Henrik Hjortnaes wrote: ↑Tue Jul 31, 2018 23:08 CEST
Here is my Round 2 mix.
Baddo, I addressed all the findings you noted. Maybe not to your liking, as the language of sound is not set in stone.
You, noting the dull section shows phenomenal attention to detail.
A snare that "could be better" leaves a lot to the imagination, so I just did what I felt lifted the song a bit.
As always for round 2, I adjust several other things not pointed out by the client. I know this seems counter productive, but I just can't help it.
- I changed the character of the kick. Less distorted, more defined especially through the fast parts by automation. I felt it was a little soft in my Round 1 mix.
- I changed the character of the bass guitar. I wanted the bass to poke out more and fill up some of the low mids, because I felt there was room for it in the overall mix. I know doing stuff like this is super critical when the judge is a guitarist, but the bass brings some powerful harmony-like notes and strenghtens the guitars and fattens them slightly.
- On the mix bus, I raised the top end slightly 8K upwards and also raised 650 Hz with a small bell curve. 650 Hz is dangerous as h... but I wanted more grunt and upfront-ness from the whole mix.
- On the drum bus, I changed the Clariphonic EQ settings to try sweeten the top end of the kit slightly.
I think that's it.
WAV
Henrik Hjortnaes R2
MP3
Henrik Hjortnaes R2
Henrik Hjortnaes
There’s nothing not to like. I really enjoyed this mix, you made it more badass now, so that is even better. Good call on changing the bass, it sounds much more active now. The toms sound a little too distorted at times, but that would be the only negative thing I can say. The cymbal bleed on the Toms every now and then makes me feel bad, I struggled with it on my mix, eventually just pushing down the toms. But yes, I guess that’s a problem with the source tracks and not the mix.
Both you and Leo Krechmer did “warming up” intros. Both doing something different but similar in function. I do like this to an extent but my issue with it is it takes something away from the track and that is you have to wait for the main riff to get the kick. I think if we were in the studio I would try to produce this section to have some more grooviness in the way a pumpy loop has it, so that it doesn’t feel flat. But that is clearly beyond the scope of the contest, so no worries.