mixed where it is, you have no flexibility in panning, you must remain dead center with the vox in order to have it remain anywhere near ... 'The Front'.
With headroom for the lead vox, you can then make general decisions much better, decisions which by their very nature 'eat up the headroom' and finally 'close the mix'.
And I could only be telling you this if you weren't really, really close to all of this, you are not very far away from a perfect mix here.
By 1:28, I can barely hear the guitar element that is panned wide stereo left, it's as if you have 'abandoned the abandoned guitar' and makes the whole effort in the beginning less believable.
If I tell you there is a big scary green monster under your bed, and then never mention the monster again ... are you going to believe me ?
IHMO, when you present a primary element of the musical structure, (a very strong rytmical element with rythm guitar), in a unique part of the stereo field, it either has to be an obvious gimmick, or you have to continue to support that idea. Demanding you listener now substitute the strong rythm guitar in stereo right, for the first 'technique' is not effective, it's confusing and you are 'spending your liscence' here.
1:34 - 1:45 your lead instrument is the snare, you need a lead here ... maybe ... cello with some presence boost and a bit of tube warmth and gain, 'yowling' ...
Second chorus, the vox level is better, because I think you've been riding the instruments down ?
2:32 - 2:43, I could hear a really fast almost 'tremelo' flutter picking guitar solo here executed on a static melody ... violin IMHO
Your outro is nice, good use and support for the hooks you have developed, classic writing formula ...
IMHO, if you had preserved the strong rythm guitar element in stereo left, here is where you could drop it out completely and have the hook come in. As you drop that rythm guitar element out of that unique placement in stereo left ... you leave a HUGE HOLE ... and you could fill it neatly there with the hook from the leslie style panned hook backVox ...
This is a complex mix already, and what I'm suggesting is a lot of work, and probably not the ultimate mix, but I hope my observations will assist you in moving forwards to an even better mix.
Oh, the guitar solo is coming on now ... cool, I like it, sweet, and the effects you use on it sound very much like 'suffocating' almost an underwater type texture, very nice, very nice, and a tasteful solo. I want more presence gain on the lead to bring it closer sonically to the shredded rythms ...
IMHO, you could present these hooks with a bit more panic and anxiety in the outro, some real screaming, leaving the major minor system
, no singing, like real panic ... I'm suffocating ... for real ! Plead, beg, scream it ... yeah ... go crazy mon ...
This is a good song, a club rocker for sure, great radio tune.
Now I'm going to put the headphones on and teach myself a thing or two.
SECOND LISTEN : SONY MDR 7506, ultra clean highly seperating headphones
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Instantly, I percieve the vocal headroom is eaten up even more.
The better the listener's system, the more of the overtones and fullness of the guitars in the mids and upper mids are going to be in the mix, and that's going to compete with this tenor singer bigtime.
The initial vocal entrance however is even more clear, but that rythm guitar in stereo right is definitely competeing with the tenor vox.
This is a very good lead singer and the part is written well for their abilities.
Chorus is sweeter on the headphones, nice work. Bring the lead vox up 1-2db, and you will have the headroom for the chorus vox and backups to seperate and that will allow more presentation of their character. This chorus is all about vocals, mix for the vocals in this chorus and generally throughout this whole song.
Second verse, the drums are killing me now, the rythm guitar is challenging the vocal bigtime.
Second chorus, rythm guitar to loud, snare player is very, very rythmically precise
These are all very, very good instrumental performances.
Yeah, these hooks floating about in the stereo field, I like them, but again, I would have preserved that strong stereo left rythm guitar, to then drop out here, to create a huge hole for this initial presentation of outro vocal hooks.
What the lead singer is doing ... more like sing-screaming the hooks, I'd have the backup stereo panned vox do this also some ....
The fade is a bit ragged in my headphones, take it off quicker, you could even brick wall the ending and just be done with it !
Cool tune, thanks for the hard work on this one, learned a lot from this mix ... good brainfood, a pleasant mix to listen to, entertaining, good writing ...
WELCOME TO THE BOARD
