Can I ask you guys a favor?

[Glenn Fricker]

It's too easy to get disconnected and think you're doing great while you're actually not.

Absolutely true! The difficult part is finding the right balance between self-criticism & driving yourself over the edge

 

[Morgan C]

Kind of, yet not really. We're mostly talking about metal music. Both of those are mid-paced rock productions that have room for loose low-end... and that's what they have. Maintaining clarity with those amounts of low-end in metal is a big challenge, and smearing saturation only compounds the difficulty. You can always crank lows or highs, no matter what you're mixing on... but making them relevant and connected to the source material is the challenge.

Also, they both have more of the mid focus that you were hinting at earlier.

I think the main issue is coming from the fact that you're using all this outboard yet still mixing for an ITB mix, with sampley drums, everything edited (not to Sturgis standards, but still edited), everything tight. That's why I think the Untruth mix fits in best with your goals. I'm a huge fan of analogue natural mixes, like Blackwater Park or Reroute to Remain, but they are messy as fuck, not a typical ITB metal mix. Which are your favourite metal, analogue records? I doubt they'll be nearly as clean as yours.

However, if you want to go this way, there's no issue with it. Maybe go for a hybrid. Stay away from analogue on kicks and basses to keep a tight lowend, then use loads of analogue on your rooms, guitars and vocals to get that vibe and glue in the midrange.