I Believe (remix)

Hey there Mike,

I enjoyed your tune? The lead seems to me to sit where it should? I like the bass :-) (and I'm a bass player) 

I like the vocals? (And I'm a vocalist?) When that chick is singing "with you?" I would back her off a bit... Not that she's not a good singer? But I don't think she's as good a singer as you are. (she may have other attributes I am unaware of "unfortunately") 

But your song is good? The guitar work is great! The mix seemed to be dominated by her? And while she's not bad? She's not good enough to dominate the mix (IMO)... But I'm sure she's fine... :-)





Hey guys I am looking for mix/production help to make this song all it can be. 
  
I wrote this a while back and just added some horns, organ, piano and laboring over the mix but I still think it needs improvement. 
Any advice or suggestions are welcome. 
  
Too high endy? 
Snare too loud? 
Cymbals ear piercing? 
Need better arrangement? 

:-) Mike, this is Robby... Good job overall tough? Good WIP. Keep up the excellent work.

really nice open airy mix Mike! Not much to suggest really. the snare sounds a bit 'allat100velocity', dunno if you can get some more dynamics in it, and the kit as a whole could do with a little fattening up (maybe parallel compression). i like the female vox...in fact both vocalists are great. horns sound great! only other nit is the guitars are also a little thin, both in the clean verse and distorted chorus guises...but then this is helping with the nice open mix, so it's a tough call. great song!

I like the tune... the shuffle is something not heard too often, but it adds that "jukin" feel that I kind of like. 

That sounded like a fun tune to work on.  

I would run vocal correction just to bring the vox dead on.  The vox alone are OK but when they sing together you can hear they are not exactly "together" on the pitch. She sounds flat... tweak them both and hear the difference when they are both in tune. 

Are the drums too busy?.... maybe yes, maybe no. I might try another drum track that is not quite so rambunctious BUT... don't delete the first one until you're sure... 

The one there now has a certain charm about it. Cool fills.  Perhaps, the only crit on the drums is there are too many fills, edit some of them out especially when the singers are doing their thing. Let the  Fills run in the breaks. 


The picking in the end is hot!

I agree with bringing her back a little bit, but overall, this is great.  :)  The beginning seemed a bit chaotic, but I'm sure I could get used to it.  Horns and organ sound great and they do add a lot.  

Maybe you could keep the drum part and switch to a Brush Drum Set.

The voices I did not mind so much, and from what I have heard, singers are suppose to sing a little flat in a song. Might add something to the voices to then make them stand out a little more instead of volume, like a soft echo effect or so.

The groove at the beginning part of the song is definitely too loose/sloppy. I don't know what you're using for drums, but the overall tone is too trebly/thin. I think that if you just rolled off the top, it would go a long way to making this mix sound much better. The bass is extremely prominent. I'd knock it down 3-4 dB. The vocals seem to be uncomfortably dry for much of the song. A bit of small room reverb or a plate reverb would be nice. Good work. J

Spacealf - Thanks for the suggestion for the brushed snare, I think I will try that.

Jonas -Im using a vintage kit from Addictive Drums but I eq'd it to death, I should of left it alone.  I might drop the EQ and keep the original sound of the kit and try Spacealfs suggestion of a brushed snare.  Thanks for the mixing tips.  I do have a plate verb on the vox which I automate a little heavier in the chorus.  I went back and forth how dry it should be, my orginal mix had much more verb.  I'll add a touch more when I redo the drumline.

Freddy - Thanks for the listen, I would really like to get a full horn section going on this song but my big band arrangement skills are uh....well..not there yet.  I had both singers sing separately knowing this would cause them to sing the chorus's slightly different which I wanted.  I think the big failure of the song is the drums, I am reworking as we speak...well actually I am typing but you know...after I finish this.  :)

Thanks again everyone for the suggestions
 

Great vibe on this.   I really found myself grooving by the end of the song.  Sometimes I thought the electric sat just a bit too far back.   Do you ever try using audio enhancers?   For example, I often buy Sound Toys "Decapitator" on some of my tracks.  Put just a tough of that on, and it gives it a bit more pizzaz (sp?) but without making it louder.

Note, I don't listen to a whole lot of music like this, so I don't know if there's any genre specific stuff I might be violating here.

I agree with Robby's, Herb's & Freddy's comments.

I would have Tuesday re-sing her parts, as they are not only pitchy, but not in sync with Tony's lines. Have her change a note or two where she is singing the same note as Tony. (Change it to a harmony note)

BTW, when are you going to learn how to play guitar?   Smoking lead work!