My FTM-26-11 WICME Mix (Feedback wanted) · Mastering.com Members Club

My FTM-26-11 WICME Mix (Feedback wanted)

(EDIT: Probably done with it, LOL. https://www.skool.com/mastering/my-ftm-26-11-wicme-mix-feedback-wanted?p=038bf8f1 )

Hey guys, I probably should've posted this on Tuesday, but after having finished, I was in "recovery mode" and also quite busy the next days... So, this is still the same mix+master I entered the contest with; I worked less than 10 hours on it, including a 2h break and a lot of shorter ones. When checking my second master export, I got a "dentist drill tinnitus" and knew it was definitely time to finish.

(Maybe listen now and then compare your thoughts to my own notes in the next paragraph?)

So, I usually try to figure out myself in a clear-headed manner, why the finalist tracks were chosen instead of mine. This time I'm pretty sure the drums were the main problem. I hardly ever listen to hard Rock subgenres or Metal, especially on headphones, so, especially when I re-listened to my version today, I though "it might be caused by your remembering how you listened to Metal-like stuff on cheap earbuds in the youth". I was "satisfied enough" with the drum sound itself and didn't do much except for adding bx_SubSynth (Plugin Alliance) and Baby Audio Subculture on kicks and reducing the harshness of cymbals, having rather disregarded following the usual Foundation-First way strictly enough. Otherwise I can't remember doing anything to them except what I did to every group - using ADPTR Sculpt and adding some reverb. So, they indeed feel more like "earbud drum hits" instead of those carefully crafted "3D-depth" drum sounds I heard from other contestants.

With the VOX I mostly battled with the annoying-sounding reverb on the plosives, both in the mix and the master. I got it to where I could tolerate them, but I often do concentrate on a small detail problem that many others would not notice, and could actually lose overview over bigger-scale problems, until someone more experienced leads my attention to them...

As mentioned during the stream, I used two reverbs only in the whole mix, Temperance lite and Swarm Reverb, it did sound "absolutely enough" for me, now I do notice how more depth and distinction from "the usual Mastering.com approach" probably would've done better. But I got to the reverb stage quite late already, noticing reducing stamina, and there still was a master to do, so I was quite satisfied with what I dialed in everywhere in probably less than half an hour, and decided to go to the master stage. The only adjustment in this second master was a cut in the 800Hz range, which made the track sound "ready enough to call it the day" for me, especially regarding the tinnitus.

Looking forward to hear your thoughts now, guys :) As usually, be brutal, LOL :)

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My FTM-26-11 WICME Mix (Feedback wanted)