How's this mix? Now with vocals!

[STAT1STICK]

I'm working on something new. I'll be honest, I've never ventured into prog territory before so forgive me if I'm getting it all wrong. This song came together in about a day.

The guitar and bass sounds are produced with Guitar Rig. I'm using Izotope Ozone EQ on all tracks. The master track has an EQ with a HPF at 40 hz and scoop at 400 hz, Tube Saturation, Tape Saturation, API 2500 compressor, some stereo widening, and a second compressor to bring it all together; all in that order.

I was thinking the bass was a little too loud. When I listen on my monitors, the bass is fine but when I switch to headphones, it seems a little louder than it should. Maybe it's just my headphones.

I'm in the process of writing vocals now so I will have to get you an update on that in the future.

Also, some feedback on the tune in general would be greatly appreciated since I am new to this genre.

 

[STAT1STICK]

Ok, vocals are done.

Lyrics

You wrapped me in a sleeping spell and held me there for days
Comfort lies to paranoia, chasing it away
Burdens lifted off the shoulders and the troubled mind
You broke the curse of circumstance and left it all behind
One thing I can tell you is “I never want to leave”
The faces you have disconnected never would believe
That I could find the silence that I needed all along
And close the door and wait it out until this place is gone

I remember everything
Everything
You don’t realize what this all means to me
To me

Restful generation of an amputated limb
Sealed away from everyone to catch my breath again
Seeing clearly for the first time since my darkest days
The rapture of a life of death convinces me to stay

Born anew and wiser, I walk out into the light
Forgotten are the demons that I didn’t want to fight
I kept the ones I needed locked away inside my head
And used them as I cope with all the things that want me dead
The newness of this vision is now starting to attack
It makes me question everything and now I’m looking back
The past can never haunt me, it’s still living in my skin
I’m playing it all backwards just to see it all again

I remember everything
Everything
You don’t realize what this all means to me
To me

I’m coming home
I’m coming home

 

[grn]

Very clean, very tasteful. You could turn up everything on the chorus to make it hit harder.

 

[andrushkiwt]

That snare is really weak, and it's very bare at the musical break right in the middle. Throughout the first half of the song, I was wondering what I would do to make this more whole and cohesive, because right now the vocals are too loud in spots, not gelling with the "space" of the instruments, depth-wise, and it isn't near as heavy as it should/could be.

This is very similar to Tool yet it lacks the energy and heaviness they achieve. First thing I'd do is mix the bass/drums together for a good hour. Get those tight and heavy. Use a different snare or sample another one under it, like I said the weakness of the drums is exposed in the middle break.

The vocals are sung well, and there's a great tone in them, but they are too inconsistent volume-wise and the delay/verb on them isn't sitting well with everything else, IMO. I might redo some of the vocals, particularly the final words of the lines like "skin", especially "again", the parts you try to get edgier on.

Guitars can come up quite a bit.

 

[STAT1STICK]

Thanks for the feedback and advice guys. Priceless as always. I still have 11 more of these things to make so I will be keeping all of this in mind. Thanks again.