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Mix Doctors Please!!!
Hey MP family,
I’ve got another one for you to soak in. This one I present to you is another track I wrote, produced, recorded, and mixed. Curious of your honest feedback and notes, I know they always help my tracks immensely. I find an uphill battle when mixing my own music. I’m very patient with other artist but seem to lack that ability for myself. Boooowhoooo pity party lol. Nothing but cargo ships of gratitude for each and everyone here!
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12 Replies
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Alex, I am not an actual doctor, but I feel qualified to play one on the internet. I have a quick observation after a few listens that I’ll give you now, the rest after I dissect your specimen. I’m wondering if your arrangement would work better if you turned it around, meaning this. The outro, where the bass/drum riff breaks down to just the bass (or is it KB?) and ends with the explosion might make an engaging opening line. It’s slow moving, inviting, and intriguing AF compared to the busy, staccato, ping pong match currently offered. The on-ramp of a song can lure you in or be a bumpy impediment. The most effective ones draw you in. PT
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Paul,
That’s an interesting idea. Hadn’t thought of that angle yet. I may play around with that.
That could be a better luring tactic than the one currently. Noted, thanks for listening!
~AG
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AG FLUXXXXX Strikes Again! Super sick track and song and performance, man – great work and thanks for sharing your badassery with us all!
My main feelings were:
- I felt like there were two separate mixes going on: one for the mid and one for the sides. In other words, the elements in the wide left and right were loud, bright and present; the elements in the center/mid (lead vocals, kick, snare) were a bit quiet and lacked booty, punch and sizzle.
- That led me to wonder what it would sound like if the center/mid elements were hyped up and turned up, and the side elements were left as-is tonally, but turned down a bit so that the resulting mix would regain a bit more power in the center
- Then, the newly balanced mix could get a wallop of more muscular agro mastering
My curiosity led me to throwing your mix into pro tools to see if I could achieve what I had in mind. Here’s an excerpt of where I landed. Hope u don’t mind me messing with it! Lemme know what u think. 🤘
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Hey I appreciate it greatly brotha 🙏 Seriously Thank you for listening and getting in depth with this one. Great take away and I think I know why you came away with that conclusion.
I did something new and brought my stereo bounce wav of my vocals + a separate stereo bounce of the instrumental and mixed those in a new session. A trick that ( Ali uses Kendrick Lamars engineer) I’ve heard of and wanted to try. So that’s my excuse lol. Yes, I was noticing a lack of centered, chunkiness and the mix you shared def was XL Big Mac bass with a frosty dangggg.
Guess I have to look back at some busses but my guess is the bass or kick/maybe both got widened out along the stereo field. Not sure..
I’ll do some investigating and share with you a revision to see if I’m on the correct path.
Much appreciated 🤟
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The changes you made to this piece of music changed it dramatically. I actually listened to it and reacted differently. The fidelity it now has is the smooth on ramp to the song, to continue my analogy. Lesson to be noted re bandwidth: All frequencies matter. PT
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Hey gang!
Here’s a revision. Sequence fixes, mixing changes, thanks for the input! I really like this version the best but please chime in and let me know your thoughts.
Respect,
~AG
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Excellent, man! Sounds great and “booty-ful” 😜. Love the new mix and arrangement updates.
My only thoughts, FWIW, were about the new intro arrangement. Feels like there are 2 intros currently, and the gap of silence btwn them made me unsure of what’s going on as a listener. Also, after that silence, when the vocal comes in, it sounds like perhaps there’s an edit where the cymbal hits and music enters? (like maybe the attack of the cymbal and instruments got cut off? – easy fix if so!)
I dig the way the song ends with the guitar arpeggio and when I heard that ending/outro I was like “ooh, why not use this guitar arpeggio as the intro as well?” Like, use the guitar instead of the current synth intro, no silence gap, vocal and music enter the way they normally do (tho maybe that intro guitar arp stays in too?), then maybe try muting that initial cymbal at the vocal entrance and save it for the first chorus. 🤷🏻♂️
Again, all just my own musings for you to take or leave as you wish! It’s sounding awesome, man – killer work!!
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Hey Alex! Killer song man! Beautiful. I listened to the first version before I read the “thread” and didn’t see that it had been updated here! I like the current version a lot! Big improvements from the first version.
I love the chorus, especially how the beat drops out for the first part of it and then comes back in. I also love those tom fills going into the choruses.
I also really dig the ending on this version a lot, and I also agree that it could be really cool to incorporate it into the intro somehow so it kinda has those book ends?
Wasn’t sure if around 1:30-2min if it needs a little more de-essing? I would defer to those with better ears than mine, but the sibilance spots were jumping out to my ears a little. Just wanted to mention it in case you were hearing it too.
Again, really great song! Congrats
Best,
Jesse
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Yooo thanks Jesse!!! Ya lots of improvement from the first to this one. The desser is for sure working on my vocal but I know what you are saying. I may take another look at the time stamp you mentioned and make some adjustments. Appreciate the ears and stoke 🙏
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Ayooo! Poppin in here to remind folks that de-esser plugins aren’t the only way to control sibilance. There are some other manual ways I turn to, which often yield cleaner results than software/hardware de-esser devices, that I mentioned in another recent thread here. These manual options in conjunction with your static de-esser plugin setting might be just the simple fix you need to iron out those last few remaining pesky S’s. FWIW!
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Dana, awesome ear and ideas!! You read my insecurities well haha that was the last thing I meant to do before this bounce (fix that silence drop, edit) and forgot. Cool thinking with arp too, def will try. Like your guy “Rick” says, mine as well just try as many iterations and then see what sounds better in the end! Glad you dig the thicker sounding mix, I believe I over complicated things in the initial one. I will finish this today, thanks a Milly for the ear!
~AG
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Heck yeah, man! 💜
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