My First "Full Band" Mixing Experience...Thoughts?

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Auralaxiom

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Hey all, so a few of you may be familiar with some of my stuff, which is mostly orchestral and done with sample libraries for media.

I just got done engineering, mixing, and mastering for my first full band project. They're a local band here in town and a lot of the guys were my friends, so I agreed to do it. It was definitely a process (I kinda hated it). Anyway, I'm curious to know your thoughts/ideas on improving my mixes in the future. Here's one of the tunes:

https://soundcloud.com/glass-oaks/dim-coal-night

Also this was my first time ever working with live drums (barf) so be gentle...
 
The vocal track is a bit too bright. It sounds scratchy and airy.
The drums are kept rather silent but I assume that that was a style choice since they aren't terribly important for the song's mood.

I liked the tune a lot, good job.
 
Lead vocal is a little loud in places, and it's hard to understand at times what he's saying. If there's any hi-hat/cymbal during the instrumental lead-ins to the verse (and most of the middle woh-oh- part), I can't hear it.
The chorus harmonies could come up a bit, Song-wise, they'd do better to write some lyrics for that woh-oh bridge and the outro.
Good job for first band mixing!
 
I think it sounds good. Agree that the vocals are a bit too airy, but they're not harsh just preference.

Music put me to sleep. No ambien tonight! :p

[I don't use ambien, jk]
 
I know how you feel about mixing local bands, I also did this and they are an absolute nightmare, but I really like what you have done, the only thing I noticed was some kind of weird phasing with the lead vocals in the air frequencies, but for a first job it's really good and I'm sure it's more likely to be the source files.
 
NICE! I hear some rumble in the low end, kick is pretty strong, nothing bad, but tad heavy.

Recording a band is probably the second most rewarding thing I have done since getting into recording. Recoding my own stuff has been great, but giving local bands a good recording is pretty rewarding.

Recording sounded great, band sounded great. Really nice job from what I heard.
 
Overall I think this sounded really nice. Guitars sounded nice to me. Vocals didn't sound too scratchy to me; the only issue I had was that they ducked out of sight a few times.

My only real issue is the bass. Its attack seems to get lost. I don't really "hear" the bass; I just kind of notice it every now and then.

Anyway, it's a nice tune, and the band sounds good. Good job!
 
I thought it sounded OK. A couple of things I'd mention...

I think the bass is a bit too loud and a bit too strong/boomy in the low end.

The lead vocal was a bit loud. There is also some sort of weird processing on it. In spots I can hear a bit of swirliness. I'm only hearing it on the vocal, so I'm guessing it's not an MP3 conversion thing. I liked the harmonies.

The rhythm guitar on the right sounded OK. The rhythm guitar on the left was kind of indistinct and mushy. It's a bit muffled sounding too.

The instruments had quite a bit of reverb, but the lead vocal had almost none.
 
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