Widow SpedeMix

[Spede]

Hi. Here's my effort. Spent few hours with this one. I spent quite a lot of time with trying to get the kick drum cut through, hopefully it's good now. Once again I decided to change couple of things around; muting stuff here and there to make the arrangement come alive more. I was initially going for ultra-dry sound but that changed somewhere down the road.

[Voelund]

Wont comment or listen your mix yet as Im tryin this one out, just wanna tell you I look forward to hear your mix

[juanjose1967]

I like the changes you've made! it makes the song less predictable! great job!!

[Mike Senior]

Woah -- what a snare sound! Love that to bits. And you've managed to do it without Moulinexing the hat, either, so respect due there. You killed me with that drop in the beginning of the second verse too! Is it maybe just a touch too brutal, though? I get the concept completely, but I wonder whether it just needs a little more rhythmic definition from something -- maybe another little loop layer? A shaker or something? I suppose even some kind of glitch thing might work, given the bitcrushing in the middle section.

The crunchy texture in the middle section is another revelation. The only thing that worries me slightly about that is that there doesn't seem to be much of a spectral 'bracket' in there to show the listener that you're deliberately being lo-fi, rather than just making a mistake with the EQ. Maybe some kind of HF noise would help there. It's a judgement call, clearly, though.

And the drop pre-chorus following is another stunner! Once again, though, I wonder whether it just takes a touch too much wind out of the sails of the groove by lasting so long. Perhaps add another subtle rhythmic layer at 2:47, half-way through that section? I wonder whether something based on the clav rhythm part might work in that respect. I also thought that you could maybe have made more of a build through the end of the mid-section into the drop, to emphasis that 'pulling the rug out from under you' moment that's always such fun!

Fantastic work with the effects here in general -- great delays in particular. Thanks for posting, Spede. Always a pleasure to hear one of yours!

[Voelund]

Very interesting mix this. Weve had some of the same ideas, you went down distortion road and it really suits your mix. As Mike said the delays are great. I wonder if some moving effect like a subtle flanger or so would suit the middle piece, just my idea.
Great work, and snare sounds great. Care to tell how you did that

[Cefe]

Nice mix, in your face! I think your mix transmit really well the feeling of this song.

Thanks for sharing
Cheers

[lowstring]

Cool! This is a fresh and creative approach. The crunchy Lo-Fi distortion is great, and that vibe as well as your arrangement adds such an emotional grit to the song - well done! I second Voelund's request: how did you get that fantastic snare? I like the distortion on some of the backing vocals, also a great texture. I do agree with Mike though that the second drop loses some momentum and it takes too long to regain it. This is a great mix, I'll have to look up some of your others. Thanks for posting!

[bmullen]

Very creative! Nice

[Spede]

About the snare sound (better late than never): When shaping the drum tracks in this song I didn't really pay any attention to the snare sound but worried quite a lot how to make the kick drum cut through.

I had two instances of the drum track. First one was a mostly unprocessed one with no compression but I boosted the 60 Hz probably 15 dBs! The second one had the Digidesign Lo-Fi plugin distorting somewhat and I also automated the downsampling feature in it (raising it all the way up for the choruses for no aliasing effect). After Lo-Fi there's some heavy compression and finally I've boosted some 100 Hz to get some "tighter" bottom end out.

These two track had lots of volume automation to accommodate the different sections (sometimes the "clean" drum track is muted altogether).

I also added a clap track for the choruses and the last pre-chorus to make the back beat have more snap.

Thanks for all the comments guys. While conducting this mix I did feel that some the changes I did were not "fully fleshed out" but more like concepts from which the (theoretical) artist would later perhaps try to add into the song in full form (hope that sentence makes sense).

[Voelund]

Thank you for clearing (some of) that up.
I.e. the snare is not processed but you added a clap to it and made the kick biiig.
Cool processing on the kick - would that digidesign lofi thing be similar to a bitcrusher in any way ?
I am in a learnin proces (aint we all) about kicks especially at mo, and that idea sounds cool, do nearly nothing but boost one instance deep - then crush, compres and boost little higher on the other. Like Pensado says its not the numbers, its the idea.
We didnt get what we asked for but thank you for the answer and cool idea

If not for anyone else its news to me.