Advice to go forward with this terrible mix

[spottydog10]

I cant seem to improve this track, I want an organic non shimmery organic sound but cant seem to get there.
The floor tom (in place of kick) and bass seem to clash, the piano is intrusive, the guitars weedy.
There is minimal eq on any track and compression only on Bass and Drums.
I've gone round in circles with it so any advice to improve the mess will be gratefully received.
I've attached the Ref I'm mixing to which is lovely and sparse and got the tonal qualities I'm after.

 

[Papanate]

I cant seem to improve this track, I want an organic non shimmery organic sound but cant seem to get there.
The floor tom (in place of kick) and bass seem to clash, the piano is intrusive, the guitars weedy.
There is minimal eq on any track and compression only on Bass and Drums.
I've gone round in circles with it so any advice to improve the mess will be gratefully received.
I've attached the Ref I'm mixing to which is lovely and sparse and got the tonal qualities I'm after.

Well the KeyTest track is too loud and distorting - is this an AI Track? It sounds like it.

 

[Eric V]

I noticed the distorting too. Maybe bring levels down and raise them individually and slowly?

 

[spottydog10]

Ha, no it's not AI, not sure how to take that or how you came to that conclusion?
I've just checked the levels, on the Klanghelm meter calibrated to -18 it's peaking at about -3 so not sure where the distortion is coming from.

 

[rob aylestone]

I bet the distortion - which isn't like level created distortion - is some kind of artefact from processing? It's a sort of 'muzzy' sound, not clipping - so is probably baked in somewhere. A bit like the old group distortion you got on older bigger mixers where the group distortion was just because it was mega busy with different sounds - just rougher? The lowest drum sound is a bit like the old Phil Spectre bass drum - longer in decay and almost a real note? Is it the same singer on both tracks?

 

[Manslick]

Sounds fine to me. Drums seem unnecessary busy and sound good.

 

[spottydog10]

Hi Rob, the kit is programmed from scratch in Superior Drummer with no internal effects but there is a compressor on the drum bus and an SSL comp barely shaving a Db, if that,
on the master bus. The rest of the project has hardly any eq and no effects apart from low amounts of reverb via sends. As I said, I cant hear the distortion at this end so I'm a bit puzzled.
The singer on the reference is female the vocal on my track is me and I'm male.
I recorded this at the end of last year and when looking around for a reference came across that track.
The ref was a commercial release and I liked the 1961 vibe to it, I've linked it below.
Here is the kit on it's own.

 

[spottydog10]

Manslick, that's the type of feedback I need, any more where that came from?

 

[Slouching Raymond]

I thought both tracks had girl singers. Must've been the tight pants.

 

[mark skinner]

I'm the one that's always asking for mix advice but .. I'll tell you what I heard after importing the track into a new project and using headphones.
My biggest problem was the floor tom against the bass. It's not just the freq. of the tom hits but the long and muddy overtones of it. I think you will be better off using a kick or I don't think you will ever get a well defined low end for the bed of the song.
I think the guitar is also fighting for space with the piano. (chorus). The first thing I would try is panning the guitar to the left side , away from the high piano notes. They are pretty much playing quite close to the same notes and the track is leaning to the right. If that doesn'y work , I would lower the piano notes.
I ran it thru Ozone's master assistant and really expected to see it wanting to add more low end but it didn't . It only wanted a high shelf boost around 10k. I felt like the mix only needed a better low end. I really didn't detect any bad distortion , just the woofy low end.
All of my mixes sound pretty weak until I really dive into the FX. mark

 

[spottydog10]

Thanks Mark that's all helpful.
With regard to the kick in the reference, it's very long or heavily reverbed which is what I was trying to emulate.
Obviously that mix is sparser than mine and is using a kick not a tom but I agree the low end is a mess.
The tom without eq (there is quite a lot of top reduced) cuts through OK but I dont want a modern ultra bright sound so I suppose it's a question of finding that balance.