Caryindy: Thanks for the good input.
caryindy said:
Intro - I think the balance between the guitar and the vocal is a bit off. Perhaps having the acoustic a bit louder there would make things better. Vocals are dry. That's not bad by definition, just sounds a little naked with just the acoustic guitar.
Yep, should have added some verb here for sure and the vocal is definitely "up front". Could have balanced this better.
When the drums come in, they are over powering the rest of the band. There's something off in that drum fill at 0:35. If you were getting paid to mix this, this may have been an area where you would do a little fixing. In this case, it happens to be the kick drum coming in too early for the last two hits of the fill. Take a look at how the kick is not synced to the beginning of the bass guitar part.
Yeah, that's mainly the snare (with all that reverb). During the chorus sections I think I've got it balanced better, but I probably should have toned it down in the beginning. Also right about the fill. I noticed it and if I were doing this for credit would have tried to fix it.
Did you use some sort of plug-in on the bass? I hear something like distortion???
All I did to the bass was a little compression (if memory serves) and a slight EQ adjustment to fatten the bottom end. It seemed to take on a little "rumble" that was unintentional, but I kinda liked it so I didn't mess with it.
I like how you split the vocals at 1:02. Nice. 
At least I did SOMETHING right
You took out that last guitar line. Again, in the real world scenario of mixing for a client, you may have upset the guitarist. Perhaps you could have taken the guitar track and sent it out through a miced amp to re-record it and fatten it up. You could also try a plug like Amplitude. Take a listen to my mix and see if you think the guitar line sounds any fatter than the original. I'm surprised nobody picked up on that.
Again, you're right. If I were doing this for a client I would not have done this without their agreement. This is just a personal thing, but that last guitar phrase didn't work for me. It didn't really fit with anything else in the song so I tried to have the ending line up more with the solo section. Taking out that guitar phrase was done quite abruptly and is why the rest of that guitar section isn't any louder in the mix. I did use a little EQ on that guitar part, but not much since I kept it kinda buried.
One final comment on my mix: On the last chord there was an open string on each of the guitar parts that rang longer/louder than the rest. These notes weren't exactly intoned to one another which set up a flange-ish thing I didn't like. I was dropping the guitar parts one-by-one to see if I could find the culprit. When I got back to just the acoustic, I thought it sounded kinda neat alone. So voila, an artsy ending. The only question is, should it have been louder?
Gary
your mix please
I've listened to these mixes so many times,and now Im sick of this song.LOL.Mine sounds worse to me each time I listen to it.I pointed out caryindys mix as just a reference as to what sounded the "best" to me.Just my taste of course.ALL of the mixes sound good.That one just stood out to me after listening to them all numerous times.I burned them onto a disc and they all sound pretty even on a Car Stereo.