Michael's mix of Hated Love by Mask

[Michael4bass]

Mixed in Logic Express 9 using the Apple plugins. Took the low-fi approach and mixed in mono. Used only the direct guitars and bass tracks using amp sims. Thanks for all comments and criticisms.

Bassically, Michael

[danmanisa]

Hey Michael.
This is my first mix critique of this song having been offline (moving house!!) for a number of weeks. My listening environment is very new to me, so I'll go on what I hear, but please keep in mind that it may be my room and not your mix....
First thing I notice is that your mix feels very mono. Not that that's a problem, just and interesting take with 'creativity' card played by Brandon. Love the slow and heavy tremolo on the vocals in the chorus. Glad you didn't over do it in the rest of the mix!!! Easy trap to fall for. Kick and snare are balanced pretty well, bass cuts through well. Guitars sound ok overall, yet the 'mono' panning (oxymoron there!) has them sitting on each other and it is hard to distinguish any differences.
The rock, build up section (which was a problem for me that I did not solve!) sounds very weak. There is a lack of intensity and the clean guitar sounds amateurish. I mean that in the playing, not the sound, but having a clean sound exposes it more. I would look to add an effect or a decent amount of distortion on it to help disguise the playing and also add to the build up to give it more juice.
Overall, the mix is very laid back, and I too went for that feel. Personally, I think it really would have 'spoken' a little better if things were spread across the panning spectrum a little more, but you have done well to balance everything and it has a kind of cool old school vibe to it. Nice job!

[fHumble fHingaz]

Pretty decent mix here Michael... The mono approach kind of works - love the "Crimson & Clover" tremolo on the vocals!

The mix overall has a fair bit of build up in the low mids which could be dealt with by knocking out some of the problem areas in the 200-400hz area on the individual elements, particularly the bass. I don't think it would take away from the "lo-fi" vibe you were going for - it would just give things a bit more punch & bite by clearing out those areas.

I'm hearing the odd random click & artifact here an there, so maybe there are some crossfades or cuts that need a little more attention.

I'm with Dan on the clean guitar break - the lack of distortion really exposes the sloppy playing - even with distortion, these parts needed tightening up, so going clean, it is even more essential.

Kudos on taking an out of the ordinary approach to the mix.

[willj]

Hi Mike. DEFINITELY NOT seeing this as a 3 star mix. if you havent rated your own give it 5 stars. thats what your supposed to do.

Im kind of liking the mono-ish approach. What it sounds like to me (and correct me if im wrong here) is that you used some sort of multiband imager and used it to pull the lower frequencies more towards the center. never easy to tell on computer speakers. I think its giving the mix a sense of cohesiveness that a lot of the other mixes dont have. I also think you can allow it to spread a bit more and be OK.

The one thing i would have liked to see you do is drop some of the distorted/heavier elements back into the song once in a while to change it up and create a little more excitement with the mix.

Your instruments sound nicely balanced and pretty well eq'd. Instruments are under control and there are no surprises.

I think its a nice sounding mix here man. Good job.

[redworks]

good feel to this mix. it hits me a little more straight on which is what i would assume you were going for. i have to say though not digging the tremelo on the vocals and it is hard to get past. i feel like if that was gone this mix would have hit even harder and really laid me out. (in a good way). out of curiousity what about this song made you want to mix in mono? would love to see into your thought process a little bit.

[kakeux]

Hi,

I have to admit that the mono approach is not really what I generally like...but your mix is well balanced and element seems to all have their place in the mix, which is a tricky things to achieve in a mono mix.

It is definitely giving another feel to the song which is a good point.

One bad thing, your mix is enhancing my mistakes...so now I feel like I'm a worst guitarist than I thought when I got up this morning.

Technically this mix is good.

Cheers!

[wireman957]

Hey, Michael - Kudos for taking the novel mono approach. I think it works well for the most part - the tremolo effect on the backing vox tends to open things up and create some space. Good idea there! All of your vocals sound pretty dang good, in fact!

The only two things I really hear that seem like they needed work are the low-mid (upper-bass?) frequencies. Seems to be a bit of mud in there between the guitars and bass so clarity between the parts suffers a bit. Maybe even more important to conquer in mono that in stereo, but there it is...

Also the timing in the break before the final chorus needed to be fixed (maybe it was just me, but instead of editing drums, I found that I needed to edit the main rhythm guitar track through that part - it tended to push/pull quite a bit) and the fact that you went "clean" tends to make the timing issues more apparent.

