Jessica Childress: "Slow Down"

[Jimmystevenson]

This is my first mix attempt, so go gentle!
I would love to hear what you guys think I could do to improve this mix, and my mixes in general, as I am still very amateur but serious about improving!
Cheers, Jimmy <3

[Coco]

Hey, i'm no pro but here is my two cents :

- I personally would like some panning separation because we have the drums, bass, lead vocals and guitar all in the middle.
I like for exemple the snare a little on side, same with high hats ... Guitar could be nice also on this one?
-Bass part at 2:24 gets a little loud. How much compression did you apply on bass ? Maybe you did a volume automation ?

Other than that I find your mix good, volume is nicely done. I'll let other people be more specific

[azwayne]

I agree... various techniques to make a centered mix sound wider. First and foremost, listen to the drum overheads, find the hihat, and pan the hihat track to about that location. Toms. Generally, high 60% right, mid center, low 60% left. What you can also do is use a short delay processor (~2ms) with a good cross feed on the guitar to let is sound wider. A good reverb processor, gently treated, will also tend to help that. I find delays are one of my best friends for helping to spread out a mix. Haas delays, 1/32, 1/8th, etc all help there without pushing the sound into the distance if treated carefully enough.

For a first mix, the only comment I have otherwise is trim the various tracks to eliminate the garbage at the beginning and the end from non-musical noises such as the vocalist chiming in too quickly when they're done. (Don't forget to put short clip fades at the start and end of your snippets though so we don't get a sudden *pop* when playback reaches that audio.) The only other comment I'll make is to listen more and find the spots where the guitar and piano should come up or go into the background and incorporate that into your session through automation. May only be for a single chord for accent but it makes a difference.

Nice work otherwise.