Academy Dashboard › Forum › Academy › Pro Mix Academy › Morgan Mallory -- Of This I'm Sure (Just Lisa Mixes) › Reply To: Morgan Mallory -- Of This I'm Sure (Just Lisa Mixes)
James GormanAlrighty, I threatened to do this 🙂
Love what you did with this. A very different take from where I went. I've written a lot below, but I think once you deal with muddiness it's going to be pretty close.
Did you take inspiration from the video itself? I can imagine this coming out if they picked a different direction from after the pre-production when it was just the guitar.
Here's my take on the mix:
Overall it's pretty muddy, a lot of buildup in the guitars, drums and bass (maybe pads too) in the 200-500hz range, and a whole lot missing above 6k. I was playing with F6 to manage this and cutting low mids washes out the vocals a bit and boosting the highs over-brightens the acoustics a touch too far in the chorus, so it's a bit of individual track balance and a bit of overall balance. Tidying this will bring out a few nice accents already there - just my simple dnyEQing really brought out the clave/woodblock you put in and the air in the vocals. It also settles the second verse bass into a less aggressive place.
The mix feels a little narrow. The lead vocals and acoustic feel right down the middle while the BVs and the Slide are panned out. Bringing out the tops improves this, but you might want to pan the acoustic a tiny bit off centre (like 15-20% - I'm stealing this idea from Warren's singer-songwrier course with Pete Mroz). This should spread things out a touch and balance the
The other one that sticks out is the kick. It's mcuh bigger than the rest of the song and dominates, especially when there is no bass playing to smooth it down. I feel like if you pulled the back the <100-150hz in the kick and added more reverb/room to it would sit better. In the outro this could almost be pulled back so far as to be the insinuation of kick drum rather than something that is felt.
Little one, especially since I like the transition and the solo, so much, is to bring the slide up across the end vocal bridge (my castle in the skyyy(here)yyyyyyy) so it really powers in.
Ambience on the slide great, really sits well in the song. Same with the bass and pads.
The only problem with compression/automation that i really noticed with in the vocal bridge where the vocal was a bit uneven. Given how different his singing was I'd recommend pulling it out to its own track to mix independently (I did this with verse and chorus too).
On the compostion:
Overall love the direction, does what you said it did, so most of these are little things. You picked a tough one since it's so driving and I think the composition is let down by the performance (I'm looking at you verse 2, you can tell he sang over a much fuller mix).
Not sure about the bass in verse two, it feels at odds with the rhythm and pace of the song with everything stripped back, could maybe do with a new part. It's not that it sounds bad, more that it doesn't totally make sense in the song since it's pushing pretty hard, but it feels like you wanted it to be pulled back. Same goes for the vocal bridge. Did you consider pulling it out? I think the solo still works, it's really the singing that doesn't quite fit.
Drums are great, really suit what you did. Might want to pull back in the last chorus, maybe the mix note above is enough, but maybe also some velocity modulation since it's playing four on the floor but not going to take off anywhere.
Love the pads and percussion. That pad in the last chorus really works there. The percussion really works to pull back Morgan's drive (in a good way!) and helps make sense of all the stuff going on.