Cyber Mower mixed by Dcp

[dcp10200]

Got my attention when you said you were more of a Rock & Metal kind of guy! Lets see what is going on here.

I like that crunch on the bass. Perhaps a bit longer on the release for the sidechain compressor though, it'll give you a bit more of a pump and plus that kick is really short anyway, so that gives you a lot of leeway on how you can make the compressor react to it On some mixes I've done I've actually used a sample of a nice short TR-909 to trigger the sidechain of a compressor and wrote in MIDI notes to match the kick of an acoustic drum before, then tuned the compressor the way I wanted it to sound based on the sounds being sidechained and the kick in the track. Anyway, DUDE THAT SNARE KICKS @$$! Also, I like how you used a filter on the bass. Nice. Same with the hats. Definitely, like that. Also, I like contrast of the very cleans highs to the relatively dirty mid & lows. Going into the take down, I like what you did with that synth! Definitely gives me a more Rock vibe, though perhaps a bit more reverb on it. Remember this isn't Rock or Metal, reverb is all right. Pads are nice and clean, which is again a nice contrast. Now, the drum beat in the middle, that is actually pretty interesting! I like the bit of crunchiness going on. Though maybe more of a level lift when everything picks up there, it is kind of a mini-crescendo. Now, kind of like Takka's mix I'm surprised you didn't make that saw motif a bit more aggressive just based on the rest of the mix. That is interesting to me. Anywho, the final build to the end crescendo! All right! Finally, someone who lifted the lead! You are the man! Sounds almost like how you'd treat a guitar. This is an area where I feel if you were to make the mix actually pump to the kick it would actually work a lot better for the kind of aesthetic you were going for. At least IMO. But seriously man that snare does freakin kick some @$$.

Overall I have to say I never saw this coming. Tasteful application of distortion really changes the direction in a way I never thought about. Actually, the way you treated it kind of reminds me of a friend I'd have. He'd probably do the same kind of stuff. That was pretty darn awesome to hear!

Thanks man, glad you liked it! The compressor I used on the bass is actually a dbx 160 emulation (ala Eddie Kramer ) so I really don't have much of a release control. First I went to an 1176 emulation to get my pumping but found it really didn't give me the that I wanted to get, the dbx seemed to be the one to go with. Those emulations were within Guitar Rig 5 (also where I got the amp sims from) as they were the only emulations that do Sidechaining with Reaper, my general Waves CLA 76 and the Pye Compressor emulation don't have sidechain capability. I did find a free dbx plugin clone with a release control so I'll give that a spin.

The snare if your wondering has a gated reverb on it and is distorted by a 1073 emulation to give it some character. Generally, when it seems that alot of electronic dudes go for a drier sounding snare so I blended the reverb in more conservatively and I'll probably look at some verb for some other parts of the mix.

About distortion/clipping/saturation: The way I look at distortion is like an extreme compressor rather than an effect. Sometimes a normal compressor will do it's job of being an automated volume knob/fader but lack a certain grit, this is where saturation comes into play. I'll generally grab a console emulation or a tape emulation and use it in place of or with a compressor, that way I can kill 2 birds with one stone. Also in a weird way saturation is abit less obvious than compression, put it in and it doesn't really seem like there's a change but take it out and it feels like somethings missing from the track. Also who doesn't love pushing electronics to their breaking point ;P

I noticed the leads in the track are actually pretty guitar like, kinda reminds me of the way old game consoles used to emulate guitar sounds, what did you use?

Thanks again for the critique, I'll be tinkering with the mix for a bit to iron some things out. The electronic stuff is quite interesting to mix in that most of the time is spent finding ways to add character to things rather than than contesting with clashing elements like in Rock and Metal.

Cheers,
Dcp