Q2 WIPs/Sketches/Feedback, etc

Hey man, this is a solid start. I like the vibe you’ve built, the instruments, samples and textures you’ve selected.

Regarding mix, I think there are a lot of elements that need improvement.

Drums: While most of the track is quite thin sounding, the drums are especially so. I would mute all channels except for your drums and drum buss, grab a reference track with a similar vibe (ideally loop a part of the track with the drums as the main focus) then begin some additive mixing. Turn your drum buss processing chain off, then bring all the drum channels to -inf db and start adding in elements. Begin with the kick and bring the gain up so that the overall pressure is similar to the reference track, then snare, then hi hats. After the pressure is sounding somewhat on part with the reference, play around with separate processing and EQs for the kick and snare to bring out some more high range frequencies on those elements. Highs can be hard to nail down, so maybe just low cut those and see how it’s sounding after you’ve got the gain staging of the other elements right.

Once the individual hits are sounding better, play around with the drum buss. I’d look into 1) parallel compression, 2) saturation and 3) limiting to make them loud and hit harder. Also play around with EQ. I don’t have a standard procedure for where my EQ sits in my chain. I usually throw mine in before the limiter.

Sub: Bring up the sub to play nicely with the drums after you’ve got those down. I suspect that you’ll need to bring it up just a bit more. You could perhaps throw a multi-band saturation and push the mids and highs up a bit so the sub is more audible on smaller speakers. If you don’t have a multi-band distortion/saturation plug-in, look into Joe Ford’s tutorial on how to split a signal and process different parts of the spectrum individually.

Audible Bass: Throw some overdrive/distortion on the audible stabs and sfx to really make them growl. They sound cool and need more presence.

Pads: Don’t touch the gain of the pads until you’ve got the meat right. Then just bring it up to taste, and perhaps cut the low end out so it doesn’t muddy the main elements.

Sorry for the wall of text!

Was this to my track ?

I am confused, everything your said still applies to my track I feel anyway so thank you 🙂

I’m not sure what’s going on with the forum or why my replies aren’t being appended to the post, but it was to LOMA’s track, lol. Krypta, I think your mix is sounding pretty solid actually, but yeah it could probably benefit from some additional processing on the drum buss to really make them smack. Also, I love the vibes you’ve got going. One arrangement thing I’d change is to have that riser in the intro come in again on the latter half of the first drop, to build tension and create some variety 🙂

That’s amazing thanks! I’m yet to run everything through the drum buss, I’m defo going to use the reference track idea and use the drum buss idea you suggested.
I have used the Joe ford tutorials for the sub, great videos on that. I agree it will need bringing up more once the drums are sorted.

Really appreciate the feedback! It really is helpful. Thanks again man

To be honest mate this sounds like it’s already there.

Very good work mate big ups

The only really feedback I could give is because you have some time in the intro, I would try and change the intro a little bit to bring the whole energy down so that when it drops it really drops, it’s a phat best and I find the intro sort of ruins the emphasis of the tune as a whole…

Technically it sounds good though mate big ups !!

That is her my personal preference, being a critic in a constructive way.

I like this. I’ll change up the intro to make the drop and actual DROP :). Thank you for the feedback brother!

Here’s the updated version, Krypta. HP’d the build up to the drop and added some verb to create sort of scooping effect. I think the drop hits better now. Also, added some light dynamics on the master buss. https://soundcloud.com/carapace-dnb/carapace-4-19-19-v3/s-sPp40

Probably going to set this aside and call it “final” for now.

HEAVY. i like this. great work

Hopefully this comment is saved as a reply to my previous post with 3 tracks, i thought i would post this one now too as i just worked on it for a while. the april 2019 sample genie challenge of trying to use heaps of arps. the beat was proper cooked so i tried to iron it out and make it better but still not perfect. anyways yeah worked on it for a couple hours made some changes and a bit of mixdown tweaking. i think it’s going alright but any constructive criticism would be great because i actually reckon i will go back to this song til its finished and any thouhgts or tips would help. tried to make the mix mono compatible and everything below 180 hz mono.

https://soundcloud.com/struktcha/underground-sample-genie-challenge-042019-this-is-the-improved-revision-i-worked-on-after-the-challenge-was-over

Edgaras: sick tune! tasty bass hits and heavy to boot. i don’t have any constructive criticism though sorry but i do like it as it is (i’m only on headphones, albeit a rather good pair) but it sounds great

colateraldnb: sinking deeper and deeper. i love the looseness of some of the percussion hits for that swing. nice

Futurewizard: so many kicks! it works well though. very lush and chill. i like it, good work

thus_styles: very chill tune. nice melodies and a gliding bassline is nice. i like the snare too

hopefully this reply goes to the bottom of the thread and not some random spot. if it goes in a random spot i think ill just start a new feedback thread just for a couple of my tunes in the hopes that it doesn’t get lost halfway through the thread randomly like i suspect the ones i’ve posted have been.

this is a video recording of the hardware jam track i linked in the previous post. here’s hoping youtube ilnks auto-embed with just the url.

this is just messing around not taken too seriously. the structure (ha!) isn’t a typical dnb dj friendly format and something about changing the key of the bassline and lfo’d atmos pad between first and second half of the track doesn’t gel perfectly but i think its still not bad. just love me some wobbles

https://youtu.be/FmtmC4WlRoI