20-03-2014, 10:57 PM
Hey Olli.
You mentioned on my mix of this tune that your low end was a mess, and I see what you're saying, but there are a lot of good qualities, too. I'm not sure if the route you've taken is what the band was shooting for, but I can clearly see how daft punk influenced your sonic decisions... it's got a very up-front, in your face, beat-driven quality that you see in some of their older tunes, like better faster harder stronger (or whatever it's called
), and that is a cool alternative choice and an interesting direction in which to take this song. The way the solo blends in with the mix is very tasteful... I tend to succumb to the "more of me in the monitor" syndrome, where lead guitarists tend to make the solos a lot louder than they need to be and throw the balance, but you've done very well here.
You've got the right amount of bass for sure, but the balance is wobbly due to issues with the raw tracks... unfortunately the amped bass track isn't punchy enough and the DI signal is really lacking in low end, so I found standard EQ wasn't introducing enough bass without wobbling the bass around. You also mentioned my mix sounded more open, and that's probably because I didn't put a limiter or master compressor on mine and it sounds like you have, but the market today generally wants tighter dynamics in a rockin' song like this, and openness is sometimes the price you pay.
The issue is that the kick and bass guitar parts need to be very short and punchy to work with eachother, but the best way to manage that is rolling off low end (which doesn't help us much, does it?) so the only strategy that makes sense to me is frequency based compression. Or maybe dynamic EQ but I haven't got one of those at the moment. A little more diligence in that department might have given me more options!
I'm gonna download your mix and open it up in my DAW alongside mine and fiddle with them to see if I can figure out a way to balance our differing approaches. If I strike gold I'll post it as a reply here!
You mentioned on my mix of this tune that your low end was a mess, and I see what you're saying, but there are a lot of good qualities, too. I'm not sure if the route you've taken is what the band was shooting for, but I can clearly see how daft punk influenced your sonic decisions... it's got a very up-front, in your face, beat-driven quality that you see in some of their older tunes, like better faster harder stronger (or whatever it's called
), and that is a cool alternative choice and an interesting direction in which to take this song. The way the solo blends in with the mix is very tasteful... I tend to succumb to the "more of me in the monitor" syndrome, where lead guitarists tend to make the solos a lot louder than they need to be and throw the balance, but you've done very well here. You've got the right amount of bass for sure, but the balance is wobbly due to issues with the raw tracks... unfortunately the amped bass track isn't punchy enough and the DI signal is really lacking in low end, so I found standard EQ wasn't introducing enough bass without wobbling the bass around. You also mentioned my mix sounded more open, and that's probably because I didn't put a limiter or master compressor on mine and it sounds like you have, but the market today generally wants tighter dynamics in a rockin' song like this, and openness is sometimes the price you pay.
The issue is that the kick and bass guitar parts need to be very short and punchy to work with eachother, but the best way to manage that is rolling off low end (which doesn't help us much, does it?
) so the only strategy that makes sense to me is frequency based compression. Or maybe dynamic EQ but I haven't got one of those at the moment. A little more diligence in that department might have given me more options!I'm gonna download your mix and open it up in my DAW alongside mine and fiddle with them to see if I can figure out a way to balance our differing approaches. If I strike gold I'll post it as a reply here!
I'm grateful for comments and suggestions. Thank you for listening!