Reply To: Campaign Like A Clockwork - Patiently

[Todd MitchellParticipant]

@Christopher - on to your mixes!

I'd be very interested to see how the two versions compare in Loudness penalty.  Generally, I like Lurssen better, but I feel like the mixes ended up coming out different.  I feel like the Lurssen version is better balanced, but has a bit too much presence.  There's a lot of sizzle that seems to me would throttle how loud someone is going to turn up the overall level.  The TR5 seems to be lacking in both balance and low end for me.

Because the mastering seems to have altered the mixes to me, I'd suggest thinking about how much color you would want/expect from a mastering engineer.  But also valuable to know how much they CAN do!

So the rest of my mix notes are specific to the Lurssen version.

- I feel like there's generally a really great balance of the musical elements.

- I personally believe the low vocal is a bit too audible. The performance is not synced well enough to the main vocal to be left audible (in my opinion)

- I might consider thinking about your use of EQ and how those decisions move different instruments closer and further back. I do think there's a bit too much of the fizzy frequency (4k to 5k), particularly in the guitars.  For example, although the guitar solo isn't really much different in volume from the main vocal, it is so present in those frequencies, it made me reach for the master volume to turn the track down.  It also makes the guitars feel spatially closer to the listener than the singer.

Generally though, really good job!  Best of luck!