Overall, a nice job, though. Your balance is good and considering the mono approach, clarity is good!

[Magnolius]

Bold to go for a mono mix. You say you aimed for a lo fi mix and mono is definitely a step in that direction but I think there is plenty of room for dirtying up the tracks more and really go with that sound. To me it's unclear what the vision and emotion this mix is aiming for. Other than that I think you have managed to create a well balanced mix

[dudermn]

End bridge guitar part doesn't sound good at all....
Everything had me thinking.. 'man this would sound great stereo'

[bobbybovine]

Hi Michael4bass. You made everything play nice together in mono here. I find the bass a bit on the loud side, and the kick on the quiet side of the fence. I would like the vox to be a little bit more up front as well in the verse with a little less effect on it, but that is a taste thing. I like Willj don't think this is a 3 either. I do wish it was in stereo though Great work.

[Jjsodarock]

Hey Michael
Very interesting approch. I understand why you would check your mix in mono, even mix in mono. Why did you present the finished file in mono? I allways refrence a mix in mono for phase relationship. I totaly think if you used the whole stereo field
your mix would be in the top 20 at least. It seems that our peers are leaning more towards the harder in your face wide stereo guitar sound. Your mix has all or some of those attributes, only not stereo. Well done, Jojo

[jhkillam]

The mono definitely works for this song, as others have mentioned. The biggest instant improvement suggestion I can make is to cut several db on the bass guitar around the 150-300hz range. It will help make everything else sound clearer, and can help make the bass pick attack stick out a bit more too. Some of the delay on the vocals as well could be adjusted with some automation. It stuck out as odd on the very first line, then a couple other places. In most spots it works well though. The bridge section during the instrumental part I think would benefit from having a more aggressive guitar sound, maybe with some distortion on the guitar.

Nice job

[Michael4bass]

Hey Michael.
This is my first mix critique of this song having been offline (moving house!!) for a number of weeks. My listening environment is very new to me, so I'll go on what I hear, but please keep in mind that it may be my room and not your mix....
First thing I notice is that your mix feels very mono. Not that that's a problem, just and interesting take with 'creativity' card played by Brandon. Love the slow and heavy tremolo on the vocals in the chorus. Glad you didn't over do it in the rest of the mix!!! Easy trap to fall for. Kick and snare are balanced pretty well, bass cuts through well. Guitars sound ok overall, yet the 'mono' panning (oxymoron there!) has them sitting on each other and it is hard to distinguish any differences.
The rock, build up section (which was a problem for me that I did not solve!) sounds very weak. There is a lack of intensity and the clean guitar sounds amateurish. I mean that in the playing, not the sound, but having a clean sound exposes it more. I would look to add an effect or a decent amount of distortion on it to help disguise the playing and also add to the build up to give it more juice.
Overall, the mix is very laid back, and I too went for that feel. Personally, I think it really would have 'spoken' a little better if things were spread across the panning spectrum a little more, but you have done well to balance everything and it has a kind of cool old school vibe to it. Nice job!

Thanks Dan, thanks, the mix is in mono, so you were hearing it correctly. Gotten a lot of criticisms on the guitar sounds. When I decided to mix in mono, my thinking was to use different sounds for the guitars so they could be easier to distinguish.

Bassically, Michael

[Michael4bass]

Pretty decent mix here Michael... The mono approach kind of works - love the "Crimson & Clover" tremolo on the vocals!

The mix overall has a fair bit of build up in the low mids which could be dealt with by knocking out some of the problem areas in the 200-400hz area on the individual elements, particularly the bass. I don't think it would take away from the "lo-fi" vibe you were going for - it would just give things a bit more punch & bite by clearing out those areas.

I'm hearing the odd random click & artifact here an there, so maybe there are some crossfades or cuts that need a little more attention.

I'm with Dan on the clean guitar break - the lack of distortion really exposes the sloppy playing - even with distortion, these parts needed tightening up, so going clean, it is even more essential.

Kudos on taking an out of the ordinary approach to the mix.

Thanks fHumble, yeah, I admit I'm a Tommy James fan. You're right, I went back a cut 3db more in the bass track and a little dip in the 2mix and it really cleaned up the low end. Not sure what the random clicks were, there were no crossfades or edits that would have caused that to happen.

Bassically, Michael

[Michael4bass]

Hi Mike. DEFINITELY NOT seeing this as a 3 star mix. if you havent rated your own give it 5 stars. thats what your supposed to do.

