Critique my mix

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Critique my mix

Post by jakejessee »

Hey I've been making music off and on for a year and a half learning as I go. I'm using mostly Waves plugins as well as some Izotope. I am so hard on myself and drive me insane!! I feel so at home in the creative mixing process, but then when it comes to finalizing and getting everything to sound clean and balanced and like it can hang in a playlist with popular artists, I get so stressed!! I know I'm not doing bad at all for someone of my experience level, but I'm wanting to be better. That's why I'm here. Here is a song I've been working on over the last few days. I'm hitting a peak feeling, like I'm unsure of anything else I can do. Please critique and send me in some better directions. Thanks so much in advance.

https://soundcloud.com/jakejessee/i-wan ... 8OIhaNxtWH

(cringing at how Soundcloud lessens the quality some :protest: Idk what else to upload to)
jakejessee
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Re: Critique my mix

Post by wdsteele »

Listening on an iPad there is a nice dreamy quality to overall mix , I’d tame back the reverb though , appears to be shared across all the elements .

Great vocals , so try to give them a little more variety as the tune progresses , the rap section needs to stand out more to really exploit the otherwise excellent delivery - I’d probably ditch the reverb entirely to be honest and try to introduce a few more instrumental parts to help mark out the song sections ; not my style of listening at all , but enjoyable all the same.
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Re: Critique my mix

Post by jakejessee »

wdsteele wrote:Listening on an iPad there is a nice dreamy quality to overall mix , I’d tame back the reverb though , appears to be shared across all the elements .

Great vocals , so try to give them a little more variety as the tune progresses , the rap section needs to stand out more to really exploit the otherwise excellent delivery - I’d probably ditch the reverb entirely to be honest and try to introduce a few more instrumental parts to help mark out the song sections ; not my style of listening at all , but enjoyable all the same.


Hey thanks so much for your time and insight on this, it was a great compliment to my morning waking up to it. Definitely going to use and feel out this advice!
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Re: Critique my mix

Post by Drew Stephenson »

Writing as I listen, not really my genre so feel free to ignore some, most or all of the below.

The opening electric guitar runs pretty much throughout the piece, I'd be inclined to drop it out for sections and let other instruments have a bit of space. Possibly stick a ducker on it as well triggered by the lead vocal.
Likewise the beat starts and then runs all the way through. A couple of short stops could add weight here or there.
I'd be tempted to take some of your little ad hocs and pan them out wider, so that some of the 'hey's or 'yeah's are more like a shout out from elsewhere.
The delays on the vocals could be used a bit more sparsely during the chorus as well for me, I think they'd have more interest if they weren't on every phrase.
Really nice delivery on the rap.
Nicely put together piece overall, but if it were mine I'd definitely be looking at what I could drop in various sections to give a bit more variety and establish a bit of tension and release. At the moment you're asking the vocal to do all the heavy lifting there but you could make it have more impact by playing with the orchestration a bit.

Hope that helps.
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Re: Critique my mix

Post by Martin Walker »

HI jakejessee,

Just listened to your track, and enjoyed it - weird combo of floaty ambience and street-credible vocals.

That twangy guitar with all the reverb is glorious, but I agree with wdsteele about the excessive reverb - it's great fun until the vocals some in, but then gets tiring (if you reduce it or drop it altogether at 0:14 when the vocals come in, everything would be brought forward and be more 'intimate').

As Drew mentions, leaving this reverb off gives you the opportunity of adding a lot more incidental percussion/fairy dust during the main part of the track - I'd be inclined to drop the reverb back in at 2:34 during the fade-out to provide continuity with the opening.

Lovely crunchy drums & powerful punchy bass, both beautifully balanced in the mix, and the vocals and high-speed rap are spot-on.

Already a good track in my opinion, but with just a little more incidental interest to tickle the ears would turn it into a great one.

Bravo!

Martin
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