I did not listen to the original mix before starting to work on the song.

[Christian Schulte]

Project contains samples to boost some kick drum hits and some drum breaks. Drummer does not need anything like that, so I chose to not use any of those sample tracks. Lots of guitar tracks in the project, so I needed to find out on whose of those to focus. Turned out, not the same focus, the artists had in mind. I did listen to the original mix afterwards. A stranger starts to work on someone's piece of art and comes up with something completely different. That's what is so much fun about it. Hope you'll like it. I tend to prefer Soundcloud for uploading. You'll find the same tracks from me there as well. I appreciate all kinds of comments or likes there as well, of course.

https://soundcloud.com/chanscte/sets/gra...wstate-mix

Update: So far there were two users providing feedback which is appreciated, of course.

Mixinthecloud says:

On my system it sounds like there is a blanket over my speakers.

RoyMatthews says:

The overall low end feels loud and the high end is a tame.

Although I think I know what is meant by this, I cannot reproduce it locally. What I noticed is, most of the mixes uploaded to the forum are way louder and, as I would describe it, finished "mastered" productions. As this made me really confused about what to upload to this forum, I mastered the mix myself and added that to this post as well. The mastered version is way louder, of course (-16LUFS vs. -7LUFS integrated) and I think the low end will be even louder than in the mix. So what is criticized in the mix may really be intention. I cannot tell. All that I can tell is that I need to pull down the volume potentiometer of the DAC quite a lot to not overload the speakers. On the headphones the low end sounds even more present than before. Would be interested to here about how this version sounds to you. Not sure, if it is a good idea that the person having done the mix also is the person doing the mastering. Four ears vs. two ears, so to say.

Update 2:

Artyom Donka says:

Should you try balance low end maybe? Feels overpowered even while listening on my headphones, which have very moderate low end response.

This made me listen to the MP3 files I uploaded to this forum instead of the WAV files I was listening to locally. Turned out there is a huge difference between these files. I could reproduce what you guys were telling me by just listening to the MP3s I posted to this forum. What is a bit disappointing to me is that the original mix was just sounding exactly the way I wanted it to and only the MP3s, encoded using lame, had the issues described here. As I cannot reproduce the former versions any more - cause I did this stupid CTRL-S at the wrong time - I can only provide the updated versions here. This time using the Fraunhofer MP3 codec instead of lame. So I compared the MP3 version against the WAV version before uploading this time, just to be sure there is no "blanket" effect in those files anymore. What is different in the new version compared to the old versions is that I added gates and compressors to the drum tracks, fixed an issue with the bass track, and rebalanced the levels once more. So what I upload here now marked as Fraunhofer is not the same mix as uploaded before. Sadly. All you lame apostles, think about it! That damn codec just...

So please keep in mind that you are not only judging a mix or some kind of skills here, but also the codec used to present those to you. What a bad choice for such a forum to make

[Mixinthecloud]

This mix makes me wonder what you are using for playback. On my system it sounds like there is a blanket over my speakers. While the mix is ok, the frequency content is, IMHO, badly skewed.

[Christian Schulte]

This mix makes me wonder what you are using for playback. On my system it sounds like there is a blanket over my speakers. While the mix is ok, the frequency content is, IMHO, badly skewed.

Apogee Mini-DAC connected to Yamaha MSP-7. Sennheiser HD650 and AKG K701 used with the headphone output. Volume potentiometer at full gain aka. no attenuation/damping. It's not lacking any high frequencies, if that is what you are referring to. Maybe you are listening to it with way too few volume? Try increasing the volume and see if at some point the effect you are describing disappears.

Edit: I think I know what you are referring to. Question is, is that really mixing? I can easily provide a mastered mp3 of that same mix with way more loudness and way fewer dynamics and the effect you are describing will disappear. Should I? I would be curious about your opinion on that one, of course. Sorry for my bad english, btw.

Edit II: Does this version also sound like a basket over your speakers? For me it sounds like a deaf audio engineer. Most of them are, so no issue about that.

[Roy]

I have to be honest, I agree with Mix in the Cloud. Listening to the original mix, it feels a bit dark. It's not a question of dynamics. It's not a very dynamic mix. Which is ok. This kind of music doesn't need a ton of dynamics. And loudness isn't as much of an issue as it was years ago, so it has nothing to do with that.
The general balances overall seem good. The overall low end feels loud and the high end is a tame. The same applies to the "master" version as well.

[Christian Schulte]

The overall low end feels loud and the high end is a tame.

Does this also apply to the latest mp3 I posted? For me this kind of discussion is very interesting. It has a lot to do about loudness and mastering, btw.

[Mixinthecloud]

This mix makes me wonder what you are using for playback. On my system it sounds like there is a blanket over my speakers. While the mix is ok, the frequency content is, IMHO, badly skewed.

Apogee Mini-DAC connected to Yamaha MSP-7. Sennheiser HD650 and AKG K701 used with the headphone output. Volume potentiometer at full gain aka. no attenuation/damping. It's not lacking any high frequencies, if that is what you are referring to. Maybe you are listening to it with way too few volume? Try increasing the volume and see if at some point the effect you are describing disappears.

Edit: I think I know what you are referring to. Question is, is that really mixing? I can easily provide a mastered mp3 of that same mix with way more loudness and way fewer dynamics and the effect you are describing will disappear. Should I? I would be curious about your opinion on that one, of course. Sorry for my bad english, btw.

Edit II: Does this version also sound like a basket over your speakers? For me it sounds like a deaf audio engineer. Most of them are, so no issue about that.

A mix is not finished until it is mastered as your mix without it would be specific to your listening environment and not to the environment of every other listener. Your mastered version is much more listenable than your 'mix' version and has all of the highs and lows you would expect in a finished product and presented at the proper levels. That is part of the process.

[Artyom Donka]

Hello, Christian.

Should you try balance low end maybe? Feels overpowered even while listening on my headphones, which have very moderate low end response. I like your first mastered version. Second master for me sounds over-compressed and the problem is still there.

[Christian Schulte]

Feels overpowered even while listening on my headphones, which have very moderate low end response.

Used some moderate EQ only on the low end - that is - only filters in use are low shelf. That makes it appear overpowered. I'll fix it. Will also add a compressor to the snare and kick tracks.

I like your first mastered version. Second master for me sounds over-compressed and the problem is still there.

Mastered file is kind of "maximum gain". I completely dislike it myself. I'll update this thread the next days. Maybe I just need to decrease the listening level while mixing. We'll see.

Update 1: Very terrifying to find out about how different the MP3 version sounds compared to the WAV version I listened to locally. What so ever. See the attached version. I added compression and gates to the drum tracks. Found out about an issue with the bass track and fixed it. Then hit CTRL-S and overwrote the previous settings so there is no turning back. What you describe as overpowered really is the lame mp3 codec throwing away an awful lot of high frequencies that were present in the source wav file. I'm converting the mix WAV files like so:

Code:

lame -V0 -ms -q0 --resample 44.1 --clipdetect source.wav

The tracks were mixed at 88.2kHz. I just compared the original WAV file to the resulting MP3 file and that made me want to jump out of the window. That's the blanket over the speakers. Really. What I ended up with now really is not any way better than before. Just the MP3 version does no longer lack that much detail. I'll never do something like this again in the future. That's for sure.