Mixing suggestions?

Have you considered getting it professionally mastered? Would remove second guessing from the process.

(cough) I have affordable pricing... But I can also recommend other studios that do it for cheaps.

Still only have a mono CrapMac™ speaker to use, Ceddy, so I can't assess or even hear any bass (for any music, even solo bass!), so it could be way-off and I'd never know.

From what I can hear, it sounds to me like the vocal could use +2dB at least.

Otherwise, it's rockin' bro'.

Vocals up as suggested by Monkey_Man plus some pre-delay on the vocal reverb so the vox don't disappear in the back of the soundstage.
And then have it mastered by someone.

Yeah, I'd say the vox should be a bit more forward (more level, and a bit less verb/delay, maybe), and the guitars a bit lower in level.

The bass could a bit be fatter, I think. I hear the clack, but not a lot of oomph. Be aware that I'm listening on headphones, but very good ones.

There are some moments where I think the guitars might be a bit harsh - in the power chords. It's not completely out of control, but I would look at it. Possibly somewhere in the 2k-5k region (I'd have checked if I could download and futz around with an EQ in my DAW - my guess may be off). It's possibly a broad band EQ is called for, or it's possible that it can be fixed with a few narrow dips. You have to experiment to find out what works best.

Biggest source of harshness to me is the vocals, and especially the vocal reverb/delay. You need to go to town with a de-esser. First on the vocal by itself (mute the verb/delay sends), and then likely a more extreme version on the verb (or see what you can get out of using a regular EQ). For the verb channels, find out if it needs the de-essing before or after the verb plugin, or in both places (same for delay). For the vocal, find out if it works best before or after any compressors (or both).

You need to take care of harshness and especially sibilance before mastering, because these issues will really be brought out by the mastering.

In general, any significant issues or problems in the mix will be difficult or impossible to fix in mastering - and IF they are fixed, other issues will likely be the result - eg. removing excessive harshness due to the guitars being harsh will make cymbals sound dull, etc.

You can definitely find cheaper places to master, but of course you need to trust their work. There will likely be discounts for mastering a number of songs rather than just a single one. I would recommend you DO get it mastered by someone else, however, for several reasons. If the songs are good enough to release, they are also good enough to pay for mastering...

Yes it's much brighter than the Manowar song you posted. Sent you a MP.

I would defo recommend someone else mastering it, his helps a lot in my opinion. Different speakers, different ears, different room these factors help to get things that might of just fallen short in the mixing stage.

I will comment on the guitars as that is what I am the most familiar with.

IMHO the guitar tone sounds strange and out of place to me. Raising the vocals will not fix the issue as the guitars are over powering the mix. Its an EQ issue not a volume one. As usual, I am always willing to give it a try if you send me the mix with gutiar DIs. I can always explain better with mixing than words.

Even tho when i was at audio engineering school (when i was young YEARS ago man, back when the dead sea was alive) i used to sneak out and not listen, chase girls and take naughty things... i remember retaining one important thing, YOU NEED GOOD REFERENCE MONITORS TO MASTER...now Ced probably has them right...the teacher also said one more thing, he said some studios listen to them with TWO different types monitors to check how they sound in different scenario's, i guess now days you can fluke it with some normal monitors. Ah man what a pain in the ass sorry to hear of this issue, we need some one to go to Ced's house and teach him.

Ash

Man you did all those albums and this mix with no high end equipment??
absolutely blown away..RESPECT!!
And YEP...the new mix is great...
PRESERVE the old skool!!

Ash

Sounds great!

Yeah I know a couple dudes that have released multiple albums mixed only on home stereo equipment and they still sound great because they know how they translate to other systems. Heck, most albums in the 80's were done with home stereo speakers (NS-10).

Sounds much better to me now on my CrapMac™ speaker, Ceddy. Well done, mate!

Quote from ashtweth

Man you did all those albums and this mix with no high end equipment??
absolutely blown away..RESPECT!!

Ash, my best mixing was done using a $20 set of headphones from Brash's (the old record store) back in 1994. There was practically no bass, zero isolation (open-backed foam) and not much above 10k. My trick was to try to leave everything below 100Hz and above 10k alone as much as I could, high-passing everything above 30Hz.

What I'm saying is that sometimes one can achieve better results by not messing with the naturalness of, especially, high frequencies. A broadband boost or cut, yeah, but not trying to dial in bell boosts and whatnot above 8 or 10k, which can result in harshness and unnaturalness.

So, in a round-about way, not having fancy equipment can work to your advantage by protecting you from making unfixable mistakes. Hey, you know me - always looking for silver linings.

I am listening via tiny built in speakers on an all-in-one PC in my office right now. From what I can hear its a huge improvement. I'll listen later on different speakers and let you know a more detailed opinion.