Listening to the re-re-re-remastered now and really digging it.  High end nicely in control--and as others have said, a wee bit off the bass would probably be nice.  My little desktop speakers with a sub are booming it out big time.  Great improvement regardless.   

Thanks for checking it out, sven. Another reason I was a little... uh... over enthusiastic with the bass was what Danny said (and I've seen it mentioned elsewhere) about the Sennheiser Pros being a little bassy so I wanted to make sure I wasn't overcompensating and stripping out the bass/bottom end. This room is indeed a real problem listening through my monitors so unfortunately I do have to rely on the headphones mostly. I think I'm getting more accustomed to them though so I think I'll be able to slowly get my mixes more balanced as I learn their quirks.
 
Cheers.

Hey Beeps. I very much like all you have done here. The mix is very crisp and new elements enter the mix cleanly and distinctly. Each passage feels like its own element and transitions smoothly to the next. I like it a lot.
 
As the bass already got mentioned, I scratched my head a bit since I didn't notice this and wanted to share the funny part of 'why' with you. Last week I was messing around with surround sound and somehow grabbed "What's Forever For?" The initial bass in that song is so overwhelming that it was rattling everything in my cockpit, so I max attenuated the bass on my system. After seeing the bass comments I set it back to zero attenuation, and yours is "more apparent" but nothing rattles (key point for me). I actually expect a bigger bass presence in metal, but do not expect (or appreciate it) to be overwhelming in a ballad. I think your bass fits the genre of this piece fine; sure, it is higher but by no means overwhelming.
 
Lastly, I want to thank you again for starting this thread. The details in this thread are invaluable, and I am thankful to everyone who participated (especially Danny). This is a very cool thread for a "here to there" progression.

Is it just me or is the forum being a steaming pile of fail today? It's taking forever to load and post. *guess they were doing maintenance... all working now. Perhaps even a little snappier. :-)
 
Anyway... thanks, mettulus. I feel like I've gotten a few years worth of education here that would have been a LOT of trial and error + frustration otherwise. I doubt I would have gotten this level of advice and attention any where else except maybe by paying a private tutor. I'm just really glad I'm not the only person benefiting from it all.
 
I agree about the "bass in metal" stuff. I used to play bass in a krustcore kind of band so although it's not my main instrument I definitely like to have it highlighted as well. I've just never been very good at drawing it out of a mix so hopefully those days are behind me and I can now focus more on getting drums and vox to sound good.
 
As far as this I think it's just a little much and the bassline isn't really that interesting (just mimicing the guits) so I think it can slide back into the mix just a little to get rid of the boominess. I think I cranked up the low shelf on the premaster eq too so I'm gonna bring that down a bit and try to bring it back up with the more defined Pultec in the mastering session now that I know a bit more how to use it and what it can do.
 
Hopefully Danny makes another appearance after that and I'm sure his keen ears and sharp mind will find quite a few more things that need some work. This however does have other issues that started from the beginning (input methods could have been better, orchestration could have been better thought out, etc) so I'll just start on some new stuff and apply it there as I go along. This tune is getting a little tedious after all this time spent on it and my fingers are getting antsy to actually play again. Writing might help get my head on a little more straight again too and feeling a little better about life.
 
Cheers.

I like the bass. I am a huge Rush fan however. I like to hear it!

This is what I posted in the songs forum in reply to your initial posting there.

 
Much valuable advice given by the other contributors to this thread, me I am just a miserable furry alien.
 
Well what is there to say.  
It sounds very squashed.
Is there any dynamic change or is it just a continuous onslaught of sound.
Is the drummer using a full kit?
A Bass guitar would add something to this.
 
The guitar is played quite skillfully but does seem to dominate the whole sound stage.
 
Thanks for sharing sorry did not enjoy.
 

 
For my furry alien ears.
 
It still sounds squished to nothing
My question about the drummer is apparently yes but.....
It still sounds like a wall of sound spread across the soundstage with little definition.
Ah! there is a bass buried in there somewhere.
 
Thanks for sharing sorry still did not enjoy.

Yes... I did read your original post in the Songs forum, Wookie. I just wasn't sure how I could really reply to it. I know it's not pro level but you have to remember I am still kind of a beginner. Metal also has a tendency to be a little squished and hectic by nature too and admittedly I did really stack up the guit tracks (which I mentioned)... perhaps that's contributing to your impressions. Not making excuses and I thank you for listening. I did most definitely take note of your concerns as they were along the lines of what others have said as well and have done what I could to correct them with my current skillset.
 
