I’m not sure how many of you guys watch Andrew Huang’s videos, but I’m a fan! He partnered up with Native Instruments (of which I am also a fan) to do a remix contest and I just had to try it.
It was a lot of fun to work on. Something totally different for me! I also discovered that REAPER is even more badass than I thought it was. You can drag plugins onto clips (which I knew) and then you can render them in place (which I didn’t know!) which makes creating my own one-shot fx super easy. I also got a lot of use out of SoundToys this time around.
What do you guys think? Any tips on how I can clean up / improve the mix? I’ll submit it in a few days for the contest. Not much of a chance to win, but a girl can dream!
Tis a cool mix for sure… just a coupla / five things strike me though.
The down beat is almost missing/too low in apparent level mostly… I thought ‘dance style’ (a euphemism for a genre I too old to mentally quantify) music is almost equal in volume, as regards downbeat and backbeat (could be wrong)… but obviously its not disco
It doesnt lack bass, just upper harmonics to get it to ‘punch through’.
The backbeat is slightly aggressive / edgy sounding to my ears. Probably again a modern style thing, but slightly irritating.
The backing vocals are very upfront, maybe roll off some top and bottom end to extend them some front to back depth, do the same with reverbs - plus a 1kHz cut if not sure.
The pans in the vocal fx are very even (left to right), maybe keep the first repeat always left ( I like slightly left heavy stereo images, for single guitars or vocal delays, it feels more natural) and let them decay more (use more dynamic range) as they fade out.
And tape distortion / more saturation… it probably needs some in random elements here and there to keep the song more interesting.
so, just to say I dont know much about this musical style. just assume I was born before the war or something.
I don’t know much about it either! I don’t even know what style I’m going for. It’s not a dance track. It’s just a bunch of stuff that I thought sounded cool haha. Thanks for your feedback! I am going to revise this over the next couple of days.
I enjoyed the interplay of the vocals… nicely done!
Some observations/suggestions:
Your vocals sound fairly “raw” and “indie” in comparison to his. That translates in technical terms to: His vocals have more compression, much more tuning, and less low end. To me, the contrast seems to put your vocal a little out of place in the track. That is not to say your vocals are not on pitch, it’s just they don’t have the “robo-pitch-perfect” vibe his do. Also the compression and eq: His vocals are slammed to a really narrow dynamic range which keeps them audible in the track at a fairly low level. They also have a fairly narrow, "mids & highs forward frequency response, whereas yours are a pretty more dynamic and full-range. This has the effect of making your vocal subjectively “bigger” and “more in the forground” in terms of proportion and relationship to the backing track.
The kick drum is pretty polite for this style of music. IMO, you really want that kick to be driving the track as the main rhythmic pulse. This is the major difference to rock/indie music, where the kick & snare almost share equal duties in that regard.
The bass note that hits at 3:29 really needs to be tamed - it jumps way out of the track
Oh, and one more thing - Maybe throw a limiter on the 2-buss and bring the level up. A lot of these comps go on about everyone getting a fair go regardless of the level your mix is at, but the fact is, I’ve never seen anyone win with a mix at -18LUFS.
Yes, Andrew Huang is cool. Might need to watch more of his stuff.
I like the contrast between your voices, gives me a “real” feeling, so to speak.
Nice interleaving as well.
In terms of the music style, it’s as if it hasn’t decided if it’s going to be dance or rock… (miss the days of disco!) Also miss the progressive days, when songs like yours would have been totally fine.
But if one were to align with contemporary styles, then these might be something? (Love the Black Box style piano…)
NOTE: these tracks has a lot more views in other versions, it’s just like that I personally like these two renditions… I like this guy’s producing style - crisp, I’d call it…
Posted my version 2. I’m actually really happy with how it turned out. I believe I cleaned up the mix quite a bit. I made the kick drum a tiny bit louder, (I think, lol) compressed/filtered my vocals a tad bit more, and the overall mix does sound louder to me now as well. I made the background vocals much father away which I think makes for a nice effect, and yeah just made a bunch of small tweaks. Oh and to top it off I cycled through mastering presets in Ozone and–much to my surprise–quickly stumbled upon one I actually liked! I adjusted it just slightly and printed it.
I know maybe it doesn’t fit into a particular genre, but it’s just what I wanted to make this time. I had a song I planned to do next which I really love… but I think I want to actually produce an original song more like this just because it was so much fun!
I listened to this first, then your first version, and then the second again, and it hands down is better. There was a muddiness you got rid of. I’d call this pop rock. It is very well behaved, lots of energy, emotion and catchy. All the tweaks paid off. Pop requires that perfect production and performance of a catchy song, and this is right there. Good luck, Cristina!
bass is thin on small systems. If your in ableton just make a rack split highs and lows and put a decapitator or similar on the highs maybe some chorus and some spread as well. Especially in the pre.
Haha I feel like this is just a fact of life. I’m listening again on apple earbuds right now, and the bass is coming through a lot for me. What are you listening on? I use Reaper by the way, but I guess a multi-band exciter would do the trick.
I also don’t like to spread out bass sounds in the stereo field… I think some people do, but I’ve heard that bass is meant to be fairly mono. Plugins like Microshift even have that “focus” knob to keep the lower frequencies in mono, and I know Boz has a Pan Knob that also has that feature, to keep the low frequencies in the middle even when you’re panning something out. Do you like to use a wider bass sound?
I haven’t read any other comments so I apologise if I contradict or repeat anything that has already been said.
Yes, Reaper is the BEST! I love it and what it can do!
I am jumping straight to the revised version:
Overall, I like what you’ve done. Any suggestions I have are cosmetic and minor. I found the initial part of the mix quite narrow (possibly intentional). The finger clicks/handclaps could be louder and panned (delay panned maybe) as they are getting a little lost behind the vocals. To me, that is the start of the real hook and beat to the song and signals the forthcoming feel.
The vocal effect (fading sort of thing) sounds good, but it sounds amazing on the second line and a little too far away and muffled on the first - I’d keep the majority of the bridge with the effect you achieved in the second line so that you can understand the words, but there is still a clear difference between that section and the other sections vocally.
Other than that…I can’t hear anything that I would change. Really well done and you should be proud of this mix.
I love that you sing in tune, Cristina…
You wouldn’t believe how much out-of-tune singing I’ve come across during the last few weeks. There are two theories:
One - they do it to wind me up, a global conspiracy against Sven.
Two - they don’t know they are doing it.
Having listened to literally thousands of bands and artists on Bandcamp, most do not know they are out of tune. But… I can’t be certain that some are not trying to break you, Sven.
I know when I am out… mostly. There are certain times, usually with short runs, where I can’t tell as well.
I really struggle with combining feeling with accuracy - often can only one, if any at all!!!
I had a song I planned to do next which I really love… but I think I want to actually produce an original song more like this just because it was so much fun!
