1) All of the vocals seem big to me relative to the instrumental mix. It's like you're on stage listening, standing next to a vocal monitor. The vocal parts are all good relative to each other, but big relative to the instrumental. Fix: Submix them, and drop them all a few DB.
2) Drums - Snare sounds kinda round and rolled off, but the hi-hats are very sibilant and shrill, so they sound sorta disconnected from one another; and the kick could use a little bit more arse. Fix: all EQ related. Pump 4KHz on the snare, roll off everything above 8KHz on the overheads, bump 63-80Hz on the kick drum.
3) The distorted guitar that comes in at 2:10 is so misplaced and overdriven that it completely annihilates the vocals there; and pretty much everything else in its path. There's so much "clean" in the song that the choice of sound there seems very misguided. If that guitar was tracked dry and distorted in post with a plugin, try a much less brutal one. Otherwise, I'd consider retracking with something more tasteful. A very, very distracting and unpleasant sound; especially given how clean sounding the rest is.
4) The vocals are all a little drier than the rest of the palette; which exacerbates the feeling of disconnect in the mix. the clean guitar at about 0:50 seems the like the one that should be the model.
5) Since you mentioned Melodyne, if you HAVE it; I'd be using it to correct the timing issues on the kick drum.
Thanks for all the advice!
1) Yeah, I turned 'em up a lot more than the instrumentals... The vocals are usually something I try to make the main focus, and to make sure they're in the front, I tend to turn my monitoring volume to JUST low enough before it's almost inaudible, and I check what I can hear most. Usually, I'm trying to make sure I can hear snare/vocals, and so I came up with that level. I'll try dropping 'em though and seeing how it sounds. I always buss everything out to a vocal/drum/bass/guitar stem when I mix, so that when there's stuff like the four part harmony this guy has, it's easier to drop one buss than four vocal tracks. Easy fix.
2) I was actually kinda fond of the snare sound personally. I figured I could probably automate it just a little bit to make sure it either stands out or is pulled back at certain parts, but I suppose that's just my personal preference.
Haha, back when we did this, it was all live tracking to an analog 16 track tape deck, so unfortunately I couldn't get a dedicated hi-hat track... But I'll try rolling off the highs of the OHs and see what it does.
3) This seems to be the common thing stated here and I totally agree. Back when we recorded it, I wanted to get DI tracks on guitars for this very reason, but we hardly had enough tracks as it was. The guy setup his own tones and we've both graduated since, so unfortunately, it wouldn't be super easy to get a hold of him to redo the parts... Maybe I'll just retrack them myself at home for my own sake.
4) I've been listening on a few different speakers since I posted this, and I kinda thought the same; especially at the final chorus for some reason. I'll probably add a bit of verb and see if that makes it sit a bit better.
5) I do have it! Personally, I've found it easier to just put all the drum tracks in a group and edit them all at once to retain phase coherency, but I know what you mean; there are a few issues on the timing there (and how he hits the snare that makes it "slappy" as was previously mentioned) that I'd like to fix.
I'll probably be working on this for awhile, for the short time spent on it so far, it could quickly become one of my better mixes, so I'll post an updated version here shortly.
