[This Night Is being dope]
-for the intro, don't make the main melody [0:08] appear so sudden, make it slowly fade in from the start behind the other weird sound and at the same time make the weird sound [0:00] fade out.
-You could either had some 808's under the kick to give it more thump or you could add some bass lines. lack of bass lines makes the track incomplete.
-You can play with the panning of your original high hat, making it switch from far left to far right OR If you use two different types of High Hats, both hitting at the same time, but one is far left [75%], one is far right [70%]. This will make your track sound wider.
- For the main melody, you can keep it in the middle, but sometimes try to play with the panning of the notes, making it randomly switch from left to right on each note, this will keep the listeners attention like an illusion that much is happening. So if there was like 4 notes ,,do 1 - [50%L] | 2 - [55%R] | 3 - [25%L] | 4 - [20%R] and always make it random so it feels as if there is movement in the main melody, not a robotic repetition.
- Your snare is dope, You can raise the hi of your kick just a little bit to make it come out clearer.
- For loop, you can do many possibilities - you can do main melody with all the drum, main melody with the kick only, main melody with the snare only, main melody solo. that's more on the creativity and composition part.
- The weird sounds that appear out of nowhere , try to pan them left or right, not too far , but just enough that we notice that they are not in the middle, again to create more dimension to your beat.
- For the weird sound that appear at 1:10, you can clean it low, by taking out the low, it will let the main melody still shine even though that sound appears.
- The weird kick that appear between 1:10 and 1:11 or between 1:13 and 1:14 , I find it kind of useless and amateur sounding. That's on you to decide if you want to keep it or not.
- You can also use some filters and reverbs on the main melody here and there to create different sounding loops.
- Try to make a counter melody during the chorus part , to make it stand out
[Broken Kid]
- The melody is dope and fine
- Your whole drum is too weak, and the broken glass drum type is very amateur sounding. it would take them all out , the broken glass sounds.
- Make your kick hit harder, by either changing it or adding more freq in the mids.
- The snare is fine, but you can take out the lower low of it and raise the hi just a little bit to make it clearer.
- add a little reverb to the main sound that appears at 0:30 to make it sound wider. take out the low in the reverb but not in the main sound.
When mixing think about it like this, what frequencies is important to that sound. There are frequencies that uses energy even though we can't hear them.
Example :
-You can always take out the low in the high hats or crash, but always listen to make sure you are not changing the sound; rather taking out useless frequencies. So everything under 500fq or 200fq is not necessary.
- For the kick, you can "clean" out everything under 50fq. But not too much, so you don't lose the thump.
- For the snare, you can usually take out everything below 100fq.
- For things like rhodes, or sounds like 0:30 in broken kid, you can take out everything below 50fq usually.
I think these pictures are very helpful
http://howtomakeelectronicmusic.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/FM_clubmix_dsktp.jpg that my computer's background
http://www.independentrecording.net/irn/resources/freqchart/images/main_chart.jpg
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_GD7kgG_0bkc/S7v49lLcR-I/AAAAAAAAATk/JItrmOLf87Y/s1600/EQ3.gif
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_IMldLY1gvlU/TPAV5JKHv_I/AAAAAAAAAB8/_glLSLa4EF0/s1600/instruments.gif
But remember to mix with sound and not image, Meaning use your EAR as your main reference, not these pictures and not what I said. Every instrument mix is different depending on the song and on your style. Mixing is an art, not a science.
*IMPORTANT * Taking out frequencies is usually more useful than boosting, reason is. If you want your kick to sound clean. Don't boost the hi. Take out the low in the other instruments so that the kick will have more room to breath, get it ... same for high hats. If you want them to shine, don't boost the hi,, take out the hi in the other instruments so that your high hats have room to breath.
People who give out numbers to mix the frequencies, usually is not very helpful, because every instrument is different and everyone one's taste is different, that is how you will build your style of mixing, but learn the basic first.
Useful videos -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PFgCrvwByo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8I0DyF5bvg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tymFbBQZvw4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MdE1adTCu0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjjJPm34a8U
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tZ8-RFPsgI
I find that this dude explain things in a very easy way to understand.
But never forget - youtube is your best friend. If you need to learn something, just search it on youtube. Subscribe to the profiles you think are helpful.
Useful interviews for hip hop
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESUHhXgIaos
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yger5z0Q-pc
so yeah research is very important. I know it's hard to know what to research when you don't know what you need to do, but listen to professional tracks and compare to yours, see what yours lack , and just type on google how to etc ...
hope it helps ! and good luck, if you got any PRECISE questions, just send me a message.
