Lynn- Thanks for your comments here. I pulled the guitars back and re wrote a few of the parts. The Guitars are still up front but hopefully not as much. I also reworked the piano eqs.

 Old55- Thanks for listening!

TheBand19- I appreciate the very useful advice you gave here. I attempted to do this and still keep things lively. I removed one of the guitar parts that were lagging to let the piano shine a little more as well.

Beagle- Thanks for listening. I seen what you meant by the piano and shaped it a little more here in the remix.

Scotty- I hope you have the volume down a little more if you listen again lol. Sorry man I didn't intend to make it that hot.

notnat- Thanks for your input! I used a combination of piano track. and balanced them. One is a Roland hardware unit and another is Sampetekk white lady and yet another is Pianissimo.

Hey Tim,

Very cool tune.  I really like the instrument selection and layout.  Have to agree about the "hotness" of your guitar.  And one other crit... the whole mix sounds a tad bright and a little thin on my system (which is odd 'cuz it's usually the opposite...), as if a bit too much Enhancement/Exciter on it.  Maybe just me though.

Great creativity my friend!  Merry Christmas!

Tony- You have good ears my friend! I did in fact add some exciter to the pianos because they were recorded sounding a little bit too muffled. There is a lot of energy in the mid region on this tune and maybe I went a little overboard on that count as well. 

 I use a consumer  grade subwoofer tuned with ARC in my small studio because I worry about muddying the low end. I probably err in not putting enough of it out there and this might be making my mixes a little bit mid heavy too....Thanks for giving this a listen and for your comments.

Hi Starise,

This is a cool tune! Agree with what's been said already so I won't beat on that. I think for the most part, the mix seems a little bright to my ears and this is after working from 6 pm last night until about an hour ago. So my ears have definitely lost the highs in them about now and this is still a bit bright all through to my ears. I'd definitely low pass it a bit or maybe lighten up on the exciters. Loved what you did here though and you got some cool performances going on.

I let a few of your other mixes sort of play while I was doing a few other things and now that I'm typing this, they all seem to have that same bright quality going on. Do you feel you're mixing just a little bright on your end? If so, you can maybe try reducing your sub a little bit which will make you mix a bit more bass heavy. Everything just sounds a little thin to me...like you're in need of good low end.

Everything seems audible though, so your mixing skills are definitely going in the right direction. Lead guitars seem to be a bit loud at times in the tunes, but your mixes seem pretty balanced. We definitely have some high end going on that needs to be curbed a bit though in my opinion. Or we have to at least find out why you're not hearing it as lacking "meat" and see what you can alter on your end.

It's not just lows though...you seem to be missing low mids and mids. Sort of like things are scooped. The more mids we take out, the smaller the music gets. I think you have some good sound source sizes here, but all the meat seems to be scooped out. Can you hear this at all when you compare your stuff to something that may be close to it in style?

The good thing is, you're not mixing bass heavy and muddy....so hopefully there is an easy fix for this. You do turn ARC off when you export, right? I know...silly question, but I always ask because quite a few were under the impression they were supposed to leave it on. Also, are you using ARC 2 by chance? If so, have you done anything to the custom EQ? If you have, I'd be curious to hear a mix with it set to flat with just your basic correction so we can see what you're getting that way. Good stuff though brother...I hope you don't take any of this the wrong way. I'm honestly trying to help and enjoyed listening to your songs. :) Thanks for sharing.

-Danny

 Danny- I appreciate your comments here,especially after a long night. Man you better get some rest there! I will never take anything said as anything but constructive so don't worry about that. I appreciate your insight.

 I think I am a little paranoid about muddy lows so I  slightly HP my bass around 50 hz. I usually put a little thin Q in the 200 range on bass bumped maybe 2  db to give some bump on a cheap speaker but I might scoop it  below 30hz.  For some of the things I have done this seemed to work well but as you know it isn't always the same. In this case my bass is around -8db. I could bring it up a few notches.Thanks for that tip. I tried parallel compression on my bass and decided it was too much. I'll revisit that again. 

 I have ARC 2 with settings for "door closed  sub off","door open sub off", "door open sub on" door closed sub on" and a few others with the 80hz filter engaged and not engaged on my mixer. My tendency without ARC is to mix  bass differently because of the standing waves.With ARC on I have a much better picture but I tend to forget that and mix the old way.I guess I need to add a little thud below that range. I need to remind myself that its ok to hear some thud with ARC on.Before I had ARC hearing loud bass wasn't necessarily a good thing in a small studio.I did remove ARC before I mixed down.No custom Eq going on.

