Mix Challenge

Ike H-mope wrote: ↑

Mon Oct 28, 2024 22:27 CET

I re-learned a couple of important lessons this month.

Even when I disagree with feedback on my music, it's important to see if from the critic's perspective.

If I'm confident about something, then hearing criticism makes me "re-prove" it to myself by relistening, rethinking, and leaving it alone if I'm still happy. If nothing else, it helps me cleanup details that might be distracting from my own goals.

When I'm not confident, a good critique can force me to confront things I already knew were weak. It's good to realize I can't hide things, I have to actually fix them.

It's also cool to see through style, genre and production and just get to the point -- Does the song/tune/piece feel good or not? If the song isn't there, the production doesn't matter. If the song is there, then production is just an extra layer to make it better.

I noticed that people have not really been discussing lyrics. For songwriting, I'd expect that to be almost as important as the music itself.

OlliH wrote: ↑

Sun Oct 27, 2024 17:48 CET

I'm happy to answer all the questions. My guitar is made by a small one man company called HMS guitars (HMS = hand made stuff, hms-guitars.fi). Each guitar is different, but the main body is the same. My guitar happens to have tremolo bar and two mics: "Seymour Duncan Hot Tele Bridge STL-2 Guitar Pickup (single coil) and "Seymour Duncan Jazz Neck Black SH-2N Guitar Pickup (Humbucker"). These microphones, of course, are essential for the sound. With one switch I can get 5 different combinations. Just perfect for my preferences (50's and 60's rockabilly and country sounds) and good enough for other purposes.

PonySho wrote: ↑

Mon Oct 28, 2024 19:21 CET

I like the bottom end...letting the bass extend below the high-passed kick drum (I know...said I wouldn't talk nerdy mix stuff) but this gives a nice warmth to the track.
Likes: balanced mix, chilled vibe, ear candy, no prominent topline which is perfect for this style
Dislikes: doesn't fit the brief challenge -nothing about 'Harvest' in the song or the title and almost like this song was perhaps picked from a bunch of previously finished productions (apologies - I'm almost certainly wrong about this claim). Random tom hit at the end of the song.

Mellow Browne wrote: ↑

Tue Oct 29, 2024 00:52 CET

Thanks for your feedback.
No EQ was applied to the kick.

Well, I had hope one can hear a certain grow process within my entry and some blooming effect at the end with some extra layers of bells and percussion elements, it didn't seem to work in your case although you mentioned ear candy. The tom hit was actually on purpose And regarding the title, this was not the only beat I made for this challenge, but it was the one that fitted best to the theme so I chose this one to complete. Imo the title doesn't matter at all, it's like you would judge a book by its cover
Btw, I wish my previous finished production would sound like this one

PonySho wrote: ↑

Mon Oct 28, 2024 19:21 CET

I like the bottom end...letting the bass extend below the high-passed kick drum (I know...said I wouldn't talk nerdy mix stuff) but this gives a nice warmth to the track.
Likes: balanced mix, chilled vibe, ear candy, no prominent topline which is perfect for this style
Dislikes: doesn't fit the brief challenge -nothing about 'Harvest' in the song or the title and almost like this song was perhaps picked from a bunch of previously finished productions (apologies - I'm almost certainly wrong about this claim). Random tom hit at the end of the song.

Hi Mellow Browne
I guessed the tom hit was deliberate...just not my preference.
Regarding the kick, I'm not surprised that you didn't use EQ, but the sample you chose clearly had a defined EQd tone that worked well with the bass. Picking the right drum sample can really work well with the bass, as I'm sure you know.

We clearly have different ideas about meeting the brief - that's cool - my feedback was only my opinion, but it really stood out because all other submissions went to some effort to make it clear about meeting the brief.

Same as you, I worked on a different track first before submitting what I did. Now I wish I'd gone with my first idea but I didn't have the time.
I really liked your track btw, probably the best balanced mix of all the entries - killer skills! If this was a mixing competition your track would hit first place for me.

Ike H-mope wrote: ↑

Mon Oct 28, 2024 22:27 CET

I re-learned a couple of important lessons this month.

Even when I disagree with feedback on my music, it's important to see if from the critic's perspective.

If I'm confident about something, then hearing criticism makes me "re-prove" it to myself by relistening, rethinking, and leaving it alone if I'm still happy. If nothing else, it helps me cleanup details that might be distracting from my own goals.

When I'm not confident, a good critique can force me to confront things I already knew were weak. It's good to realize I can't hide things, I have to actually fix them.

PonySho wrote: ↑

Mon Oct 28, 2024 23:13 CET

I checked out the hms website...the electric guitars look GREAT!
If they sound as good as they look...

crispy wrote: ↑

Sat Oct 26, 2024 00:55 CEST

I mean snaps, the snap sound made with fingers here take a listen, I added the snaps to the intro and to the outro so you understand what I mean.



I also made some fixs: removed some reverb on the vocals delay and turned up the delay volume cuz it was too low, less saturation on the bass, it was too much, added some lows on the guitars, I felt I cutted too much lows before, removed the autotune, automated tail lenght of the vocals reverb so that its shorter in the intro and outro and longer in the full instruments parts, especially in the last part before the outro where I made it very long to enphasize the climax, I also add some saturation on the wet signal of the reverbered vocals and did some adjustments on guitars EQ.

btw I did sidechain compression on the wet reverbered vocals with the dry signal so that the vocals where not muffled by the reverb.

OlliH wrote: ↑

Sat Oct 26, 2024 12:55 CEST

ryanc, Law of the Harvest
(This is a copy-paste of my previous comment.)

You have a really beautiful and sympathetic song here. The melody line is absolutely top notch, and you sing it very sensitively. The guitar riff is absolutely perfect, simple but effective and supports the song. Very good potential to be this month's winner!

So, the songwriting part is superb, but I think you should do something to those drums. It feels like the drummer is playing without listening to the song. The drums don't have the same emotional sensitivity that you bring to this song. Is it too cold and he tries to warm himself by playing too loud? It's hard to tell what the problem is with a quick listening. Maybe if you could decrease the velocity levels a bit, it might give way to more sensitive drum sounds. Or is the problem in the groove of the drum. I'd definitely try some drum groove with ghost notes or something.

Mellow Browne wrote: ↑

Sun Oct 27, 2024 01:31 CEST

ryanc
First of all, you have great voice with a nice texture, and only a few minor notes are a little bit off. So, if no autotune was used I must say you have very good pitch balance.
I’m not a specialist in this genre, but it gives me a certain country/western vibe. Very friendly and warm chords with a nice song structure.
The mix is a bit on the weaker side, it’s not horrible or so, it works like it is. It just sounds a bit like a demo mix, or even raw version, just the clean recordings.
Even thouhg it’s a softer song I wish I could hear more punch from the drums and deeper sound stage from front to back (think of delay or reverb).
In sum, you did a really nice job.