'The Mix Review' changes...

[Mike Senior]

...Long live TheMixReview.org!

As most of you probably already know, I've been writing the magazine's 'The Mix Review' column for almost ten years now, critiquing commercial music releases from a production perspective. It's been one hell of a ride, and I'm super-grateful to SOS for continuing to print my (sometimes acerbic!) critical musings for so long! It's also been wonderful to get so much cool feedback from readers over the more than 100 SOS issues the column has appeared in. Where did all that time go...?!

This month, however, it's all change, because I've decided to relaunch 'The Mix Review' as a new free weekly online blog called (oh, so imaginatively) TheMixReview.org! And in the process, I've taken the opportunity to add a truckload of extra functionality I've wanted to add for a while:

• There's now a dedicated search function where you can filter the entire archive of more than 480(!) critiques according to artist, featured artist, composer, and title.
• I've added in-line Spotify and Youtube players for every critique, so you can immediately listen to the tracks as you read, and there are Wikipedia 'more info' links for each track too.
• Over the years, I've written a bunch follow-up forum posts for previous reviews, with additional info and diagrams -- so I've now consolidated all that additional content into the critique articles themselves. (For example, check out my critiques of David Guetta's 'Who's That Chick' or Glenn Gould's 'Goldberg Variations'.)
• Plus I've added lots of in-line hyperlinks interconnecting the different critiques (which I often cross-reference in the text) and generally linking to other sources of further reading.

So the bottom line is that 'The Mix Review' unfortunately won't appear in the magazine any longer -- but the good news is that I'll still be posting new critiques weekly at TheMixReview.org instead! In fact, I've already written several new posts, so if you're wondering why I think Michael Jackson's 'Billie Jean' sounds better on cassette; how Doja Cat's 'Say So' can get away with having six identical choruses; or what Future's 'Life Is Good' has in common with Bach's 'Air On A G String', then do head over and check out the new site!

Cheers,

Mike S.

[zenguitar]

Mix review has been a great favourite of mine, always a good read. I'll be sad not to see it in SOS, but will be bookmarking it's new home.

Thanks for everything so far, and best wishes as you move forward.



Andy

[Aled Hughes]

Agreed.
One of my favourites in the mag, and it’ll be a shame to see it gone, especially as new readers will be missing out on such insightful pieces that often challenges the accepted wisdom of what’s important in ‘music technology’.

I am, however, looking forward to the new website’s development very much, so best of luck with it!

Aled

[BJG145]

Thanks for all the insights Mike; it's always a useful and entertaining read. Look forward to catching up in its new home.

[Folderol]

Would it be possible for a sticky link to be posted somewhere here for the benefit of new subscribers?
... and those of us that can't remember what we were looking for

[zenguitar]

And Lo!

This topic is now a stickie.

Andy

[Mike Senior]

Thanks for the kind words everyone -- and I hope you all enjoy the new site!

[Drew Stephenson]

While you're on Mike...
One of the subjects of your reviews a couple of months ago really tickled my interest but I've forgotten their name.
Hip hop style but with lots of orchestral samples, rapping sounded not dissimilar to Eminem in style. The song in question had a very clever self-reference highlighting where the bass had dropped out.
Ring any bells?
No worries if not, i'll just trawl back through the issues (unfortunately I don't keep my paper copies).

[Mike Senior]

While you're on Mike...
One of the subjects of your reviews a couple of months ago really tickled my interest but I've forgotten their name.
Hip hop style but with lots of orchestral samples, rapping sounded not dissimilar to Eminem in style. The song in question had a very clever self-reference highlighting where the bass had dropped out.
Ring any bells?

Hmmm. Well the mention of Eminem immediately suggested Eminem: 'Godzilla' or Logic feat. Eminem: 'Homicide', but I also wondered whether you might have been referring to Stormzy: 'Vossi Bop', because there's definitely some rap/bass arrangement interaction there. Failing those, though, here are the other hip-hop tracks I've critiqued over the past few months:

• Roddy Rich: 'The Box'
• Travis Scott: 'Highest In The Room'
• Aitch: 'Taste (Make It Shake)
• Dave feat. Burna Boy: 'Location'
• Childish Gambino: 'This Is America'
• Lil Baby & Gunna: 'Drip Too Hard'
• Sheck Wes: 'Mo Bamba'

Hopefully one of those will be the one you were looking for!

[ManFromGlass]

I have a great appreciation for your dissections, comments and general ‘earsight’. Plus you’ve turned me on to some really cool tracks and reaffirmed my beliefs that a good track is a good track no matter the genre.
Link bookmarked.

[MOF]

i'll just trawl back through the issues (unfortunately I don't keep my paper copies).

I’ve kept them all since the very beginning, it does cause a storage issue though.
I’ve also enjoyed your reviews Mike, any reason why a selection can’t still be in the magazine?

[Drew Stephenson]

While you're on Mike...
One of the subjects of your reviews a couple of months ago really tickled my interest but I've forgotten their name.
Hip hop style but with lots of orchestral samples, rapping sounded not dissimilar to Eminem in style. The song in question had a very clever self-reference highlighting where the bass had dropped out.
Ring any bells?

