05-01-2019, 01:58 AM (This post was last modified: 09-01-2019, 10:45 PM by oeltingbeats.)
First of all i wanna give a big thanks to cambridgeMT for this page and forum.
I have followed this for a year almost, and the section with song free for mixing is amazing and have helped alot !
So now i saw this competition and thought why not try it out.
I started with making music my self, but for the last year, mixing have really got a hold on me and i love it!
Would love to hear what u think of my mix of "You know better"
Thanks to all and most of all Hannes Keseberg for this lovely song
------------------------
Version 2 : I have removed the echo on the vocal, and added some more punch in the low mid, but this is without mastering hope we are gettin there
Not sure I get the echo on the vocal. It sounds like Spock in the Bad Robot version of Star Trek. And then it sounds naked.
The rest of the mix is excellent.
Thanks for the reply, and haha you got me to smile there a bit, and i can actually hear what you mean! I will correct that maybe move the echo, and do some delays on the guitars to fill a little more maybe..
Hi oeltingbeats -- you've provided another bold vision here, with that strong kick foundation! A few issues I hear:
The kick is so huge, by comparison with the rest of the drums, that I think it risks overwhelming the groove, during the Reintro and Outro especially. Fills with prominent snare elements (such as the one in the middle of Chorus 3) also become a lot less dramatic.
The bass guitar is also very weighty at the low end, but for a mainstream single I'd want more midrange in the mix so that it comes through on smaller speakers -- it all but disappears on my Avantone, for instance.
In general it feels like you've probably been too aggressive with your processing (and particularly compression) on the drums, so they're coming across as a bit too garagey for this kind of style. It feels more like roots/rock than pop/jazz/reggae. The cymbals in particular feel quite crunchy and lo-fi, but in a kind of 'angry' way that's quite harsh, rather than in a retro laid-back way that might better suit the fundamentally happy mood of the lyric.
Very cool Hammond sound. Although it initially seems to be competing directly with the vocal, because it's so band-passed it kind of cuts through without obscuring it too much, which is a nifty trick.
Hope some of those points are helpful! I'm always happy to hear a cool alternative vision like this, so thanks for uploading it!
I'm a little late critiquing mixes but yeah, the low end feels a bit too big and the drums feel processed. When the mix first come on bass hits (in a distracting way) me but I guess my ears adjust to it. It's overall smooth but some of the other parts like the lead guitars and timbales and background vocal parts feel a little neglected. As if you put the effort into the drums and vocals and just blended in the other parts. Having those parts stand out more would offset the size of the kick and really make the song that much bigger and dynamic.
You hit a nerve there, im maybe a bit to focused on drums and lead vocals, and i should get the other parts a bit more interesting.
Thanks for a good reply
The kick seems out of place in terms of style and level. Maybe leave that out entirely first and get things where they need to be then figure out what fits there in the mix.
Vocals sound very bright (but more on the reverb than the direct track) and the guitars quite thin. So I think the EQ here is the main thing to focus on. If everything except the drums is working, then I think you'll have no problem fitting them back in.