I've just finished another version that I think is a little cleaner and not quite as boomy. I'm about to run it through the same mastering settings I used before and tweak it as best I can. Check back a little later and let me know if you think it's a little clearer to your ears if you get a chance.
 
Cheers.

Alright... turned down the bass guitar a little and a couple other light tweaks. I tried a bunch of different stuff with the pultec EQ in the master but seemed to always end up right at the same settings I had for my previous version (even though I was not LOOKING at the original settings... at least my ears are working... well consistent anyway. lol) so I just stuck with the exact same settings I had before. I think it's a lot less boomy now but still bassy. In my good headphones this is pretty much exactly how I intend it to sound. On my crummy headphones it's still a little unpolished for my tastes but much better. At this point I have reached the limit of what my skillset and experience level will allow so I consider this done. Quite the adventure. Thanks again everyone for bearing with me through all this and all the great advice. I'll leave the other versions up on my soundcloud page for a maybe a week just so people can check out the progress on this but after that I'll clean out all the crud.
 
Here she be...
 
https://soundcloud.com/us...s-creep-remix-bass-fix
 
Cheers.
 

Hey Beeps, good job on controlling things a bit better. Like you thought, the bass is out of control now with low end on my stuff. This is one of those situations where you have to decide whether to drop the low end in the bass or just drop the bass level. In this situation, the bass low end is the problem. Bass guitar doesn't have as much low end as you think it does. When you listen to a mix, you're listening to the sum of everything adding to the over-all low end. I'm still hearing some pumping and the cymbals still sound weird like they are comped to heck. This is probably contributing to what Wookie may be hearing with the "squished" comment.
 
Next, when he mentions "little definition" this is true because there are good mids missing in this as well as good low mids. The guitars are still too stripped making them not have the definition they could or should maybe have. It's like your missing the elemental frequencies that make mixes more defined and big. Sennheisers are famous for this too...meaning they sort of add things that aren't there as the mids are weird on them. The HD 280 pro's I have here wouldn't help *me* mix anything worth a nickel.
 
The guitars are decent, but just seem to have the mids gone and are way too razor sharp. I guess what I'm trying to say is...the mix has no body now. If you take away the low end in the bass, we're left with a mix that sounds like an AM radio for the most part. You did control the hiss of the cymbals and turned them down a bit in level which is super important.
 
The newer mix (I started writing this before I heard the bass fix mix) is the same but with better control over the bass. Everything still sounds way too sharp and abrasive to me bro. There's no body other than the bass like I said. But I like that you controlled the bass rumble better. If I were you, here's what I'd do...
 
Lower the low end on the bass and try to add some good mids and low mids on the other instruments. Bass has less lows in it than you know, so take some more sub low out or high pass a bit more. I can feel your bass more than I can literally hear the distinctiveness in the bass. It's not about just feeling it....it needs to have an identity and needs to be heard a bit more than felt in my opinion.
 
The cymbals are better...still a bit sharp/bitey for me and are a bit loud. Remember, they are percussive accents, they shouldn't be as loud as a snare or kick drum. You want them to be heard but you don't want them dominating like you're getting now. Still some sustaining cymbals that are lasting way too long which sound like excessive compression.
 
The snare is inconsistent. I can hear it pretty good in a few spots, then it totally blends in with the hats from 1:20 to 1:37 and barely sounds like a snare. So that section definitely needs some work.
 
The guitars are razor sharp and biting too. I know you like that sound, but like I said, if you removed the bass in this, you have no body anywhere else and you could deal with some more body on the guitars as well as the drum kit. They just sound like nothing but high end. Almost on the border of a guitar into an amp sim without speaker emulation. They have no thrust...no punch, just high end sizzle.
 
So those are the things I'd work on...but only if you yourself can hear them. This is definitely good enough for a bedroom studio demo but there's definitely room for improvement all across the board. You're sort of going in the right direction but need to find out why you're not hearing that the other instruments sound super thin and are lacking body/definition in the low mids and mids. I hope some of this helps.....keep at it man! :)
-Danny

Definitely a huge improvement over the original mastered version.  It starts off a bit bright and thin but then fills out nicely.  For me the snare is still a bit weak (I'm a great fan of Neil Peart's snare sound), but I can hear it now.  The cymbals are much more in control now so I have no problem listening to it :-)