JazzFusionMix

[stumac89]

Cool tune, quirky but actually some very good musicianship. This is my first print after about 2 hours mixing. No automation yet, and obviously not mastered.

Throw some feedback o'er here ya'll

[JohnSmith]

Hi there !

Well, for a 2 hours mix ... you're on the good way to make it sound very well !
Bass is nice, could benefit of more high mids maybe. Or a subtile parrallel distorsion, very subtile, to make those frequencies jump out !

Drums are a little dry to me, i whish they had more "air", but maybe you're on your way to do that so ... let's hear v2 soon !

I like your guitar solo sound, makes me think of John Scofield "a gogo" album. Maybe you could automate its level to make it more consistent.. or a little LA2A should help doing the job too !

Hope to hear the next version soon.

Great job

[stumac89]

Hi Xabix, thanks a lot for the feedback. I managed to get some more time to work on this mix and have done some automation on the guitar solo.

I took your advice and added a new reverb to breathe some life into the drums and also added some parallel overdrive to the bass at around 2k(ish) to bring out the upper mids during the slapping sections.

Would be great to hear what people think of the mix now and get some more points on how to improve it.

[JohnSmith]

Hi there again !

Well, job is progressing in the good way !
Listened to it on different monitors and room, and with time to rest... here are my thoughts :

Your kick, compared to bass, might be a little boomy in the 150-250 region and gets kind of blurry sometimes when bass is not slapping (almost all the time then...). I might add a little weight around 80 and deep cut it in this "high lows" region. And maybe add some high mids to it so it's more snappy (maybe 5k...). And turn the whole thing up a few cents of dBs.. maybe 1dB so it matches the bass perfectly.

Well done for the space around drums ! i like it ! One thing i'd like to hear more precisely are all the "fla's" the snare does. Parrallel compression on the snare only should help, and maybe a highly compressed room triggered by a highly compressed snare track should also help making all the nuances jump out ! Tough job yes.. but worth trying i think !
(makes me want to give a shot on this mix ! i'm gonna downoad the tracks right now:p... nice song)

Another little thing, if i may... is that your mix is relatively "mono" .. except drums and solos. I don't know what the tracks are, but maybe you could try to do something with the Hammond, and make it stereo if it's not (like with a Haas delay ...), so it would go back in the mix, on the same perspective than drums maybe, leaving space for the Rhode and the synth.

But let's it be said : it's an overall very good mix ! and it's obvious you worked on it !

Good job. Let's go for a V3 ?

Cheers

[stumac89]

Hey!

Thanks very much for the feedback again. Glad you like what I've done so far. I've literally just started to get into mixing/production over the last two months, and only really use stock-plugins so knowing that my mixes sound half decent is a great incentive to keep practicing. As for the lack of stereo image in keys etc, I had watched a video suggesting folding all but one of your stereo tracks to mono to avoid washing out the mix. Perhaps I could have gone a bit further when panning the hammond and other keyboards...?

I'll definitely try the improvements you suggested and see just how good I can make this. It would be good to hear your mix and see what I can learn from that!

[JohnSmith]

I saw this video too i think Well, in fact, there's no rules to obtain the result you're seeking... and i think, in this particular case, it's not about panning.
The "left/right" spreading is very easy to obtain with so many keyboards, percussions, and other stuff you can pan totaly L or R, as you want.
It's more about depth, front and rear spreadin, which is a bit more difficult to manage : and which is a very efficient exercise in mixing if you just began (congrat's ! and welcome ! ).

I said i would work on the Hammond (i just downloaded the tracks and spread them on my daw) and well, the track is very mono in its feeling.
What i would try, and i don't say it would sound good..., is to seperate this track in two mono files, then delay one of them around15-20ms (letting just the delay trhough, no feedback, no repetion, nothing but the track itself delayed..), and panning them 9hr-3hr... and the adjut the volume of the delayed track so it seems balanced between both channels... but normaly, should sound much more spreaded !
Then why not adding a short ambiance reverb, or early reflections only, on this Hammond track ...

Or do something totally different ! I'm just thinking about doing this.. just to see how it works with the rest.

I listened to the other tracks and the kick is a hard one ... the inside kick is very clicky, and the outside is really thin... i might add samples to that... don't know yet what i'll do, i'm just preparing my session (which i encourage you to do before starting any mix !) : Name tracks, group color them, add buses for each instruments groups, calculate the tempo and set it on the daw (will save you time when adding delays eventually?), mark intro, verses, choruses etc ...

I'll let you know when i'm done ! but you should keep working on yours. it's much more than "half" decent ! Listen to it very low, on different speakers, and you'll see what i mean bout your kick. listen closely to how it glues with the bass.. or not in your case

Suerte chico !

Cheers from France

[stumac89]

Again great feedback. This site is so useful for beginners like me!

So here's mix 3 with two mono hammond organ tracks panned 9-3. Kick drum cut around 150-250hz and boosted around 80hz and 5k, and brought up 0.9db! I've also added a separate parallel compression to the snare which goes to a room reverb of its own.

Perhaps I'll try a different tune soon. Can't wait to hear yours Xabix

[JohnSmith]

Well ... at this point i'd like to ask : "what do YOU think of your job" ?

It's kind of much better than V1 don't you think ?!

Snare is here !! really nice sound, percussive, and now i can hear all the nuances ... really well done ! Maybe the reverb is a little bit too much... and the snare too ! I might automate it ... it's nice for example when guitar is soloing, but too loud in the "chorus" parts. You should listen to it really low volume while doint this...

Your kick could be even louder i think, more "weighted", maybe eq corrections were not right (told you ... i was just suggesting, but what matters is what you hear and want to hear). I'd boost it even more in the low end and turn it up 1 dB more.

I like the Hammond like that ! don't you ?

Really nice and quick progression of you mix... far away from me the idea to be a "teacher" at all, but it's nice to hear such a good and quick evolution !
Keep working dude !

Mike would make a much more precise critic, (first of all, cause he speaks much better english that i do !)... maybe he would soon... i'll try to tell him to listen to your work. You deserve a much better and accurate critic than mine now !

Cheers.