Hi Magghy, nice choice to start with the bandpass vocal. balance feels good, maybe a the sub in the pre chorus is a bit much. There are some very tiny things going on in some tracks, can't figure out what it is but there's a ritmical thing that bothers me a little, for example 1:17 in the toms just before the 'break my heart' and there's a strange note a few bars later 1:21 which i didn't notice while mixing my version. ( gonna check in the tracks what that is) I think you made a really good mix with lots of energy!
And thanks again for presenting this song!

Great energy lots of pumping
maybe strings and gtrs 2db too high

Hey Magghy, you got my attention with that intro for sure. Nice.

That prechorus has a lot of bass! Maybe a little too much for my car. The slapback delay at the start of the chorus is maybe a little too much, making it sound like she's in the bathroom?

The balance in the second verse is really spot on. You also managed to keep that vocal on top in the second pre-chorus. Nice! The strings in the last chorus are a bit overwhelming for me.

Your overall mix has a lot of energy. The most of all mixes I heard so far. Nice!

Thanks guys! I went back to the strings a few times, I was not sure of their placement.. @Cleo Simons maybe the sound your hear comes from the "PadSynth Pluck" that I highlighted using a "spacey effect".. Yep, the pre-chorus is a bit strong 😅😝

Hi MAGGHY JI !
Listen at the beginning of the guitar jumps out, it's better to put a compressor on it
The voice at 0:45 - 1:00 is dry (and in all such repetitions), I would advise you to do as in the original, I think this is a better option. I liked how you mixed drums. But basically my complaint is the lack of accents, and to be more precise, they are certainly present, but not pronounced enough. Listen to the original, the accents are very vividly emphasized there. This is very important for the song. You can make a lot of mistakes, you can handle some instrument poorly, but it is important to preserve and emphasize the groove, accents

Thank you for the tip @SERZH MUSIC! I mixed the song without referencing to the original, I just followed my instinct ;p

@MAGGHY JI In my opinion, this is a big mistake, even the most famous and recognized sound engineers use a reference track. Comparison is one of the most important stages of sound engineering that allows you to do either well or even better. Any achievement of a person is based on the achievement of another person.

@SERZH MUSIC yep, but I specifically wrote in the description of the mixdown post that the challenge was mixing the song without listening to the original.. it was a part of the training ;P

MAGGHY JI With the same success, you could write during mixing, do not use compressors, reverbs and do not touch the faders at all)))) comparison is a fundamental part of mixing. I'm not writing this to you, first of all I'm writing this to those people who may not know that using a reference track is an integral part of mixing, it's the same tool as using compression, equalization, reverb, etc.

Hello all,
this is an interesting discussion. Thanks for that. In my opinion both have interesting and positive sides. No one can say, that a reference track is not important. This is for sure. But to stay in the analogy, that a mix without a reference track is like a mix without reverb or eq, it can boost creativity, because you have to find an other way to fill the gap. But for things that have not a training purpose I would use a reference track, too :)))).

Well, if someone considers himself already at the level of recognized sound engineers, in this case, perhaps you will not turn to reference tracks so often. Of course, I completely agree with these people, I don't want to offend anyone, but the results that I hear here (including my result) only say that it's not the time to philosophize, you need to learn and learn from people who have already achieved more than we have)))

@SERZH MUSIC I understand your point of view and I am not telling that I don't want to use reference songs to analyze my works and learn from the pros, in this case I asked to mix this track considering our taste and ideas as if we are the real engineers, paid for doing the job ;P

It's all my fault. I asked Magghy not to post the name of the track hoping you guys would open the session and perhaps reference other music but not the original mix. In the real world you are not going to get anything more than a rough. If they would have had the rough in the session I'd have left it in. But they did not. So, the next step is to reference other songs. But in the end you need to do what you are comfortable doing. It's all good as long as you're putting in the time.
Regarding your mix: Magghy you did a GREAT job of balancing this mix. Sounds full and normal. Really good. I am jealous. :)