I have the track chosen by the class available for download at:
http://www.masteringhouse.com/demos/hrforum/
I've had several listens to the track, which I enjoyed. My initial thoughts follow:
Fashions come and go . . . in the eighties we had oceans of reverb, but the trend in more recent years has been for drier mixes. In the case of the evaluation track I hear guitars so dry, so bright and brassy, that they form a wall between me and the rest of the song; a wall that makes it hard to get drawn into it . . . instead I kind of bounce along the surface. Though the guitars are played well, and do interesting things, their dominating presence becomes tedious and I want to say, "let someone else have a go now". This is not helped by the arpeggio thing that comes in later and which to me seems a bit out of tune.
The kit, with its roomy sound, starts off with a reasonable presence, but as the song progresses, disappears more and more into the background. The extremes of the sound spectrum that a kit can add life to are therefore not taken advantage of. It takes on a vague, 'uncrisp' sound that sits unhappily with the clang of the guitars.
The vocals have been recorded well, and the Beatles-type melodic licks and harmonies are nicely rendered. But they too tend to get pushed back into the song, and their strength is not utilised as much as it could have been. Again, this could be a fashion thing, but my preference is to have stronger, upfront vocals. I notice variations in vocal levels. The 'two hearts' start of the chorus is right there, but other times they slip away more into the background
Spatially, there is a commanding left-right occupation by the guitars, leaving the centre for kit, bass, and vocals. This is a common approach, and not an unreasonable way of doing things. At times a guitar slips into the cente, filling that harmonic gap in the soundscape. For the most part, the mix gives me the sense of a 'V', where the guitars are at the two wings of the 'V' with the rest of the band sitting in the well, leaving centre stage relatively empty. The start of the chorus, though, is where I hear a more satisfying inverted V, with vocals using more of the centre stage.
As far as CLEF goes, my general thoughts are:
1 Frequency balance: all pretty good through 1.1 to 1.3
2 Sound stage Imaging: not as strong. 2.1 is okay, 2.2 is less okay. I didn't check 2.3 (mono compatibility), and 2.4 (stability . . .) is a bit hazardous with the positioning of the vocals.
3 Dynamics and distortion: All generally fine. Perhaps the lack of kit presence later on in the song robbed it of its transients. I notice that the avergae RMS was around -17, which I feel is a reasonable level, and I was certainly pleased to hear some dynamic movement in levels (though I could've done with more).
4 Use of effects: I felt a discontinuity between three elements; guitars, kit and vocals, and they didn't gel into a unified whole the way I would have liked to have heard.
5 Performance and production: Part of this relates to all the other points. However, the performance was fine (and I acutally really like the song). Timing was good and tight, and the sing and playing were all highly competent. I mentioned earlier an arpeggio that seemed a bit out of tune, and maybe the vocals sound a bit tired, but that's about it.
Overall, not a bad mix, in my view, but one that could be improved. I would like to see the guitars pushed back a bit, the kit and vocals brought forward, and a reverb applied that gives the piece greater unity.
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- there's a bit too much depth for my personal tastes. Or more specifically, that the tracks sound layered in very isolated layers, with the drums on the bottom, the gits in the middle layer and the vocals laying on top. You all know that I love dynamics, and I'm glad to have them in this mix, but there's not a lot gluing or grouting the tracks together. I'd like to hear a bit more texture in the form of individual dynamics inside each track so that there is some overlap and interconnectedness between the tracks. It's like a raw lasagna where the layers and the tastes are still separated, vs. the cooked one where the layers tend to melt together a bit better.
