STormy - reworked! feat: bapu on bass, B. Bain & Y. Utz on BGVs NEW MIX 12/15/12

I completely redid the drums.  they were really very bad after I started listening to your comments!  I also remixed it, there were problems throughout and I'll not go into details, but it involved a sledge hammer, a squirrell and more RAM (thanks, AP! ).
 
so, here it is again and comments are certainly welcome!
 
www.soundcloud.com/beaglesound/stormy
 
Lead Vox: Beagle
Piano, keyboards:  Beagle
Drum Programming:  Beagle
Bass:  bapu - Ed Kocol
low harmony:  Mrs. Beagle
high harmony and answer leads:  Yvonne Utz
 
NEW MIX UP with adjust piano levels, adjusted vocal levels, adjust reverb and adjusted panning issuse.

The new and improved version sounds very good, Reece.  

Reece, this is much improved over the last mix.  It sounds way more natural, like a live performance, and not sequenced at all.  You'll have to share the squirrel technique!  BTW, thanks for you help on my latest song.  I think I may have found the problem.

Beags - I must have missed the original - this is good stuff mate. My only nit is that the panning seems a bit odd. The drums seem to drift from the middle to the left and back again. Great performances and all round and quality recording though sir.

The mix is really gelling together nicely.

I love the vocal layers.

best,
mike

Hey Reece, this is much better than the other. Still a few things I'd like to share with you if you don't mind? Ah you don't mind...I know ya lub me. :)

1. Drums: better than before, but we got some hats panned hard that can come down in volume and could probably be panned a little less hard. I'm hearing them on the left here. If you think about this (though it will always be subjective) when you look at a stage, your drums are in the middle....guitars and other instruments on the sides. Where you have the hats are where a guitar would be...so it's sort of disconnected from the kit a bit. I try not to let my drum pans exceed 50-60 L/R. But there are no rules really, just giving you a few guidelines to consider. The snare sounds a bit low compared to the kick and you could probably lighten the verb on the snare so it's not as splashy. Again, subjective but that's what I hear. I'm not hearing the pan movement like Daryl mentioned.

2. Agree with James...a nice acoustic would be beautiful on this if at all possible. In turn, you could lower the piano a bit which I think is a bit too loud...or too spread or something. Did you run a HAAS delay on it or something? It has that HAAS type sound on it...which isn't a bad thing, it just sort of spreads it out a bit more than I personally would allow and seems to walk on your other instrumentation you have going on in the background. Might sound good to pan the piano a little and bring the strings more into the pan field instead of having them so panned left? Just a possible suggestion.

Good stuff: toms sounds great...a little low, but good tones there. Low end is pretty controlled. You could probably get away with a little more kick drum "oomph" from 50-60 Hz if you wanted to. It would compliment Ed's bass really well. Vocals all sound great eq wise and the mix on them is pretty good to my ears. I'd just maybe drop the piano a little and mess with the pannings on a few things. But this is definitely better than the last mix...you're getting there brother. :) Nicely done!

-Danny

Very nice Reece... what a sweet song... excellent work everyone...

Mike - thank you very much!  I appreciate it!  on this particular mix, I didn't layer the vocals!  I did use a delay on them, tho!  thanks again!

Herb - I'll look into the vocal level.  It's funny but I usually get complaints that I have the vocals too loud in the mix!  this time I have the opposite problem!  as far as the drums go, I have struggled with the drums on this song and completely reworked them from the last mix (which you probably didn't hear).  I'm fairly happy with the hits for this song, tho I know it could probably be better.  thanks again so much for the kind words and the helpful comments! 

if there are other who feel that way about the drums feel free to let me know and I'll revisit again.  I'm not married to them!

Not a bad mix at all Reece. Had everything in place, good detail and separation. The only crit I have is the piano seemed a bit sterile. It had good tonal quality, but was lacking warmth. This is not necessarily bad, as no two pianos sound alike. Concert pianists in NYC rent from Steinway who keep a large warehouse where the pianist can test over 100 pianos to choose the one they like best for the particular concert they are playing. Getting the right sound for the song can be a challenge.

hey Reece
think this may be one of the best mixes i've heard from you. certainly the treatment of your voice works well, could be a smidge forward. the piano sounds fine to me, i think it just needs playing a bit better - adding some left hand rhythmic propulsion, some more grace notes and so on...love the female vox!

Nice Reece.  didn't know you had such a full voice.

Really open mix - can hear into it. 

Yea, the piano is doing some stuff vol wise that is strange.  Sometimes it pops out too loud or too upfront.  Other than checking that w/ vol automation you might pump the reverb up on it some - smooth out the rough edges.

good song.

@

This is sounding really good now.

So, just drop the whole piano by ~1-2db, add that acoustic guitar and it's baked (see what I done there?)

baps - thanks, I'm working on other songs right now, I might add one later.  the consenses I'm getting from this is that the piano doesn't carry the song by itself, so I need to look at adding an acoustic to it later.  thanks!

Mark - thanks so much!  I appreciate the listen and the kind words!  hope you're doing well after your surgery!