Hi all,
Thanks once again to Jorgeelalto for submitting this excellent production and to Mister Fox for hosting. Here is my entry for round 2.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Pty8ZI ... sp=sharing
I agreed with the feedback that my low end and groove were big problems so I spent nearly all the time working on things like compressor timings, sidechain timings, a bit of shaperbox, EQ and saturation in the low end. The result is devastating
Seriously I'm a bit fried after working on this tune, pushed me to the limit of what I can do. In the first round I spent nearly all the time trying to make the kick sound ridiculously punchy. After the spending more time on the tune I think it was too much as if the kick demands that much attention it does take lots away from other elements. Instead on this mix I tried to make the kick an ally of the bass synths. I spent most of the time on a few sections where all the instruments are in, somewhere around 3.10 was my go to section to see if the groove is nice.
As usual I tried about lots of different mixbus compressors and probably spent an undue amount of time on this aspect. I tried:
SSL bus compressor - didn't work at all well, immediately dumped
Kotelnikov GE - experimented with a preset called "pump up" or something like that, but in the end I didn't like the way it was releasing
Cenozoix - found this one too complicated with the barrage of information you're greeted with
Softube Bus compressor - was experimenting with tempo linked release, but didn't work at all
sonible smart comp2 - it's all very well but I have no confidence whatsoever that it 'understands' this genre
API 2500 - seemed well set out for the job
In the end I settled with the API 2500. I am starting to realise that although you can easily totally mess everything up with a badly set unit on the mixbus, you are much better off spending less time on this and more time on the individual tracks or groups. I hear all kinds of advice about mixing into compressors or even mixing into limiters! I hear of people mixing into long chains of plugins, but I am starting to think could be best of all to mix into nothing. Then at the very end, when you have it sounding as good as you can get it, then add a very small touch from a bus compressor. All it can ever do to mix into a complicated mixbus is make every decision just a little bit less certain. If you are for example tweaking maybe an eq control near the region in which your mixbus EQ is boosting, then the EQ boost moves just outside the region and going to have less effect than just inside the region, isn't that a headf$£@ that we could all do without? If you are learning and trying to make your life as easy as possible, is it
a) better to mix into lots of complicated stuff
b) is it worse
c) is it more or less the same with a few pitfalls to navigate but some advantages.
I had previously thought the answer was c), but now I am learning towards b). So why does everybody do this? Is it just trendy nonsense?
Rant over, now for the sake of providing some information about my processing, on the API 2500, I went with:
Attack 30ms
Release 100ms
Ratio 1.5:1
Hard knee and normal detector thrust
L/R link 60%
overall 65% wet
I think these are some quite gentle settings which is crazy in the end because I think I spent the majority of the time mixing into a sonible smart comp2 on different settings to this, then at the end after fighting against it I eventually decided the mix sounded better if I just switched that off.
Other than this it was generally a classic mix session in which I flew around all the settings, gradually making everything louder even though I'm trying as hard as I can to A/B every change at level gain
good luck to all!
You mean that some drums tracks are too loud?
A quick warning