Your Sympathy - alternative pop rock

Hey dude did you get a pm from me? I typed this long ass message and submitted it but sent items are still empty lol
 
I cant tell if the PMs are going through.. so I'll post a copy of my reply here. Basically just some thoughts on using amp sims



Listening to your mix. It really is a good mix and excellent song. I don't know what your vocals were like before converting the room, but the vocals sound really good.

Guitar tones... never ending battle. I'll listen a few more times (thankfully it a very enjoyable tune) haha

I cant hear anything sticking out that's way off or anything.

A couple thoughts..

I think I've got the best sounding tones when I got the tone right in the axefx and stopped using EQs in the daw to remove harshness etc.... it just seemed like even when I had a surgical notch or a low pass filter that really sounded like it was only cleaning up the tones.. there was something missing when it wa sin the mix. Sorta like the "life" your alluding to. I started going back to my Axe fx and trying to solve those problems there, with like changing cab impulses.. or maybe even the amp.. or just using the amp controls or cabinet controls opposed to the graphic eq or a parametric eq in the fx. Basically fixing it at the source with basic settings.. eventually and not surgery. I don't know... but for me this approach seems to have helped.

I have read tons of threads and material that says to hipass the guitar tracks.. I am not really a staunch advocate of that anymore. I think the guitars have a little something useful sometimes in lower frequencies that a lot of ppl overlook (assuming you have a good tone to begin with)

The other thing I struggled with, is getting the bass tone to gel with the guitar tone. But this may sort of depend on the song style some.. My goal for the heavier stuff is to try to get the bass tone and guitar tone glued where its hard to tell where one begins and the other ends. I am still battling that but a few things that seem to have helped are not hi-passing the guitars too much (like i mentioned earlier) and adding some distortion to the bass. I have read a bunch of tricks about splitting the bass signal and compressing and distorting the higher frequencies.. I try to find a bass amp sim that has a distortion that seems to mesh with the guitars distortion well.. But then again, this might not sound that good for a different style of song so YMMV.

Ill let you know if I can think of anything else. The vocals you have going are excellent. That adds a whole new wrinkle to mixing. I think as far as an instrumental mix, I've got it pretty easy. Overall I think your mix is pretty top tier, but since my stuff is pretty much always guitar featured, I've probably obsessed a bit over it. If I can help I am glad to.
 
PM'd ya back. Off to bed, I'll give those ideas a try in the morning. Appreciate the feedback/tips. Thanks man
 
I like the song, sounds great- mix is very reasonable volume compared to the last 3-4 things i listened to in the clinic and i'm enjoying the dynamics-the vocals are really driving the song-excellent singing and melody. Drums particularly the snare seem less in your face than some of your other mixes if my memory serves, i think it helps to highlight the vocal in this songs case. Guitars sound good and good playing the muted sections in the second half of the verses im not the biggest fan of-i really like whats going on before that and the muting harshes my mellow a bit- just my opinion of course...Nice arrangement, song is interesting all the way through-Very nice work!
 
The only thing I could say is that the bass sounds good in the mix . could be a little louder / But in the solo lines it sounds kinda hollow .
 
wizardof7 said:
The only thing I could say is that the bass sounds good in the mix . could be a little louder / But in the solo lines it sounds kinda hollow .
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I see what you're saying. The D string, around the 11th fret, is a tricky spot to get to poke through a mix. Those higher frets, on higher strings, on a bass, are difficult to make stand out. If you compensate to get them to poke through more, then the bottom strings will suffer. There's no way, that I know of, to make every fret on every string as relevant and obvious as the other. Something somewhere will suffer* slightly, and it's usually those higher notes on a bass guitar. I tried transposing them to the G string, but they were too picky/poppy sounding. I didn't mind the occasional hollow sound, I hear it quite a bit on records where the bassist plays higher up.
 
Great tune as always, dude. Guitars sound great, bass sounds great (I understand the slightly "hollow" comments, but your explanation about higher frets and strings was dead on- It's not too bad with my P-Bass, but I know what you mean)

Great instrumentation all around, nice separation. Drums sound killer as always. I'm not a fan of the hats all the way to the left, but I know you like it and that's a preference thing anyway.

Excellent vocal performance. Where did you HiPass the vocal at? It's not that it sounds thin, but you could probably back your HiPass up a notch for just a little more beefy low-end in the vocal. Some more noticeable delay in spots might sound cool too. These are just suggestions, it does sound very good as is.

Inspiring stuff as always, dude.
 
JohnnyAmato said:
Excellent vocal performance. Where did you HiPass the vocal at? It's not that it sounds thin, but you could probably back your HiPass up a notch for just a little more beefy low-end in the vocal. Some more noticeable delay in spots might sound cool too. These are just suggestions, it does sound very good as is.
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It's at 115hz, my standard spot for it. But I do hear what you mean. It's probably a few EQ cuts I made somewhere.
 
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