Ryan Cali - Crazy (hotpantz)

[hotpants]

my mix

[mikej]

Hi!

Nice mix. I think the bass might be dominating just a little too much though and is perhaps kind of clouding the mix and vocals a bit?

It might be worth checking the bass around 100-200Hz to see if there is a bit of resonance that could be notched out to further help clear up the low end a bit as I find this can sometimes be the case and a little notch can help clean things up a lot. I think I'd also like to get a bit more of a sense of the kick coming through too if it's possible? From memory I don't think it's that easy to get it to cut through in this one. Certainly I don't think I did a great job of this one when I had a try at it. Another thing worth trying to help get a little more clarity in the vocal with respect to the bass - is to scoop out a little bit of the bass (sweep around 200-400Hz ish) whilst listening to the low end of the vocal - and finding the spot where the vocal pops out just a little more.

Anyway - thought I'd post a couple of thoughts I had whilst giving this one a quick listen in case it helps.

Cheers!

[hotpants]

Hi mikej

Thank's for the feedback! Highly appreciate it coming from you. I think you are spot on, I was copying Mike Senior's mix, but no matter how much I tweaked my EQs I couldn't get the punch, cleanliness and focus of the bass and kick, nor that fullness around 3k range on the drums or the vocal treatment. I think after so much tweaking I lost sense of balance and the bass ended up too loud. I must have been tweaking it for 2 weeks at least!

My first version was barely a simple balance and corrective EQ, but I was so impressed with Mike's mix that I had to copy it. It was quite eye-opening to see how much a mix engineer can impart creativity to a mix and improve a song for its intended purposes. I hope one day I can be as certain and bold to modify a song as much but still keep the original message of it and not just destroy it along the way (as I used to do in my first mixes, thinking that big bold EQ moves would do the trick. Turns out its true, but just not those moves! LOL)

I'll do a revision in a couple of days and try your tips out! thx again

[novalix]

Hi,
if you are still planning to give that mix another go, you might consider to try a somewhat visual approach.
Think of a center line of kick, bass and lead vocals as a groove axis. Just concentrate on getting those elements working together (in the frequency domain and dynamicaly).
Everything else falls into place after that.
I've uploaded a take on that idea here.
Cheers.