Feedback Request: Indie Rock song

[MegaBacher]

Hey guys,

I've been working very very hard on correcting my balance mistakes in my mixing over the last 2 years. I just finished re-mixing this song I produced and engineered back in 2018. It's an indie-rock / pop song and for once I think the mix came out appropriately balanced. I've been working more with this UAD tool called BX Masterdesk, and have been trying to avoid mud and harshness in all of my mixes while still getting close to decent loudness for playback on pedestrian stereo systems. Could you please take a listen and let me know how the mix hits your ears on this track?

https://youtu.be/UYKR7XA2eiM

[OneWorld]

Good mix, though I think the ride a tad over powering, especially seeing as it's mixed over to one side. Everything is very clear though.

Erm.........what you singing about? What I come away with is 'I'd sick of this that an the other' welcome to Planet Earth, you'll get over it, but by the time you do.........well we all know how that story ends

Best of luck and look forward to hearing more

[Chet Leeway]

It sounds too staccato in the beginning, and the sounds seem too isolated from each other. Both things quickly improve as the arrangement becomes denser, though. I lose interest a bit when you go back to the verse around 2:20. It feels like just more of the same. To introduce some variation at that point, I would try to make the backing vocals more prominent, more or less as strong as the equal the primary vocals, maybe a bit offset in time. Or something. I like the vibe.

[MegaBacher]

Good mix, though I think the ride a tad over powering, especially seeing as it's mixed over to one side. Everything is very clear though.

Erm.........what you singing about? What I come away with is 'I'd sick of this that an the other' welcome to Planet Earth, you'll get over it, but by the time you do.........well we all know how that story ends

Best of luck and look forward to hearing more

This is a song my buddy wrote and performed. It's not my song and I was early to producing others' songwriting at the time so I didn't dig deep into what he was singing about. Nowadays I help some people re-write sections of their songs. I'll bet this guy doesn't feel the same way about these lyrics now, he's often embarrassed by his earlier work for sounding too immature.

Thanks for the feedback on the ride.

[MegaBacher]

It sounds too staccato in the beginning, and the sounds seem too isolated from each other. Both things quickly improve as the arrangement becomes denser, though. I lose interest a bit when you go back to the verse around 2:20. It feels like just more of the same. To introduce some variation at that point, I would try to make the backing vocals more prominent, more or less as strong as the equal the primary vocals, maybe a bit offset in time. Or something. I like the vibe.

Some of the hindsight of remixing older tracks I previously had worked on is that I often get mildly irritated that I didn't see certain problems with musical choices back then, such as the coherence of composition in a song. Nowadays during tracking I'm usually discussing with the band those issues with their songs, and this track does suffer from the over-repetition of verse-chorus-verse-chorus-end. If this guy still lived nearby I would ring him up and have him over to restructure and re-record it. As it is, this version is just my attempts to polish an old recording that might have some potential for a decent mix.

[amanise]

Hi - nice track!

I see what is meant by there being too much separation when its getting going at the beginning - I'd say up to about the 0:58 mark. I think those drums need tapering in much more until the point the synth 'drops' start ringing in to help glue it together.

I loved the way the 'guitar talk box' type sound came in and started leading up to something - which got lost in a wash of tremolo. Perhaps it might be less of a surprise blended down just a tad? Maybe it was something else that was trem'd that is giving the impression it was the cymbals? There are clean cymbal hits later on, so that's probably it. Perhaps a bit of separation to do up there in the spectrum too?

I liked the vocal timbre, it sat nicely in the mix - but I missed a full chorus of backing vocals to raise the dynamic at chorus time. I think someone else has said that too.

So, I liked it - it makes steady progress - I'd just pull that trem level down (or slow it down if poss) and taper in the drums more gradually and then put it out.

Well done!
Adrian

[James Perrett]

I felt that the drums belonged to a different song - they were big, sounded good and atmospheric but they drowned out everything else. I felt the song would benefit more from a quirky folky treatment. I'd like to hear it with no, or minimal, drums.

[RichardT]

It doesn't really cohere. It sound like everything was recorded separately and just happens to be playing together (I face this problem often in my own music and don't always manage to fix it). A bit of glue compression could help here, and perhaps some room ambience to make it sound like it was performed in a space.

The singer seems to be singing one word at a time - not sure there's much you can do about that though in the mix. I guess you could try some more reverb / delay on the vocal to try to make it flow better.

The initial acoustic guitars sound too forward.

The drum track is not very good - it sounds quite unbalanced with dynamic spikes from time to time. Maybe a bit more compression would help?

[Drew Stephenson]

In contrast to some of the other posters I rather like the staccato delivery and the sparseness of the intro. However I'd like to then hear a bit more of a change into the chorus as a contrast (something a little more fluid in the BVs maybe).
I'd also agree that a bit of variety in the verses would help - the acoustic guitar plays all the way through, I'd drop it out for a bit and let something else breathe.
I don't have a problem with the drum part, but I'm less smitten by the sounds for the song. I think I'd have processed it more heavily - compressed the snot out of it and made a feature of that perhaps.

I think I'd have looked for opportunities to drop elements out more frequently as well, stuff comes in a various points, but then tends to stay in. Dropping the drums on a verse or the bass on a pre-chorus can create both space and change in vibe.

But I will refer you to the disclaimer in my signature...

[MegaBacher]

In contrast to some of the other posters I rather like the staccato delivery and the sparseness of the intro. However I'd like to then hear a bit more of a change into the chorus as a contrast (something a little more fluid in the BVs maybe).
I'd also agree that a bit of variety in the verses would help - the acoustic guitar plays all the way through, I'd drop it out for a bit and let something else breathe.
I don't have a problem with the drum part, but I'm less smitten by the sounds for the song. I think I'd have processed it more heavily - compressed the snot out of it and made a feature of that perhaps.

I think I'd have looked for opportunities to drop elements out more frequently as well, stuff comes in a various points, but then tends to stay in. Dropping the drums on a verse or the bass on a pre-chorus can create both space and change in vibe.

But I will refer you to the disclaimer in my signature...

Your feedback on the repetitiveness of the guitar was something I struggled to get the player to change. He was completely unaware of how repetitive the compositions were and I was too new to producing to push and articulate the ways it could've been improved. I remember trying to explain to him why the second accompanying acoustic should play simpler patterns of the same chords in order to pair better without directly matching, but he couldn't seem to wrap his head around playing the same chords but in a more sparse manner. It's regrettable because he's got a great singing voice and often plays instruments at a good experience level, but he would always need a good push to get his compositions out of the "demo" phase and into something more elevated. He no longer lives in the states so I'm not able to work with him anymore.

[Drew Stephenson]

It can frequently be a challenge to get people (including ourselves) to drop things out. Generally the creator has spent a long time coming up with these things, practiced them, performed them... It's easy to get wedded to them, especially if it's all your own work and you've got used to hearing it all together.
Sometimes you have to be ruthless with the material (but not the artist).