Yo Dave,

This one really pops along! Great momentum and pace. I like the way the instrumental goes on for about the 1st half of the song. At times parts of the melody sounds like a sped up version of TOTO's Africa, which strikes me as a good nick, if true. A lot of cool sonic details. And I really like the vocal sound. I wish I could do that.

Cool tune.

Cheers,

Bert

Thanks again for your comments, guys. 

Lately I've been on a kick to kill the low end on vocals. I know you're supposed to cut everything else to make room for the vocal and not the other way around, but it seems the mix just instantly cleans up when I take some bottom off the vox. 

Thinking this way has also made me aware that, after listening to the vocal EQ on many of my favorite records, they're very often mid-rangy - but you don't really notice it in context. My vocal models are people like Jeff Lynne and Tom Petty. Listen to anything by ELO, the Heartbreakers or Traveling Wilburys - there's no low end on the lead vocals and even less on the BGV's.

Of course, every time I dive into any new approach or technique, the natural trajectory is to over-do it at first before eventually finding the ideal middle ground. 

Cool song and great energy. Mix sounds great to me. I always like it when people put aside commercial considerations and do what they feel is best for the song so I liked the extended intro.

That songwriting process sounds familiar to me.  My wife just brought in an shoebox a few days ago and it's full of pages of "stuff" and napkins and pieces of paper with ideas on them.  I have to say that your catalyst for this tune is very cool.  I need to go back and listen to all of the lyrics again because I usually get the music the first listen.  The song moves right along and I like it.  It's a good tune, Dave!

Awesome tune Dave. i enjoyed hearing it. 

I love the tune!  It may be the first one of yours I've heard.  I felt like I wanted to hear the vocals (which are nice, btw!) a little clearer or a bit more up front.  Not much but a little.  But no one else has said that so I may be halfway to somewhere else. 

Anyway, that's all I've got.  I'm impressed. :) Glad you finally made it.  

Bit: How did I miss this?! Sheesh! Glad I caught it before it faded into the abyss! Agree with Shad's comments, Bit. That's the only thing I sort of found "subjective" on this really. The mix is solid...completely audible, great performances etc.

I don't think the answer is "aggressive compression". My first thoughts are:

1. You're either stripping away too many good mids that are making things smaller...

2. You may need to select different instruments that come out of the gate with a larger sound size.

For example, if you don't mind me ripping things apart? I'd never "rip" you...no worries....I mean, systematically talking about each instrument. :)

Drums: They seem to be the smallest. The drums are just sort of there. No beef/meat/impact in the actual sizes of this particular drum kit. Again, maybe you're playing it too conservative and are stripping away too much mid range? Kick drum is border line acceptable. I hear some thumpage...could allow a little more.

Bass: sounds like it's a midi bass, correct? If you haven't already Bit, try that SI-Bass plug in Sonar. Honest when I tell ya, if you work that thing a little bit, you can make the bass so realistic you won't be able to tell it's not real. That plug alone made X1 (oh, wait, you don't have X1...shoot) worth the purchase for me for times when I don't have access to my bass or just don't feel like playing real bass.

That said, the bass sounds pretty decent low end wise and has enough percussive high energy in it. With a lower thrusted kick drum, it would take things over the top. When the instruments back down though, the kick and bass compliment each other nicely. When the rest of the music comes back though, we seem to lose the low end impact.

Guitars: I'd not touch a thing. The biggest offenders in this mix to me are the lack of size in the vocals, drums and bass. These guitars are definitely thick enough and doing their job.

Vocals: Great performance and use of effects. Again, to me a bit too small like you're removing too much good beef.

Other backing instruments: No problems there.

In my opinion, this is a nice balanced mix that a mastering engineer would have a good time with as you've left enough room for sculpting without over-doing anything. However, a little thickening in the core instrumentation and vocals would be where I would start first before you attempt to fix things via mastering.

Loved the song though and think it has mad potential to be a production monster with the right stuff added. It just lacks fullness. Like Shad said, it's not a separation or effect fullness that it's lacking...it's instrument size. You get that size by selecting the right instrumentation that has a big sound coming out of the gate. I have a few students that are experiencing this same thing. Spending a few bucks on some really good drum modules cures this most of the time and you get less robotic hits with the good ones because they give you more samples per velocity in each sample pool. I know...sometimes we have to make due with what we have...especially in this economy, but the above is where I would at least start.

You probably have some bigger sound sources in your immense library of sounds. I'd try there first and see how you fair then do a comparisson. You still did a fine job on this though brother....sound size is nothing to be concerned about really other than if you are comparing your stuff to national releases. I think you will fair well with either bigger sound sources or putting in some good low mids/mids to thicken things up. Sometimes we get so lost with trying to remove subs and low mid/mid mud we over-remove it. That may be the case here. Hope this helps...nothing but love and respect brother. Nice job!

-Danny

A very raido like mix.   This would make a good theme song.  I agree with Danny, it could use a little pumping up... but a very cool tune, well executed too!

Daryl

What Danny said..........................didn't even read it all, but I just know he will be right lol !

I liked it overall and just thought that it needs beefing up a little, which I guess is  the quick way of saying what DD said.  can definitely hear your influences re the vocal sound even before you mentioned it - I've always kinda hoped you would do a "Horace Wimp" cover, 'cos I can imagine you doing a great job of that.

@Janet - check out Bitflippers "Soldier" if you've not listened to him before - great song !

Thanks, Danny, I'll definitely give the Studio Instruments' bass a go due to your suggestion. I think I've only tried it once, only briefly, and then put it away. Always room for another bass in the collection! I may have been overly conservative with the low end, as I'm still getting acclimated to my new room (I know, I know, you don't have to bring up our favorite room-correction package).

Horace Wimp! Always been a favorite. Although a huge J. Lynne fan, I've only ever actually done one ELO cover in earnest. That was Don't Bring Me Down. Unfortunately that was back in the tape days and the only surviving copy of that cover is in a shoebox on cassette. And I can't sing that high anymore.

A while back somebody here on this forum did an outstanding job on a cover of "Livin' Thing". I forget now who it was that did that, but it's worth a search. The attention to detail was impressive.