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Full Version: Little Chicago's Finest: 'my own'
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first try with this kind of music.

Just as usual, comments are welcomed!

Some things came to my mind.

You could try to find the balance between kick and snare (claps) by soloing them. Make them a wheel that rolls smoothly. Now the claps are quite low level, so they don't make a pair with the energy of kick.

Check the background voices in headphones. In headphones it feels that they are too left or too right. Maybe little bit of reverb to them could solve that issue.

Again I'm feeling that your vocals are maybe too dark. It may be so that if your room+monitors somehow boost the 3-5 K area, then in that environment the vocals of your mix are just right, but for others with different set up they are too dark.




Hey there Juan!

The first thing I notice is that there's a lack of clarity. Like Olli said, maybe your speakers are boosting the high end, but there is A LOT of mud that is covering the vocals. I would go back and EQ the necessary low end out of each track (i.e vocals).

Something interesting that you did is put the snare to the left which actually might distract the listener. The kick on the other hand is definitely shining through.

I read your bio and listened to some of your other mixes. It's always frustrating, for me anyways, to mix a different genre for the first time. I'm glad you took your first chance at mixing my song.

Something that helped me transition from one genre to the next is guidance from Graham Cochrane @ The Recording Revolution. If you haven't checked him out yet, here is his YouTube channel: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0A5D662058525F1C
Hey guys! thank you for the advice! I've made a few changes, so I hope I've solved the problems or at least, I'm closer to get them solved!

By the way, in the chorus I've added some panning automation so I can leave the impression that the guy is moving from one side to the other on stage Big Grin who has ever seen a rapper standing still??

@Olli: I've changed the voices EQ. This time I think it was not my headphone's fault, but my own fault. As I said in my post, I have never mixed this genre before and the little experience I have is with singing voices and not raps. I have Izotope Nectar plugin and I checked that there was a preset for hip-hop and rap. I saw there a strange EQ setting but I guessed that it was ok for this genre. I decided to only change a little bit and that was all. Obviously, it was not right!

@Don Perignon: now the claps have been centered and they're no longer distracting but stimulating hehehehe (I really do hope so!!!). Thank you for letting us mix your song. It's quite good to have the chance to mix different styles and genres because that makes us learn and learn. I still have a lot of things to learn, but I think I'm approaching a good level in my opinion considering than one year ago, I had no idea what this mixing stuff was all about!!
Having a listen to your second mix and good to hear you are trying a different genre with different challenges which I don't know much about yet !
Sounds like the lead vocal could have less bottom end maybe around 100-200hz ,the backing vocals sounds a little soft in volume.
The synth that comes in at 1.00 is soft Smile !
It's better now. I agree with thedon's comments.

Some other quick comments to check:
Maybe the kick is too prominent.
And in this genre vocals can be much brighter.
After those changes it would easier to check if the other things are ok. They maybe just right now, but in this case I would like to check them against close, edgy and bright vocals.

When mixing totally new area, try to find good reference. How about starting from here:
http://audioschoolonline.com/product/?lesson=341
(One of the best mixers in the business shows how he mixed one of his clients megahits. It's free lesson in 3 parts)

more changes applied now!!!

- the kick is one db lower so it's no longer that prominent.

- the synths at 1:00 have now some automation that makes the song more interesting. Please, let me know if it's too loud in certain parts.

- voices (lead and back ones) have been all checked up and I've tried to make them more brilliant.

-backvocals are slightly higher in volume.

I hope it's now closer to 'perfection' Big Grin
I think the instrument balance and frequency balance is quite good now.

But the vocal sound still bothers me. Smile The vocal enhancement is something you still must do something.
I think I realized the problem. You're maybe using the duet version in the chorus, but it sounds like muffled single person sound. If you want to sound as duet, try it boldly and maybe in stereo mode like in the preview version. If you want it to sound as a single person, use only other track, or add the other track as an effect, but not in the same volume level as the main track.

How about adding some boost around 12-16 k to vocal buss? It could add some air without boosting esses.
Vox too low and the clap has no wack,it all sound a bit dull and the bv are way too low also.
Mybethe kick a bit much also
(15-10-2013, 03:29 PM)takka360 Wrote: [ -> ]Vox too low and the clap has no wack,it all sound a bit dull and the bv are way too low also.
Mybethe kick a bit much also

Agree with Alan, i think the problem with both voice and claps is they are up against a pretty bright synth and piano, maskin the 2-4 kilo area so the voices bein a bit dark cant compete on volume alone. One way to go about it could be brighten voices a bit, turnin synth down a bit and given clap/snare some juice where the ear is most sensible somwhere 1.5 3kilo, maybe with a little small qéd boost further down, 500 - 1 kilo area, to give it some weight too.
I dont know if the bv are way too low, but theyre not clear enough you could use the impulse response I send you and add to voxes, eq verb so nothin over 6 kilo and nothin under 600 come through, maybe give it a little boost around 1k and add it to clear vocals, along with eq it would do the trick.
I think Big Grin
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