Progressive metal (instrumental)

Lots of well written and executed guitar parts - it stayed interesting throughout. The drums were a little brittle for me (beginning mostly) but I'm not sure how else to mix them so they don't disappear. I'm not getting any apparent clipping even though it is pretty hot. The ending was a little abrupt I might have faded it out on the synth a bit quicker. Overall a really great piece.
 
In general I thought it sounded pretty good. Well played guitar parts.

There seems to be a slight general cloudiness to the mix. Some "tubbiness" in the 300hz-1200hz octaves perhaps.

What you did in the intro was an interesting idea - start the whole mix with a "telephone voice" and then expand it to its full bandwidth. But I dunno. It didn't seem to work for me. But it might for others.
 
I actually agree with you on both comments. I noticed myself the intro gimmick didn't really work outm maybe even related to the lack of brightness in the rest of the mix (the tubbyness)?
 
I really like this. I'm not gonna be able to give you any technical advice, but I would've preferred to have been able to hear some more of the cymbals, hats and ride… It feels a little compressed…?
 
MysticNetherlan said:
I actually agree with you on both comments. I noticed myself the intro gimmick didn't really work outm maybe even related to the lack of brightness in the rest of the mix (the tubbyness)?
Click to expand...

The problem is that the intro doesn't fade immediately into a drastically superior sounding mix. To resolve this I would squash the beginning mix even more, make it mono if necessary, then slowly crossfade the actual mix.

Once the song fades in and those tasty guitars come in, the drums end up falling too far back in the mix. How are these drums done? Is it possible to compress them before mastering, separate of the other instruments? This would give them more umph and overall presence even if they aren't in your face in the final mix. My strategy has been to mixdown the drums to a single stereo track, then apply multichannel compression to it. Multichannel helps a lot if you need to bring up the snare, kick, or cymbals without having to redo the entire drum mix. If you don't have a multichannel compression, try placing an EQ before the compressor and adjust to fit your needs.

I'm not a big fan of the washy snare reverb fwiw, but that's purely a preference thing.

The bass guitar is missing from much of this, I would bring it up.

Maybe the point here is - bring down the guitars? lol ;) I know it's tempting to highlight them, and those parts are really good. But it's still a song and the rhythm section still needs to thump.
 
Thanks for your detailed suggestions! Do you mean 'multiband compression' when you speak of 'multichannel compression'?

I'll try to bring down the guitars a bit. Btw the bass is programmed and therefore not the most beautiful of sounds, hence I didn't wanna turn it up that much.
 
Great tune.. as an instrumental writer I can appreciate the challenge of making one stay interesting. I really enjoyed this. I think the leads overall sound great and are well played.. a couple spots in the 3:20+ area the phrasing got a tad loose but its very minor and probably isn't noticed by most.

Nice job on the song and production.
 
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