All that's left - worship song

M

MadHatterTCM

Eternally Striving
This is a song I'm recording for a worship band I'm in. This is the first presentable mix I've gotten.

I'm having an issue finding a space for the bass to sit, and the vocals could use a little treatment - in my opinion at least. What's yours? What does it need?

[MP3]http://sitetestingserver.com/all that's left rough-final1.mp3[/MP3]


Song Update:
[MP3]http://sitetestingserver.com/final%20mixdown%202.mp3[/MP3]
 
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Mix sounds pretty good to me. The bass doesn't sit too bad. When the chorus drops I was expecting a bit more punch from the bass but it doesn't come in until the next note. Vocal is nice to listen to, maybe a small boost in the highs to give it more air. Right at the end on the word "left" the ending sounds phasey, did you use melodyne or something to tune it? Another thing that seemed off was the lack of cymbals, can hear the crashes and hats okay, but no ride or wash in the chorus.

That aside still very listenable and well done. I enjoyed the listen, thanks.
 
Excellent song and recording!! I love the arrangement of how it goes into single electric crescendo before chorus. Great climactic choice! THis song and recording has the potential to sound very professional but the mix is killing it. This mix suffers from being too 2 dimensional. Most of the instruments seem like its in your face.

I know a lot of the guys on this forum would know far more but this is my take...
1. Acoustic guitar (intro) needs to be a lot louder but i love the tone
2. bass- its missing the bottom and mids
3. vocals- i love the vocalist but its too up front and dry. with that said, it sounds great when the whole band's in and the electrics are going off.
4. something about the strings I dont like.. sounds very ol school or amateur. I would change to a warmer pad. You want to feel or sense the pad not neccessarily hear it (make sense?)
5. drums- i feel like suffers the same fate as the vocals... feel like it should be in a room. You should really look into learning more about creating spatial dimension within a mix. There should be tutorials on it on this site or youtube i believe.

The reason I'm nitpicking is because I really like this song and see its potential. Great job bro!
 
Forgot to add..
I'm sure you already did this but some things were popping out too much so I gotta state the obvious. Be sure to compress the final mixdown if you're not already doing so.
 
ddrummer8 said:
Right at the end on the word "left" the ending sounds phasey, did you use melodyne or something to tune it? Another thing that seemed off was the lack of cymbals, can hear the crashes and hats okay, but no ride or wash in the chorus.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the feedback. Which time when he says "left"? I did use melodyne on the voice on a couple notes. I was pretty lucky - the vocalist is pitch perfect naturally! However a couple notes had a little too much vibrato for taste and I tamed that down on his high and long notes.

Also - yeah, definitely not enough crash/ride wash coming through the harder parts almost sound like it's just kick/snare haha.

eddiedskim - Which strings? Verse or intro/interlude strings? I agree with everything else you've said :) there's a lot of layers in this song, and in trying to make sure that all of it was heard well, it's all a little upfront rather than just full sounding.

I don't think it'll take too much to get this song to a good point, but it's lacking some finishing mix touches for sure.
 
The acoustic needs to be more present in your mix, with a bit less reverb. I sort of expected it to lead the song as the primary instrument and was surprised when it didn't.

Your drum mix needs a tweak, kick and snare sound fine but are too loud the hi-hat and cymbals are barely audible.

The strings aren't a very nice sounding synth pad, maybe look for something more natural sounding?
They also need to be more in the background to pad out what's already there, rather than using them to drive the music. Drop them back a bit, and bring up the acoustic
If you wanted a better sounding string pad, you can get some really nice orchestral samples and then you just need a sequencer plugin.

The bass needs to be much bigger in the mix, as you've already said.

Lead vocals are fine, and I have to say, I really like the backing vocals. Nicely done.
 
A few things have been adjusted - and I uploaded the newer version.

1. Vocals have been tweaked a touch as far as volume and a touch less dry
2. the crash/ride is a little more present
3. bass sits a little nicer
4. Better master
 
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