Im kind of liking the mono-ish approach. What it sounds like to me (and correct me if im wrong here) is that you used some sort of multiband imager and used it to pull the lower frequencies more towards the center. never easy to tell on computer speakers. I think its giving the mix a sense of cohesiveness that a lot of the other mixes dont have. I also think you can allow it to spread a bit more and be OK.

The one thing i would have liked to see you do is drop some of the distorted/heavier elements back into the song once in a while to change it up and create a little more excitement with the mix.

Your instruments sound nicely balanced and pretty well eq'd. Instruments are under control and there are no surprises.

I think its a nice sounding mix here man. Good job.

Thanks a lot Will. No, I just keep everything panned in the center, mono-ed the aux channels, and to be sure, used a plugin in the 2mix to mono it.

Bassically, Michael

[Michael4bass]

good feel to this mix. it hits me a little more straight on which is what i would assume you were going for. i have to say though not digging the tremelo on the vocals and it is hard to get past. i feel like if that was gone this mix would have hit even harder and really laid me out. (in a good way). out of curiousity what about this song made you want to mix in mono? would love to see into your thought process a little bit.

Thanks, no real reason, just was remembering how good a lot of those 50s/60s recordings sounded that were mono and thought to give it a try. The more I worked on the more I liked it, so I went with it.

Bassically, Michael

[Michael4bass]

Hi,

I have to admit that the mono approach is not really what I generally like...but your mix is well balanced and element seems to all have their place in the mix, which is a tricky things to achieve in a mono mix.

It is definitely giving another feel to the song which is a good point.

One bad thing, your mix is enhancing my mistakes...so now I feel like I'm a worst guitarist than I thought when I got up this morning.

Technically this mix is good.

Cheers!

Thanks Kakeux, sorry, didn't mean to cause any embarrassment, please forgive me. ;-)

Bassically, Michael

[Michael4bass]

Hey, Michael - Kudos for taking the novel mono approach. I think it works well for the most part - the tremolo effect on the backing vox tends to open things up and create some space. Good idea there! All of your vocals sound pretty dang good, in fact!

The only two things I really hear that seem like they needed work are the low-mid (upper-bass?) frequencies. Seems to be a bit of mud in there between the guitars and bass so clarity between the parts suffers a bit. Maybe even more important to conquer in mono that in stereo, but there it is...

Also the timing in the break before the final chorus needed to be fixed (maybe it was just me, but instead of editing drums, I found that I needed to edit the main rhythm guitar track through that part - it tended to push/pull quite a bit) and the fact that you went "clean" tends to make the timing issues more apparent.

Overall, a nice job, though. Your balance is good and considering the mono approach, clarity is good!

Thanks Jeff, yes, you're right about the bass and the timing issue to, I had thought to address it, but ran out of time and so I left it as is.

Bassically, Michael

[JoshERTW]

Nice work man, this one has a definite vibe of it's own.

Low end is nice and thick which I like, I feel myself wanting to hear more high end definition and maybe a little bit more subtle scooping in the mid's - Especially in the solo break, which is really heavy in the low end and lacking some of the high mid and high definition of that part which the guitars are meant to convey there. I think just giving the guitars more focus in this mix would go along way towards making this good mix move into the 'great' category.

[dudermn]

Im one of the few people that never listened to anything mono.
I mean.... I used test mixes mono on one of my older monitor set-ups,
It's really weird to have everything dead mono it makes it so easy to focus and listen to all the details.
With that said it's way to bassy of a mix.
The choice of guitar sounds is pleasing

[jerze]

Nice intro.
everything seems to blend well. The di bass at .15 sounds like its causing a weird sound with the vocal in the verse sections maybe some eq to take the click away imo chorus it fine. There already some good posts about the drums.
Nice job on the vocal sound not sure about the effect in the chorus.
Overall nice job sounds like you have the basics down. I think with some fine tuning stuff clicks and rework lead section guitar parts just to help the flow of the song. great job

[Jeronimo Mora]

Nice mix !

The vocal reverb was a bit much. The delay is a bit too loud. It appears as though the bass is the most prominent element, which is weird. That's probably caused by the use of reverb on most of the tracks. That makes everything seem distant. Some of the mid-mids are a bit too strong on that bass. Try cutting a small amount of about 600 hz or so on the bass and see if that subdues it a tad.

Good mix !