Please Critique My Mix

[Rev. Robb]

Please critique my mix. I have come to a point where I don't know where else to turn. All ideas are welcome. Thank you!

Mixed 100% in-the-box. Logic 8.

Run Away

[Rev. Robb]

24 views and no comments?

[lpkyer]

Less vocals
Less lows in the vocals
Not really sure about the electric guitar tone.

Hope that helps !

[eweise]

The high end seems kinda harsh to my ears. Not just loud but grating as well.
Levels don't seem quite right, vocals are too loud, and the power chord guitar comes in too soft. The power guitar tone is too distorted I think. sounds compressed, not open enough. I would try reducing the distortion and record additional guitar tracks to fill out the sound.

[bigdoghat]

I don't think you're too far off - most of the tones sound great, the panning is great but the whole thing sounds a bit washed out to me - is there reverb on the distorted guitars? If so, try taking it off or using a shorter reverb time - try a short room (maybe tiled room - somewhere around 0.7 - 1.1s?) instead of a hall. My personal taste for big guitars is dry (I'll use a short verb but you can't hear it) and present. I wouldn't want to hear the verse electric dry though, I do really like the sound you have going for it. Same for the lead and its fx - sounds good. The distorted guitars though, they really don't sound up front or I should say, present - again not sure if it's too much verb or just not enough bite in the eq'ing. Or....if you're compressing them, it could also be too much compression and the attack is too fast, cutting off the edge of the top of the note. Ease off the compressor first if you're using it, then try changing reverb if you're using it, and if they don't pop then - try adding in some 4k and 6k and maybe a touch and i mean touch of 1.5 to 2.5 K. They need to come alive and these are the places I would look.

Snare and verse electric come in too loud on verse 1 - electric guitar is stepping on the vocal in verse 1 - turn it down and/or move it and fx further to the side. The song doesn't need to be that big that soon, save the big bang for chorus 1. I feel like I never really get to hear his voice, so let his voice be the main feature at least on verse 1 - right now the snare and the electric are the main feature on verse 1! I know it can be hard with these kinds of mixes to not let the vocal get lost, but defintely in verse 1, there's no reason for the vocal to be buried, there's not too much for it to fight there. I really like the verse electric guitar sound and fx. Lead vocal needs some sparkle try 6k, 10k, 17K. Or try cutting 280hz on the lead voc and you might need to compensate that by bumping up 120hz a little. The lead vocal also needs some de-essing or additional de-essing in the 6k or 10k range - can't exactly hear which one.

The snare sounds a little 'thwappy' - maybe combine and mix in another with sound replacer? Or again, it could be too much compression - it needs to breathe a little - you'll find you won't need it so loud once you open it up

Let me put it this way - the intro has this nice alive feeling with the acoustic and the bass, the verse elec guitar has the same sense of aliveness thing going on - the vocal, snare and distorted guitars don't - so you just need to figure out why. My guess is too much fx or too much compression or both on the distorted guitars. Work on those first, then do the snare, then the vocal.

That's my two cents if it were my mix!!

[inthere]

Great song! Leave the vocal level as is, but roll off some of the lows is the 150-450hz range. give a +1 boost at 3-4k on the vocal track also, because even though it was too loud it was still getting lost in the track a bit and that's why i suspect you turned it up to compensate. Instruments are great and I love the balance.