Help Me Get Song Ready To Send Off To Mastering

N

ndycus1

New member
Please take a listen to this song and give me your thoughts. The song is called "Fillmore" from a band called The Silent Escape out of Atlanta. It was tracked and mixed at another studio. But, they were not satisfied with the mix, so it was sent to me. Early next week, this (along with another song i'll be posting in a few days) is due in Seattle where it will be mastered by Troy Glessner (Underoath, Emery, mewithoutyou, He Is Legend, Dead Poetic). I'm only 21 years old and this will be my first song to be mastered by someone of this caliber. So, I want to make it as good as I can. So, I'd like your help.

Remember, I DID NOT do any tracking or engineering for this song. It was just sent to me to mix. All mixing has been done ITB via Sonar 6. Monitors are horrible Fostex PM1's in a pretty small room that has been fairly well acoustically treated. This singer in particular doesn't not like for his vocals to stand out too much...that is why they are as quiet as they are. Please help me out with any ideas or suggestions that you may have. Again, I want to make this as good as I can. And I know I'm young and have a lot to learn. So, I'm coming here to learn from you guys. Thanks so much for your time!

http://www.lightningmp3.com/live/file.php?fid=6986
128Kbps Mp3
 
I'm typing as I listen, so things will come out as they jump out at me...

The first thing that jumps out at me is that you have a lot of things crowding the middle; frequency-wise.

The weird panning with the toms isn't sitting with me, either. But perhaps that's the way the kit is set up? No, it's not. I just heard them fall naturally.

I'd still bring that vocal up. Even on the cheapest radios out there, any commerically produced song, the vocals will stand out above the music (with the exception of Judas Priest. For some reason, they always mix the vocals as if it were just another instrument track).

I'm not a big fan of this genre, but other than the few things I've noticed, it sounds pretty much like most stuff I've heard like this. I think it's radio-ready.
 
Basically, I think it's lacking balls. I'd definitely bring up the vox and tell their singer to stuff it. I'd take the bass down a bit, just a bit. Also, the guitars sound too smooth to me, but that's kind of how this genre likes it I guess. It's too bad the guitars were tracked with such little distortion. For the chords it's fine, but the single notes don't sound great. I dunno, I don't have the best headphones here at home so I'm not sure on some of this stuff.

One thing I am sure of is it's too bad there aren't any "Originality" knobs on any console I've ever seen :p
 
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