nearly finished mastering - for some final feedback please

[Smashing Galaxy]

hi all,

a little song here about the anticipation of having a child for the first time. 

have been mixing and mastering for the last few days.  tips / tweaks welcome!  and any other feedback

cheers,

a

[Mark Morgon-Shaw]

Really nice song and performances so congrats on that.  Mix and master sound good, a few thoughts on going the extra mile...

First I think the intro is far too long for modern audiences, the first thing I would do is chop it half so we get into the vocals more quickly

When the track is more sparse the vocal sounds a bit thin and feels like it could use some warmth. Maybe you filtered out the bottom end to make it sit in the mix better and I think when all the other parts come in it's fine because they fill out that part of the audio spectrum and mask what's missing. You could maybe "mult" your vocals onto two separate tracks with slighty different EQ so we get a fuller sound in the sparse sections and then you can thin it out when the full arrangement kicks in.  

Guitar is a bit bright to my ears in the upper mids - it makes things like fret squeaks really jump out and set my teeth on edge. I think you can darken it a bit and pull out some of those harsher upper frequencies and it will sound easier the ears. I have Oeksound Soothe so personally I'd throw that on it as it does a good job of taming these things without ruining the overall tone. If you don't have anything like that then maybe use a dynamic  EQ so it's only pulling them back when needed. It's more when the picking pattern hits the higher notes that they sound a bit overly bright.

Regarding the fret squeaks they are quite loud so I'd look into what you can do about them. These days I use Izotope RX and go in surgically to tame them but before I had that I'd use the split tool to isolate them and move them to an adjacent track which is lower in volume so when they occur they don't leap out at the listener.

There's a bit of a balance issue for me between guitar and vocal, it's sounds like the vocals are 2-3db too loud and they sound like the singer is stood right in front of my face whilst the guitar is some way back playing on stage. I think in these types of songs you want the listener to imagine you are playing and singing at the same time , so the voice and instruments need to sound the same distance away from the listener. Some of this is just balancing  the two and maintaining that balance throughout the song with automation etc and some of it is to do with the FX on each part.

You might need you cut some of the vocal frequencies out of the guitar so you can turn the vocal down a but without losing any intelligbility. These days I use Trackspacer to help with these types of things as it works dynamically    

I think part of the reason the vocal sounds a little bit disconnected to the rest of it is it seems drier and doesn't see to share the same space as the guitar. In some places there are some BV's which are wetter and I think when those come in it helps glue the track track together better so you might be able to use a little of that to feed your lead vocal to. 

I like the string parts, they sound really nice which is great as they're often difficult to record and are a great addition. 

The ending feels a little abrupt - maybe you faded it out to upload it here but it deserves a bit more of longer a ring out I think or a more composed ending. 

I don't know if you used any reference tracks for this when mixing / mastering - something like Lower Your Weapon by David Ford sprung to mind as it was a similar arrangement ( although an entirely different sentiment )

Hope that helps

 

Edited Tuesday at 08:16 PM by Mark Morgon-Shaw

[Mark Morgon-Shaw]

PS @Smashing Galaxy

Hope you don’t mind — I was curious what would happen if I pulled your MP3 through a stem splitter and did a quick rebalance/remaster. Mainly pulled the vocals back, matched them with the guitar reverb, and gave it a bit more low-end body. To me it feels more emotional now. Here’s how it came out, thought you might find it interesting.

[Smashing Galaxy]

Wow thanks for this, really detailed and helpful feedback!!

Love your new mix.

I'll go back to the mix and try to incorporate some of these ideas.

Super helpful. 

[Mark Morgon-Shaw]

15 minutes ago, Smashing Galaxy said:

Love your new mix.

Thanks, gave it bit more width too was the other I meant to say

Really enjoyed your song BTW

Edited Tuesday at 10:25 PM by Mark Morgon-Shaw

[mark skinner]

Fantastic song and performance !  I think Mark nailed what the song needed.    Love the strings and guitar work.

Loved it ..   ms