I think, personally, either mix would be a good one. Unlike the song we worked on together which was very similar, there is a WIDE disparity between these 2 versions. Choosing which one will come down more to a matter of taste. Do you prefer the 50's retro sound or the smooth sexy sound.




Mix A:
this has a dated 50's sound. However the groove is good. The feel "fits like a glove".
IMHO, the vocals could come up a bit overall because I think they are a few dB low in the mix.
I thought the bgvh were a bit loud but I think that you like it that way. As Floyd pointed out, that was par for the course in the 50's and 60's style music this represents.
the guitar solo needs to be lowered significantly. It's a good solo and fits well, but it's too loud in relation to the mix.
Pay attention to the transitions. for example, at the end of the guitar solo, the singer and solo are happening at the same time. That's not good. They're stepping on each other. The listener is processing the ending to the solo which is expected at that point, and suddenly, before they are expecting it, the singer starts and they miss that magic that should be there. Edit the guitar solo so that it clearly is ended BEFORE the singer hits her first notes. Make those transitions clean and clear. A few seconds of break between the parts is ideal. With a definite ending and a break there's the expectation that the singer should be coming in...and there she is...right on time as expected. Details matter. I would edit the solo to stop on the high note before she comes in..... edit or envelope the notes after the high one and it works well. The problem in that edit is ending the note properly. Cut short, it sounds like a bad edit.... that's where it takes creativity and thought to end it so it sounds natural. I usually go hunting for that same note near the end of the song and copy/paste it in for the edit.... sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. Also a re-render of the track will produce DIFFERENT notes..... my solo on The Best Christmas is comped from 5 renderings of the same track. All depends on how much work you're willing to do to get it "right".

Mix A needs some simple fixes, mostly related to levels and perhaps a bit of EQ to brighten the vox at the very beginning of the song and some judicious editing or envelopes. The vox sound a bit muffled when she starts singing.... but seems to clear up as the song moves along.


Mix B:
I don't like the groove or the feel of this one. The bass (especially) and drums made this version too busy for the soft smooth sexy feeling this song should have. I would spend some time trying other bass parts to find one that fits the feel and still maintains a sweet groove for this song. I currently think the bass part and to some degree, the drums are the main issues with this version.
vocals are well done. good eq, nice levels for the lead and the bgvh. These are the best part of this mix.
nice guitar tone on the lead/solo and the fills. Keep this guitar tone into the final mix.
The clean phased guitar is cool but I think I might would lower it a bit...a few dB at most. AND....look at using a string pad or a nice sampled string section with cello's, violins, etc. Doing that, I feel, would free you to use the clean guitar more like spice as opposed the main ingredient. This version would really benefit from a sweet string section rendered from a high quality sampled VST.



Personal opinion: I would favor the B mix simply due to it's NOT having a 50's groove. That said, it's also the version that needs the biggest re-working to get where it should be. If time is an issue, the A mix is the closest to being ready to go with a few minor tweeks to levels and EQ as I already mentioned above.

Good song.




Last edited by Guitarhacker; 06/02/15 02:02 AM.
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