(09-12-2016, 10:09 PM)RoyMatthews Wrote: That said, the beauty of this site is the ability to freely download and work on songs of almost any style and work on it on your own with no pressure from anyone else. This plays into what Shul's point. You can take a song and mess with it and try new things and expand your palette of sounds and techniques. Then in the future you'll be able to come up with fresh perspectives on future mixes. But I think what is best is getting a feel for what is a solid mix in the style of a genre and then expanding. Because what is libel to happen is that you'll get lazy and lean towards what you know and are comfortable doing.
Exactly.
If you grab a metalcore song and end up with a jazz mix, it might be funny for you, but in my opinion, you have totally missed the point. If you want to mix jazz, go and grab a jazz song on this site and make a great jazz mix. Cool! But if you grab a metal song you better make sure that your mix can compete with other mixes of that genre. If you are not able to bring this mix to a commercial level that can compete with other mixes of this genre, that's totally fine. We are all here to learn and get better. But you are cheating yourself if you say "I don't like squashed mixes, that's why I did it this way", or "I don't like to listen to ref mixes, I want to create my own version and try something new."
It's like going to a "Learn how to paint a picture like Picasso"-class and telling everyone that you don't like Picasso, but love Rembrandt instead and only want to learn how to paint like he did. Cool for you, but why don't you go to the Rembrandt-class then? =)
So: Why not try to mix it the way it is supposed to sound before breaking the rules? The chances are that you might learn something new and useful. On top of all that people don't hire you to hear your version of their song. They want to hear their version of their song. You are not the artist - you are the guy who helps them to bring their art to life. And in 99 out of 100 times, that means they want to sound like a famous band of their genre, which is absolutely fine
