Mix critiques & advices - reach your mixing goals!

Ruud Reiher

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Ben Sinclair
Sep 21, 2021
Hello everyone, thought I would get some help from the SoundGym community before I send this off for mastering. I recently finished up this track and want to get some opinions on how the track sounds/what needs work etc... I think I'm pretty close to a final mix on it but it's tough to tell this far into the mix!

https://soundcloud.com/user-519015469/cross-an-ocean-unmastered/s-arP310SFfv4

Your feedback is very much appreciated!
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Agnese Daņilova
Sep 21, 2021
Hi.
I liked the rhythm/element changes but for me the percussive elements dominated over your vocals in terms of volume. :)
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Trey James
Sep 21, 2021
@Ben Sinclair Love the overall flow. One thing I might consider is more compression on the vocals. You can kind of tell when looking at the audio visual bar on Soundcloud when there are certain notes where the vocal volume seems to be quite a bit louder.
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Anne Schutte
Sep 21, 2021
Hi Ben, nice songwriting! Very creative.
For me the vocal recording sounds a tiny bit dry and is missing some clarity (or air?)
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Nesor B
Sep 21, 2021
Hi Ben. Good song.
I agree with Anne that the vocal is a bit dry and narrow. A doubler or widener could do the trick (Microshift from Soundtoys is very good).
Also I feel bass is fighting with guitars in the 100-300hz area. Cutting the lows of the guitars in the center might be enough to fix it.
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Totonno Nevone
Sep 21, 2021
Hi Ben! Cool song and beautifully mixed. As already suggested, vocals sound a little bit on the dry side, but that could be a production choice to make them really stand in front of everything else. Instintively i'd say i also miss a little more space and bottom end in the drums, especially the snare and toms. I hear that especially during the drumfill before the final chorus at 3:38. Hope I helped, thanks for sharing!
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Claude Mccan
Sep 21, 2021
Yes the lead vocal is a bit dry and thin while the backing vocals seem almost like there is too much FX on them. Bring the backing vox up . There are some mid frequencies in the bass that seem to get in the way of the vocal when higher notes are played so try to find that frequency. A well written song but maybe needs some more expansive wide instrument sounds to fill out the track.
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LoC Studios
Sep 21, 2021
Maybe it helps for you to hear the track without the vocals, and try to concentrate on the room the instruments are in. Try to hear it 3Dimensional, once you got that you can add the vocal and you will hear that they dont fit in that room. try put them all sounding realisitc in a space together =) But its a really nice song i love it
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Ben Sinclair
Sep 21, 2021
Thanks for the comments everyone, I'll go back to the mix with these suggestions in mind. The vocal is going to stay pretty dry because I didn't want a verby sounding vocal.

I actually already have a fair amount of stereo width enhancements on the tracks (if I remember correctly it's on the lead vocal, the acoustics, the bass, select backing vocals and possibly on the piano) but I'll see if I can make them bigger somehow without them starting to smear together.

I'll definitely re-evaluate the bottom end and see if I can clean things up a bit.

Again, thanks for the extra ears, it helps a lot!
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Darryl Wood
Sep 22, 2021
DM'd you. It's a great tune!
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Nick Smarto
Sep 22, 2021
Sounds great! Snare is a bit impotent, could use some more meat. Vocal is a little dry, could use some reverb. Really nice mix!
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Joey Sabat
Sep 22, 2021
Hi there! This mix needs more saturation on everything, from what I can hear. It sounds a little too digital in my opinion. Any type of saturation on groups or individual tracks would help. The vocal feels a little dry too. I would turn it up 3-4dB. And I would turn down bass 2-3dB. I also hear a lot of LCR panning, am I wrong? I would try something else, as the piano in the end would really benefit from being in the center but super wide with lots of side information. Sorry for not going into more detail, but that's where I would start. Hope this helps!!!