Tune feedback again

Nice vibe, clean sounds w/clean vox. I really like bg, understated twisty midbass sound.

If it were me I would smooth out that lead bell sound just a bit- it seems to be a smidge too high in vol relative to the other elements that are sitting below it. I get it that it is the hero element, I’m talking about gel’ing it just a slight bit more.

Also, if it were me, I might lay one more long ambient sound under the intro. Very small, very low, just something to help tie all of the intro sounds together. Like a foley or something. A texture sound meant to be ‘felt’ more than heard.

I would also get a little more second octave bass in there. Your low low bass is coming through, but the 70-120hz area feels a little empty.

Nice work!

So I am A/B’ing to make sure I give you somewhat correct info…certainly not required, but in the future if you make the tunes dl’able I can pull them into the DAW and put them under the microscope.

But bear with me, I am not trying to send you on a boondoggle (can’t think of a euro equivalent of “boondoggle”…yank slang).

I think the lead bell sound is sitting in there a little more nicely, it’s not trying to overpower everything. I think you gave the lead vox the same treatment maybe? Taking it down also? I think the vox could afford to be skosh’ed back up in gain (skosh=technical term). Same with that warpy, staggered mid bass sound, I think it could get a little more power back. Before it popped up more in the fg as a nice surprise, and now it feels relegated to a bg sound only.

I’d love it if someone else weighed in here, too. I would hate for you to overwork things based on my single viewpoint. Overall I think things blend a little better, but that we’ve maybe lost a little ‘oomph’ and forwardness in some places, which honestly might be fixed with some crafty masterchain tweaks.

Help us out, Genie’s, what say you…? I hope this helps you, MindZ, apologies for the zigging and zagging.

I would really like to see if I can help with that. What I am discovering lately is that it’s so much less about actual levels (although that does matter) and much more about what it’s being placed against, relatively speaking.

The simple idea being that if the snare doesn’t sound bright enough, you don’t actually brighten the snare itself, but look for competing sounds and take some sheen off of them.

I don’t expect that will be a new concept for you, but I know that for me it’s a little harder to wrap my head around sometimes.

If you make your tune dl-able, I will pull it into the DAW and play around with it, maybe I can get you some new insight to try…?

If your snare is peaking the limiter, then clip it before it goes into the limiter using K-clip, that’s the dirty way of doing it. You’ll save a gain a few db headroom without compromising the character/transient.

I don’t stick by the “new” rules of production, and I don’t chuck all the old rules out the window like rage settings on limiters. I swear this does come back to haunt producers for example Iccicle getting asked to take off the limiters on his busses before sending for mastering.

Personally the best tip I’ve ever had is set the kick at -10db and mix everything around that, mix flat and don’t mix into a limiter.

If you want loudness it’s all about the crest factor: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lk4D4bMu8uo

Use limiters not for loudness, but for controlling peaks before you do the final loudness stage. Up the average RMS loudness with compression and saturation and bam you have a much more pro sounding mix.

The other greatest tip that’s helped me to no end recently is

Really nice tune overall, I dig the liquid/laid back feel, and the ambiences/melodics are really fitting, and the bass is groovy. It’s a decent mix. Only little tiny things I’d point out.

The high hat has this 4k hiss in the intro that isn’t too pleasing. When it drops I don’t hear the same hissyness, so makes me think it’s the limiter/master chain adding volume in a place that doesn’t need that much.

Your snare may not need more volume, sounds fine, but it may need a better seating in space. A tiny little plate verb could help there, sounds a tad dry for me.

shrike wrote:

“The other greatest tip that’s helped me to no end recently is”…

Well!?!?! What is this other greatest tip…?

I knew that would mess with at least one person 😛

I can’t leave you suffering! TDR Nova, free plugin, it’s a dynamic EQ, set threshold settings to only pull a certain frequency out of the mix once it’s over a certain point. EQ without ruining the rest of the sound.

God send is an understatement.

Ok! I think I can do some good here.

A few things I discovered when putting it in the DAW:

1) You’ve got some stereo signal below 100hz. It’s very low, but I feel like it’s best to just straight mono below ~100hz or so

2) Your peak values are coming in at around -10dbfs. Opinions about loudness wars notwithstanding, I would think you’d want that lowest note licking 0dbfs, for maxxxxx power.

3) You’ve got a competing fifth right next to your first (lowest) fundamental, and it’s sucking out some energy. Your low F has a ~C-tuned hump right next to it, and it’s dividing how much the woofer can move, and you’re losing some lowend potential because of this conflict. I pulled your tune in and just did some analyzing and eq-ing to see what can be done, and while there are still some issues that I can’t get at without stems, even just some eq-ing and dynamics helps the overall loudness. The image shows the master plugin chain.

4) I did a notch of the low C (~65hz), and then tried to push the second F (~87hz) back up a little. You can see the before and after of the spectrum analyzers, and in the lower right it now has more of the slope that you are probably looking for.

5) I basically just split below 150hz, and then charged up that sub bass a bit (bx_subfilter…free and treats subbass like nothing else I have encountered), then the sculpting eq mentioned above, and then some dynamics after that

6) The MB at the end helps tighten up some ranges. I didn’t whittle on it too much, just chose a preset that generally tends to tighten most things. It does help to make the snare pop a little more. I would certainly go in and dial it further to get exactly what you want

7) I tried a FF L2 at the very end, and everything I tried just sounded like shit, so then I tried an Ozone maximizer, which worked out a little better.

8) All of this reveals something flabby/distorted in the ~500hz range, if you solo that range you can hear it…I think it’s being brought on by another sound, maybe the bell, but you just want to dig in and root that fucker out, whatever it is.

I don’t think it’s perfect yet, but I do think it’s starting to firm up a little.

quick loop of what I did:
https://soundcloud.com/the_shrike/mindzero-help01/s-1sEin

plugin setup:

MindZero Help

I hope this helps!

This “Criminal” track is pretty nice (good mixdown and has a cool vibe overall). Would like to hear the finished version 🙂

The Rose thron one didn’t really click with me because I found the bassline to be a bit too repetitive. Maybe could use some filter automation to bring that bassline more alive?

bennett wrote:

Forgot their name,

That’s all well and good however a lot of people who produce that aggressive loud produce with limiters on the master, Emperor, Mefjus, Noisia etc.

It’s fine to do as long as you’re aware of the shortcomings of it also.

Well said “Aware of the shortcomings” – fun fact also title of my sex tape. I find for the more melodic stuff, of which I’m bias towards I tend to find people aren’t as responsive towards completely flat dynamics. I’ve stopped arguing over what is the “right” way, there’s not a right way, just what works for you. When there’s only drum/bass/fx in a mix I guess it matters less, and when you’re trying to emulate another artist’s sound who use this process then it seems valid.

If you are going to mix into a limiter on the master bus, I’d still argue it’s not worth putting any gain amplification on it, just use it to catch peaks.

The thing about mixing and balancing, it’s all relative, I mention the trick of leaving your kick at one volume and mixing everything else around one thing that doesn’t change level. Keep one thing static and mix everything in relation to that. Having a normalised -1db kick and setting the channel strip to -10db, is one way of achieving continuity in creating tracks.

It’s a good way to make tracks on an ep/lp all sound relative to each other. I guess the starting value could change, I’ve seen one of the guys from Noisia try and make a kick hit -6db, with quite a bit of fiddling.

Each to their own, I still wouldn’t be able to add 3 busess all peaking and constantly 0db from a limiter, and then add them together into another limiter at 0db, don’t make sense in my head. But now all I’m wondering is what happens when you brick wall a bricked wall, is that how you make bass house?