Real Goodbye

    The mix isn't quite there yet - sounds a bit 2 dimensional so any suggestions are welcomed, cheers!


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    First of all: Great song, cool tune with great elements and ear-catchers in it. Vocals are good as well and pretty engaging :thumbup:8)


    For the mix: I like the transparency. All elements have their space. Some reverb here and there would help you to create more depth indeed. Mix overall is pretty dry which can be a intended (listen to Mutt Lange's stuff for instance). For the vocals it'll be nice to either sing some harmonies or at least double them here and there. Or to create the harmonies in the DAW to thicken it.

    The only suggestion I have is to warm up that high end snyth effect that starts in the intro and continues. It reminds me of a "blow into top of Coke bottle" but in a bad way. If you can't warm it up then try another effect even if you have to use a wav file of some wind blowing. Besides this one thing, it sounds killer - vocals and all.

    Larry Mar @ Lonegun Studios. Neither one famous yet.

    Got a great Echo & The Bunnymen vibe to it, really well written. Lots of good ear catchers as deadman said.


    For my ears I’d like to hear punchier drums, the kick and snare could be a lot sharper (might even go for the 80s reverse gate) and I think when you bring up the Mellotron it’s a bit too strong. Mostly I’d be looking to punch up any guitar stabs you’ve got going on by clearing out space behind them. Generally clearing out mids.

    BT, the synth effect is a an echo tail of a guitar line looped which is in perfect rhythm for the track, in fact it gave me the idea for the song. I know what you mean about the tone- I tried warming it but there is no low end to it at all, I might try an RBass on it.


    Deadman: I've thickened the mainvocal with a short reverb, and stuck a longer one on the middle vocal thanks.

    OK, did all that here's the new mix and with a touch of compression.


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    I use Superior Drummer primarily with the fields of stone, hansa , decades and legacy of rock packs and do adjustments as necessary. I find drums are one of the most critical and difficult parts of sound design and I almost never get it right. If you have the ear though and can nail it then it’ll make the production sound a million bucks, anything less though and it really shows.


    Think carefully about the direction you want to go in. The sound should be an ear catcher in itself (think like Hal’s great drumming in the intro of Dizzy), so sounds that are slightly weird and not traditional drum like can be really great. A lot of electronic music uses really imaginative drum sounds. A trick to get organic is to throw one live tracked instrument in there, e.g. a shaker or tambourine is easy to track.


    For drums I nearly always find I need to get the snares louder than the presets, so I lower the kick and overheads most times to give that space then it starts to sound good while retaining the organic nature.


    My general opinion on pop has become - make it as punchy as possible. To get it to sound good though Monkey_Man has drilled it into my thick skull to stop turning it up and that compression is not an effect. Instead get it loud by subtracting everything not necessary to create space, only use compression for leveling tracks that are too busy to ride the faders on, or in an incredibly subtle way on the master.