Hmmm. Well the mention of Eminem immediately suggested Eminem: 'Godzilla' or Logic feat. Eminem: 'Homicide', but I also wondered whether you might have been referring to Stormzy: 'Vossi Bop', because there's definitely some rap/bass arrangement interaction there. Failing those, though, here are the other hip-hop tracks I've critiqued over the past few months:

• Roddy Rich: 'The Box'
• Travis Scott: 'Highest In The Room'
• Aitch: 'Taste (Make It Shake)
• Dave feat. Burna Boy: 'Location'
• Childish Gambino: 'This Is America'
• Lil Baby & Gunna: 'Drip Too Hard'
• Sheck Wes: 'Mo Bamba'

Hopefully one of those will be the one you were looking for!

Thanks Mike, but I've had a quick look and vexingly I don't think it's any of those! I could be mistaken though so I shall have a proper listen - thanks for fishing them out.

[MOF]

I've forgotten their name.
Hip hop style but with lots of orchestral samples, rapping sounded not dissimilar to Eminem in style

Has Mike ever analysed a Boney M song? They usually have a guy talking and lots of orchestral elements to them.

[Drew Stephenson]

While you're on Mike...
One of the subjects of your reviews a couple of months ago really tickled my interest but I've forgotten their name.
Hip hop style but with lots of orchestral samples, rapping sounded not dissimilar to Eminem in style. The song in question had a very clever self-reference highlighting where the bass had dropped out.
Ring any bells?

Hmmm. Well the mention of Eminem immediately suggested Eminem: 'Godzilla' or Logic feat. Eminem: 'Homicide', but I also wondered whether you might have been referring to Stormzy: 'Vossi Bop', because there's definitely some rap/bass arrangement interaction there. Failing those, though, here are the other hip-hop tracks I've critiqued over the past few months:

• Roddy Rich: 'The Box'
• Travis Scott: 'Highest In The Room'
• Aitch: 'Taste (Make It Shake)
• Dave feat. Burna Boy: 'Location'
• Childish Gambino: 'This Is America'
• Lil Baby & Gunna: 'Drip Too Hard'
• Sheck Wes: 'Mo Bamba'

Hopefully one of those will be the one you were looking for!

Thanks Mike, but I've had a quick look and vexingly I don't think it's any of those! I could be mistaken though so I shall have a proper listen - thanks for fishing them out.

Ah, sorry, my bad. It was an Inside Track not a mix review (and it was from October!), it was The Search by NF.
Still worth another listen.

[Mike Senior]

Hello again, eveyone!

Well, as I'd hoped, I've been continuing to upload new critiques to TheMixReview.org on a weekly basis, so I figured I'd quickly check in again here and post an update of the latest additions in case any of you would like to check those out (for free of course):

• Little Richard: 'Tutti Frutti' (the longest Mix Review critique I've ever written, I think...)
• The Weeknd: 'Blinding Lights'
• Hildur Guðnadóttir: 'Bridge Of Death' from the Chernobyl soundtrack
• Gary Clark Jr: 'This Land'
• Kraftwerk: 'Autobahn'

I've also added some extra material to the Doja Cat 'Say So' critique as well, in case you'd been wondering why I hadn't made the obvious connection with Simon & Garfunkel...

[forumuser901190]

mike - given your extensive back catalogue of mix reviews, could you magic up a list of, say, ten to use as reference tracks during mixing? I appreciate that reference tracks are usually specific to the genre we're mixing in, but to get ten fine examples of, for example, best use of stereo width and depth, clarity in the low end etc, would be amazing and super-useful
.

[Mike Senior]

mike - given your extensive back catalogue of mix reviews, could you magic up a list of, say, ten to use as reference tracks during mixing? I appreciate that reference tracks are usually specific to the genre we're mixing in, but to get ten fine examples of, for example, best use of stereo width and depth, clarity in the low end etc, would be amazing and super-useful.

Well, funnily enough, I've actually been doing exactly this as a series of weekly 'Reference Of The Week' posts for my Cambridge-MT site patrons since the beginning of the year -- and the first couple of posts (Finlay Quaye's 'Even After All' & Outkast's 'Bowtie') are actually public access if you wanted to check those out. (There's also a directory of all my other Cambridge-MT reward content here, if you fancy getting involved.)

Otherwise, though, there are lots of reference suggestions here too.

[Mike Senior]

Hello again, everyone!

Just checking in to remind people that new Mix Review critiques are continuing to appear every Friday over at TheMixReview.org -- and the latest additions include:

• Michael Cleveland: 'Tall Fiddler'
• Jawsh 685 & Jason Derulo: 'Savage Love (Laxed - Siren Beat)'
• DaBaby feat. Roddy Ricch: 'Rockstar'
• Vera Lynn: 'We'll Meet Again'
• Saint Jhn: 'Roses (Imanbek Remix)'
• Lady Gaga & Ariana Grande: 'Rain On Me'
• Megan Thee Stallion feat Beyonce: 'Savage (Remix)'
• I'm With Her: 'Call My Name'

Plenty of mixing and production tips in that lot...

[tea for two]

One of my favourite parts of SoS magazine was readers tracks, reading suggestions to improve the mix of their tracks.

SoS views of mixing mastering in modern commercially released music gave me the insight and courage to mix, master, my tracks the way I do and to request the mastering engineer to do certain things.

Mike spill the beanz
"Massive props to producer Fabrizio Ferraguzzo here – and I’m hoping his monitor controller is his secret sauce, as he appears to be using the same one as me…"

[Mike Senior]

Mike spill the beanz
"Massive props to producer Fabrizio Ferraguzzo here – and I’m hoping his monitor controller is his secret sauce, as he appears to be using the same one as me…"

Hah! It's the SPL 2381. Been using it for more than 15 years. Had it serviced a few years back and it's still working well.