A Lick & A Promise

This is incredibly beautiful. I love each and every instrument on this track. Everything is where it should be. Drums, fabulous. Acoustic, perfect. Bass, chewy and delicious. Mix is awesome. The vocals are well done but are a big contrast to the delicate instrumentation. They are kind of a hammer in my face so if that's what you were going for, you succeeded. :) The panned harmonies stick out some to my ear too but they are cool as heck.  I'm not sure I'm giving you any useful feedback here, but that's what I have for you. 
 
Wish I could put something this tight and solid together, really great stuff.

I think there's probably a way to get the vocals to sit somewhat more politely in the mix. Maybe a little reverb/delay to soften things up a bit but not too washy, and play with the levels (and even panning) to see if you can't find a sweet spot. Batsbrew is a master at vocals and harmonies, listen to his stuff and read some of the threads on tunes he's posted. It was an education for me!
 
Harmonies are hard to get to settle down. I love harmonies and really want to hear them, but every time I push a song people say the harmonies are too loud. Ha. One thing old school producers did (and still do for all I know) with background vocals is to use some phasing, or flanging or chorus (or a mix of all three) with some saturation to soften the edges. Someone on this forum suggested that to me and I've been doing it ever since.
 
Dean, you've got something happening in this song, just keep polishing and experimenting and you'll find it. In the end, the only one who has to really dig it is you!

Just had a listen from your account page (the OP link seems to be dead).
 
Not sure if you've changed things, but in the first version the vocals don't seem to stick out that much, but definitely more so in the second.  Is the processing or automation any different between the two?

The music was very cool though - nice vibe, I really liked the acoustic guitar and supporting instrumentation.

kevinwal
I think there's probably a way to get the vocals to sit somewhat more politely in the mix. Maybe a little reverb/delay to soften things up a bit but not too washy, and play with the levels (and even panning) to see if you can't find a sweet spot. Batsbrew is a master at vocals and harmonies, listen to his stuff and read some of the threads on tunes he's posted. It was an education for me!
 
Harmonies are hard to get to settle down. I love harmonies and really want to hear them, but every time I push a song people say the harmonies are too loud. Ha. One thing old school producers did (and still do for all I know) with background vocals is to use some phasing, or flanging or chorus (or a mix of all three) with some saturation to soften the edges. Someone on this forum suggested that to me and I've been doing it ever since.
 
Dean, you've got something happening in this song, just keep polishing and experimenting and you'll find it. In the end, the only one who has to really dig it is you!

 
Hello Kevin! So sorry for the late response. I'm not getting all the notifications for some reason-some not all. Anyway, this is proving to be a tough one on 2 counts. I have 2 lines that I'm struggling between delivering on beats or saying to hell with the beats and adding a little swing. This one is too rigid, but I did calm it down (i.e. less scream more sing). Don't really know what to do with matching the space of the vocals to the instruments. I have the big strings in there, and trying to match the vocals to that string space is going to take some wet settings. Vocal doubler on the center track could thicken it for sure, but I think if I go too much further with the reverb it will start to get "washy", as you say.   The Phasing/flanging /chorus idea sounds interesting. Yes, I like those harmonies as well, and I think people like us tend to push them a little to the loud side. I was struggling with that same issue on the new one I posted. They really do sound better to the back more, but then they seem too dull or far away when I do that. 
 
 Batsbrew is a member here? I could use all the tip I can get. In the mean time I have a lot of tunes to fool around and experiment with. Have some new stuff too that I have to start paying attention to, as these old tunes have eaten up a lot of time thus far, and I haven been doing much song creation for a few months. I have a least 2 more I'd like to revisit before I do any of the newer stuff.  Your right Kevin, in the end I have to like it, but its a lot of fun trying to make these projects better and learning new stuff too!
 
Thanks Kevin for your helpful suggestions and interest. I'll be looking into some of it as I move along,
 
Dean.