Is my voice the problem, or is my mix engineer just ruining the genre? (grunge)
I’m lo0osing my mind with my mix engineer and REALLY need an honest reality check.
We just finished tracking a song that’s supposed to be heavy, gritty Grunge. The instrumental is brutal and sounds killer, but the vocal mix is driving me crazy. It doesn't sound like me at all. It feels distant, fake, and completely plastic.
My voice is on the deeper, baritone side for the verses, and I use a raw, aggressive rasp/belt for the choruses. Instead of keeping that grit, this guy keeps slapping aggressive Auto-Tune on my raw takes and drowning everything in heavy reverb. He’s basically turning a dirty grunge track into a polished, over-produced sentimental rock ballad.
When I tell him to back off, I feel like he’s just trying to "fix" me, and it’s making me second-guess everything. Is my raw voice just THAT bad and I'm blind to it (delusional), or is he just lazy and throwing pop presets at a genre that is supposed to be dry, ugly, and right in your face?
For anyone doing heavy rock: How do you deal with engineers who are terrified of dry, raw vocals? Am I wrong for wanting the pitch correction completely off and the reverb stripped down?
I'm leaving a link ONE FILE with the TWO versions ONE AFTER THE OTHER. One is the raw vocal take with absolutely no mixing, and the other one is the plastic mix he sent me. Let me know what you think.