new song online - please rate my mix!

[Fragle]

hey there,

my band just finished recording a brand new song....mix and mastering done by me. it's basically my first full band mix ever - all previous recordings were merely guitars+programmed drums for songwriting scratch-tracks, so bear with me

anyways, here's the link:

www.myspace.com/retaliationdeath

it's the first song "wrath defied"

and of course, comments on the song itself are also greatly appreciated ;-)

thanks,
fragle

 

[Djabthrash]

Quite good.

First things i notice : the sound is not dry enough. Vocals for instance have too much reverb, which brings messiness in the mix.

Your mix sounds like a good modern mix with a lot of ambience/reverb that ruins it or something.

 

[Fragle]

wow, "ruin" is quite a hard word....especially as i thought that i used rather few fx overall, aside from the obvious section(s) like the "and died" clean part for example....
but then again, i guess i can see where you're coming from...i had quite a hard time figuring out what exactly to do to the vocal tracks.
anyways, thanks for the answer

 

[Djabthrash]

wow, "ruin" is quite a hard word....especially as i thought that i used rather few fx overall, aside from the obvious section(s) like the "and died" clean part for example....
but then again, i guess i can see where you're coming from...i had quite a hard time figuring out what exactly to do to the vocal tracks.
anyways, thanks for the answer

ok maybe "ruins" was too much of a strong word but still the heavy ambience/reverb thing surely doesn't help your mix.

 

[Fragle]

any more comments?

 

[JeffTD]

Cymbals are too loud and the whole thing, particularly vocals though, is a bit too dark. Maybe cut some low end on the kick, too.

Overall, though - it's quite clear for how much is going on! Very nice!

 

[Fragle]

as for the whole thing being a bit too dark: while it's not exactly a bright mix (imho) i think at least some of that dullness comes from the mp3 conversion/myspace player.
but yes, maybe i should have mixed it a little brighter.
can't exactly follow you on the cymbal comment, though - on my speakers it sounds fine. could you be so kind and point out a specific time in the song where the cymbals are too dominating?
thinking about it, you might be talking about that clean interlude section....i'm also not completely satisfied with that part.

regarding the vocals, i used quite a lot of de-esser on those tracks, as the roughmix i did almost killed my ears with sss and shh when listening through headphones (not quite as noticable on normal speakers strangely..)...maybe i went too far with it, that could be the reason for the vocals sounding not in your face enough.
but then again, we did vocals using an sm58->toneport preamp->DAW, so that might also be part of the issue here

btw, what about the master?? the others in the band wanted quite a lot of overall volume (at least equal to the 2007 EP which you can listen to at the myspace player too), and that one was mastered quite loud, so i had to push it quite a lot...i wonder if you guys hear a lot of clipping? unfortunately i'm not very good at hearing this kinda stuff...aside from the obvious, like the latest machine head e.g.

thanks