MakeShift
Bat,
 
You continually give me something to aspire too.  My ears are just not good enough to find anything wrong with this mix.  Excellent musicianship, as always.  Man, I wish I could play like you.  I am assuming, as per usual, that all of your guitar tones are the real deal.  They sound great.  The vocals had a little bit of a Tommy Shaw feel for me.  Good song.  At your level of craftsmanship, I should probably try harder to find something to critique you on.....but I can't.  I think it all sounds great.
 
I like the title too. 

makeshift
thanks mike, for listening and making the nice comments.
all of these electric guitar tracks are miced up cabinets,
most are continuous tracks from beginning to end, just a few punch-ins here and there.
i have found that i can seemlessly punch in with the best of them...
but it's easier for me to maintain the 'vibe' if i try to nail it from beginning to end.
 
i loved tommy shaw with his first couple of styx albums, i thought crystal ball was just brilliant.
he's a total pro now, but then, he was just starting, and i really liked that go for it attitude in his voice.
 
this song, was originally called "The Travel Song"
it was inspired by a friends' trip to england to cross-country bicycle....
and upon arriving at the destination to begin the trip, finding out their bicycles had been trashed by the courier....
and a kind local took them under his wing, to a local bike shop, and got them all fixed up.
i took it another step, and gave it a religious undertone, and kind of married the two ideas into one.
thanks again, glad you dig it.
 

the guitarplayer
thanks john, appreciate the comments....
i like the HD280's, they were on my short list of cans to get last time i went shopping for a set....
i went with a set of AKG K240 Studio, just worked better for my ears.
i mixed that acoustic hot to start with, i wanted it to kinda come in like a wave, and receed, as the whole band thing kicks in...
so that was intentional, for good or bad.
LOL
i have had the pleasure of working with some really fine headphones (AKG k702, Beyer dt150, sennheiser hd251 II pro, Ultrasone Pro 900--probably my favorite)...
and i believe you are right, folks that really care about audio, are going to spend a bit more on their cans than a $15 set of earbuds, even tho some of THOSE actually sound pretty dam good!!
heheh,
i'll toss my theory out there shortly......

mike_mccue
I'm going to go out on a limb; I think it sounded just like the CD version.

 
i think you are right.
 
 

wookie
volume down on monitors works too!@!
heheh, i think those beyers sound fine.
i'm sure the event's just put it right where it ought to be.
thanks for listening
 
 
Leadfoot
janes addiction, well, i really like that band.....
sometimes i'm accused of doing a vague perry ferrell,
but i wouldn't say they are a strong influence.
 
the drums are Sony Acid.
it's a set of loops i built within the program, and then output to a 16 bit wav file, and started the song with those tracks.
thank you for listening

So what is the theory?
 
Is it; "Speakers cabinets with wide dispersion, long throw tweeters are easier to mix for headphones than speaker cabinets with narrow dispersion and fast fall off high frequency response."?
 
Or maybe
 
"Headphones that make everything sound different than what it sounds like on 100s of different speaker cabinets make everything sound different".?
 
 
 
 
BTW, having listened to the song on headphones intently in response to this post, I grew to more fully appreciate the creative use of panning effects on some of flourishes and fills. It's a really polished mix.

Bat, you are very good and have such enormous talent.  Thanks for taking my eval professionally.  
Maybe it's my ears but for some reason I feel the mix is pushing your primary guitars on L and R back in space instead of being right up front like I have heard in your other songs/mixes.  This is most apparent in the cans.
I will check out again tonight.  It's no biggy and your song and production are far more important than my comment but there is a technical thing that seems to make this particular mix a little different that your others.  
 
It is probably just me...

Bat,

I caught onto Styx a few years late, but once I did, I dug their early stuff as well. To be specific on this song, my head almost immediately went to "Man In The Wilderness." Again, nice work. I am also trying to do more of the play all the way though with just a few punch ins. It really helps me to fall more into the groove.

steveC
cheapo mini headphones, check!
honestly, i'm not sure how much effort i should make,
to build a mix that works for a certain level of playback systems,
i think stuff like i pods and earbuds are ok,
but man, i heard those original earbuds that came with the little shuffle i bought, mp3 player,
and they were horrible!!
i cannot IMAGINE why anyone would listen on those things, they hurt, they sound like crap, they fall out of your ear,
yada yada.

\heheheh
but, if i'm close to a decent mix in those kinds of earpieces, that's a good thing.
the strength of that acoustic guitar at the beginning, and at the breaks, was on purpose.
it did it's job, if it caught you off guard...
it made the experience a little more.
more what, you ask?

good question.....
 

mike:
 
my theory:
the way you process and mix the low end, and the most high end, makes or breaks a headphone mix.
the common frequency for everyone, is the mids, of course, that's where most people hear the most information...
but to get the heaphone mixes to be as good as the speaker mixes, is tricky, and requres a more modern (for me) approach.

i'm looking for some commonalities with headphone listening, that i can focus on mix wise....for my mixes to work better in the headphones, and not screw up the good translation thru the monitors and homes stereos.
i'm thinking more folks listen on headphones or earbuds these days, than did when i was younger and just getting into music....
it's the devices, that drive that decision....

i like the listener to really have to dig into my entire mix, on vocal songs, i mix it for the vox to blend and work as an instrument, NOT to stand out on top like a standard top 40 mix, where the vocal is really the only thing going on....and the music is just a backing track......
comes from listening to a lot of classic rock mixes, the AOR stuff, not the hits......!
anyway, that's just my approach to production, it's what i like.
it is very hard to get a good mix to translate mixing with only headphones, i've rarely ever heard a good mix from someone using only headphones to mix....
but i DO use headphones to do spot checks, and to do critical editing..... and i love listening to music with my earbuds in general, because it's the only way i can crank it up to a volume i like, that doesn't bug everybody else around me, and it's the only way i can hear EVERYTHING in a mix, when i'm not in the studio.

and i find usually, that a good mix thru the monitors, will almost always translate into a good sounding headphone mix.
but here's the rub, if you want POWER in the low end, like you say, then there is an entirely different area of EQ and compression that you have to concentrate your work on....
and to NOT ruin the speaker mix, by adding that power, that is the trick.
and believe me, there are HUGE DIFFERENCES in quality of headphones and earbuds.
and usually, it's in the ability to have that power, and smooth high end as well.
headphones and especially ear buds, are tricky beasts..... and it's even harder to get a common concencus amongst different earphone users as it is folks listening thru monitors at 85 dB.
------------------------------
 
thanks for commenting on the mix.....
 
it IS a wide mix, some LCR going on for sure.... but it's so dense, i thought it really needed it.
you need to get some seriously good sounding headphones, or earbuds, part of my theory is that entire droves of people are moving to earbuds/phones as their primary listening method, and some monitor mixing techniques don't translate as well for headphone mixes..
i'm looking for some commonalities with headphone listening, that i can focus on mix wise....for my mixes to work better in the headphones, and not screw up the good translation thru the monitors and homes stereos.
 
 

hey Gonzo - a little late to the party, but I'm listening on my ipad on cheap supra-aural headphones.
 
the mix is tight and slammed (as you designed, I'm sure).  personally I think the guitars should come back a little and let the vocals come out just a hair more, but again, this is probably by design for this genre.
 
highs and lows themselves are really good in the ipad/headphone arena.  nice job on the mix.