 The guitars in this mix started out lethargic so I bussed all four of them to a main guitar volume which I compressed and added a reverb send to a master reverb buss from that buss. I automated the master volume so I could control all my guitars.I put Izotope Alloy in this buss as well and now I guess I need to back off it some ....no more skimpy guitars lol. I also added a little small mid. freq bump in the mids to the guitar eq. in the 5khz range. I knew the guits had some meat I got a little over zealous I guess.

 I did scoop the highs on this bass thinking it would leave more headroom for the other instruments. I'll look at changing that too.

 Thanks for your comments! I'll make some changes when I get the chance.

  

 

 

Well, I am going to be the voice of dissent here. In this sense the lead guitar is not just the lead guitar, its the lead voice. I like it out front and in your face. I did not hear any clipping like Robby, but I would try to bring a bit more energy into the low end. It sounds like you used the left hand on the piano for most of the lows, which I loved, but, low piano notes do not carry a deep tone (just resonance), which I feel this needs to round it out. - Cheers, Shad. - edit - just read Danny's reply and I am in agreement.

Starise


 Danny- I appreciate your comments here,especially after a long night. Man you better get some rest there! I will never take anything said as anything but constructive so don't worry about that. I appreciate your insight.

I think I am a little paranoid about muddy lows so I  slightly HP my bass around 50 hz. I usually put a little thin Q in the 200 range on bass bumped maybe 2  db to give some bump on a cheap speaker but I might scoop it  below 30hz.  For some of the things I have done this seemed to work well but as you know it isn't always the same. In this case my bass is around -8db. I could bring it up a few notches.Thanks for that tip. I tried parallel compression on my bass and decided it was too much. I'll revisit that again. 

I have ARC 2 with settings for "door closed  sub off","door open sub off", "door open sub on" door closed sub on" and a few others with the 80hz filter engaged and not engaged on my mixer. My tendency without ARC is to mix  bass differently because of the standing waves.With ARC on I have a much better picture but I tend to forget that and mix the old way.I guess I need to add a little thud below that range. I need to remind myself that its ok to hear some thud with ARC on.Before I had ARC hearing loud bass wasn't necessarily a good thing in a small studio.I did remove ARC before I mixed down.No custom Eq going on.

The guitars in this mix started out lethargic so I bussed all four of them to a main guitar volume which I compressed and added a reverb send to a master reverb buss from that buss. I automated the master volume so I could control all my guitars.I put Izotope Alloy in this buss as well and now I guess I need to back off it some ....no more skimpy guitars lol. I also added a little small mid. freq bump in the mids to the guitar eq. in the 5khz range. I knew the guits had some meat I got a little over zealous I guess.

I did scoop the highs on this bass thinking it would leave more headroom for the other instruments. I'll look at changing that too.

Thanks for your comments! I'll make some changes when I get the chance.

 

Whew, glad I didn't offend you. :) I too was a bit reserved when I started using ARC. But it's safe to say, you have to learn to trust it and if you fail after trusting it, it might be time for a new correction procedure. Whatever is happening, you're definitely losing beef. Just curious Starise....when you listened to the song I did with Philip, did it sound too bassy to you on your end? I know our songs are different....but when you compare mine to yours side by side low end wise, does it leave you saying "wow, he's got way too much low end in that?"
 
Then listen to something commercial and compare side by side with yours. Not for production values, just to test the low end. If it sounds like the commercial song is too bottomy, I would say you may need to do a new correction with ARC. Something is causing you to pull out the low end. If you try working with this mix again, let yourself go and push the bass to where it actually sounds good to you. Even if it's too much. Then, repost and I'll let you know what I'm hearing over here. If you post and don't see me, please send me a pm to let me know you posted it so I can give you some feedback.
 
I think you'll be in good shape once we can figure out if it's your system or you just being overly cautious. Feel free to do this testing in private with me if you want to. Send me an email or a pm and we can work it out together if you want to, ok? :)
 
-Danny

cool project and well done...

As a guitar player myself.... I must ask the question... Is a guitar ever too loud? 

After shouting a firm "NO... turn it up to 11 and rip the knobs off!"

the producer in me tempers that and says... yeah... perhaps. 

nicely done. 

 Herb- Thanks for your comments.
 
 Shad- I totally agree that the guitar should be out in front here. Hopefully this time it is out front but not painfully out front. Thanks for listening.
 
Danny- I re recorded the bass part here with my trusty ltd. I hope it makes a difference. I really appreciate your willing ness to listen and help me to get it right.

 I did make some critical adjustments to the guitars to make them fit better in the mix.I replaced the keys bass with a fuller tone from my acoustic bass and added a few vocal fill parts as well as some very low key percussion except for the cymbals. I did notice the bass holding over slightly on one place in the mix but I'll need to change that later.

 Here is the remix- https://soundcloud.com/starise/the-unintended-christmas

Love it.