27-06-2020, 12:58 PM
(This post was last modified: 27-06-2020, 01:33 PM by OctopusOnFire.)
Here's my take on this song. Not easy to mix. Good song, rough arrangement, many instruments in the same range, etc.
This time I used a sample to complement the kick's top end. Other than that, no mastering, no reamp, no sampling.
The reference mix is quite bloated, but I tried to clean it up and keep the energy as much as I could. Let me know what you think!
[EDIT] Some considerations after listening to other mixes:
- My mix is peaking around -3db and still seems to be 15dB below other mixes. I won't judge that decision, but if I may, I'd recommend you guys to stop "mastering" your mixes. It won't help you spotting and improving on your mistakes and bad habits, but mask the former and foment the later. Anyway, please match the loudness when comparing before making a judgement.
- Seems that everyone went for a lower end heavily dominated by the kick (can't blame you, the reference mix does too), but I think it's a mistake in this particular song. The kick is hitting syncopated, not on the beat. To my taste, it needs to be nimble and not heavy, or it will drag down the energy and the forward movement of the song. Additionally, there's very little going for the low end in terms of melodic textures. If you submit the bass under the kick, you're accentuating that problem even more, especially when the chorus hits. You need that bass to balance out the huge amount of textures suddenly coming up in the high mid frequencies with all the synths and guitars. I even used a pitch shifter to add a little of a lower octave to the bass in order to address this issue.
This time I used a sample to complement the kick's top end. Other than that, no mastering, no reamp, no sampling.
The reference mix is quite bloated, but I tried to clean it up and keep the energy as much as I could. Let me know what you think!
[EDIT] Some considerations after listening to other mixes:
- My mix is peaking around -3db and still seems to be 15dB below other mixes. I won't judge that decision, but if I may, I'd recommend you guys to stop "mastering" your mixes. It won't help you spotting and improving on your mistakes and bad habits, but mask the former and foment the later. Anyway, please match the loudness when comparing before making a judgement.
- Seems that everyone went for a lower end heavily dominated by the kick (can't blame you, the reference mix does too), but I think it's a mistake in this particular song. The kick is hitting syncopated, not on the beat. To my taste, it needs to be nimble and not heavy, or it will drag down the energy and the forward movement of the song. Additionally, there's very little going for the low end in terms of melodic textures. If you submit the bass under the kick, you're accentuating that problem even more, especially when the chorus hits. You need that bass to balance out the huge amount of textures suddenly coming up in the high mid frequencies with all the synths and guitars. I even used a pitch shifter to add a little of a lower octave to the bass in order to address this issue.
ITB Setup: Reaper, Airwindows, IK Multimedia TR5, XLN AD2 ATrigger and RC-20, Waves.
Monitoring: Dynaudio BM5 mkIII, Behritone, Sennheiser HD 650. Semi-treated room.
Monitoring: Dynaudio BM5 mkIII, Behritone, Sennheiser HD 650. Semi-treated room.