Calum Mackison – Another Love Song by James Dupre (Remix)

Nice punchy drums, I like the balance of the guitars! I think the mix would benefit from less de-esser, but only in the choruses (maybe the de-essing comes from the backing vocals?)

Good luck, feel free to comment on my mix :)

Hi, thanks for listening to and giving feedback to my mix.

As asked for, here are my thoughs on your entry.
(I hope I will not discourage you with all my nitpicking – these are after all only my opinions.. :-))

Overall impression:
Overall good balance, I can hear everything.
Maybe a little dark – 5khz band increase and hi shelf on 10khz + for some air maybe..?

Vocal: Could maybe be a bit louder on some sections (more parallell compression?)
Nice blend with the backingvocals.
Could benefit from some high shelft lift
Delays / maybe some verb to create a bit more space around the vocal. (Slap back, short delays)

Drums: Overall good balanse, but sounds a bit dry and narrow to me, could use some more high end.
Snare needs some more space and some 8khz high shelf and 200hz boost.
(Maybe the room tracks could be louder – lots of space / verb / “bigger/wide” feeling from them)
(for a more “rockin'” sound)

Guitars:
Solo needs to come up (but electric and steele)
Guitar sounds a bit (unpleasantly) distorted left channel in intro – extra guitar distortion plugin used?
May work in the mix, but maybe ease of a bit in the intro.

General note/tips:
I don’t know if you have used rear bus / parallell compression – if not I think the mix could benefit (both drums, music and vocal) to give it a bit more aggression / presence.

What I typically do:
– Parallell compression on vocal (4:1, 10/1 ms) – blend in to taste
– Parellell compresson on music (4:1, 10/2 ms) – blend to taste
– Parellell compresson on drums (depends, but 10:1, 10ms or 30ms attack, quick release.)

I would also work a bit with each “part” meaning guitars, drums, vocal etc as groups and try to fiddle with EQ to get a bit more excitement / life out the tracks – it sounds balanced but a bit safe / dull to my ears.

So – hopefully you will find something of value from the above..
Keep up the good work and good luck with the competion :-)

Happy mixing,
Sigurd

Hi,
I have a pair of Yamaha HS8, but lately I have been using my everyday listening headset (Jabra 85H) more and more. (Probably because I am familiar with them by now)
The Yamaha’s are the working horse for production and general mixing, but the Jabra’s is where I finetune (along with the mandatory “car test” of course :-))

The Yamaha’s sound great, but I can’t (yet) really tell on them if the low end is too much.. Probably room acoustics and my listening distance since bass frequencies takes some distance to develop properly.
I also own a pair of Shure SRH1840 – I don’t like them that much. I find them only useful for finding harsh frequencies.
But good for tracking though – my wife loves using them while recording her vocals.

A tip I picked up is the “NS10” trick – filter out below 1-200 hz and above 5-6000 hz – helps you focus on the midrange.

I think the best tip if referencing other tracks and mixing on either monitors or headphones you know really well.

About the volume for mixing: It could be that you mix at a too high level where everything just sounds “hyped”.
I get dis-oriented in the mix if the volume is too loud.
I try to mix at lower volumes most of the time – I’ll just crank it sometimes for detecting any harsh stuff.

/Sigurd