Help with mix, played it in the club, didnt sound that good.

F

Ferdows

New member
Hi guys,

so ive been working on this Brazilian/trabalho track last couple of days, and I wanted to mix it differently then the standard ways, I tried to get lot of reverb on the piano and high cut it cause I thought it would give a nice effect, and I tried to let the drums have the lead instead of the vocal.

On my monitors the mix & master sounded pretty good, but when I played it in the club last night it sounded okay, but didnt have the impact I thought it would have.

Can someone with decent amount of knowledge have a listen and tell me what they would do different here?

btw, my ways of mixing are shortly explained -> eq compress saturate on channel -> bass & kick to bus / drums to bus / keys -> bus and ssl compress them with little saturation.

then after that I master them with ozone little imaging and limiting.

Hope someone can help.

private link:
 
The recording is not ready for mixing. I was not attached like you desired me to be of course, my gut feeling is that the production became a bit too fast forward, meaning that you did maybe a bit too much too quickly and some things you should have done you did not do. I think a normal listener would just say, it is OK I guess without adding that much additional comments about it, so listen to me instead of them, that will give you some better insights into it.

What I felt about this mix was that I was not emotionally and energetically drawn into any particular part of it. This I think does not happen as easily when you put more focus into the chorus. So I think that is one issue when it comes to the mix that too little focus was put on the chorus.

But I also think that the production itself needs some re-approaching, especially in regards to tension and release, so dynamically it lacks, but also the mix and quality of the sound sources are a bit dull. I think the issue is that you need more from less, not that you should simplify the production, but I would say re-approach your choice of sound sources and their quality, add a bit more harmonic high quality sound sources and a bit less noisy lo quality drums, you see what I mean, just get some more hot sounds and riffs in there to make it more hot and epic on the dance floor, that I miss. To my ears it currently fits an old dance floor not a modern one.

I dont think you did any major mistakes with this, sometimes it does not work and it is due to many many small issues that are combining.

Again, and I have said this many times in my last few posts, but I do think it can be very effective, learn to make great tasting food. Try some high end mexican cooking see what that does. As I said nothing major, just sometimes the creativity and elegance is not there and so what, now with this and some fresh ears, make this production rock, you can do it!!

One more thing. Your audio interface could be a lot better, sounds jittery/muffled, sounds like an RME Fireface or similar, probably combined with some unbalanced acoustics.
 
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DarkRed said:
The recording is not ready for mixing. I was not attached like you desired me to be of course, my gut feeling is that the production became a bit too fast forward, meaning that you did maybe a bit too much too quickly and some things you should have done you did not do. I think a normal listener would just say, it is OK I guess without adding that much additional comments about it, so listen to me instead of them, that will give you some better insights into it.

What I felt about this mix was that I was not emotionally and energetically drawn into any particular part of it. This I think does not happen as easily when you put more focus into the chorus. So I think that is one issue when it comes to the mix that too little focus was put on the chorus.

But I also think that the production itself needs some re-approaching, especially in regards to tension and release, so dynamically it lacks, but also the mix and quality of the sound sources are a bit dull. I think the issue is that you need more from less, not that you should simplify the production, but I would say re-approach your choice of sound sources and their quality, add a bit more harmonic high quality sound sources and a bit less noisy lo quality drums, you see what I mean, just get some more hot sounds and riffs in there to make it more hot and epic on the dance floor, that I miss. To my ears it currently fits an old dance floor not a modern one.

I dont think you did any major mistakes with this, sometimes it does not work and it is due to many many small issues that are combining.

Again, and I have said this many times in my last few posts, but I do think it can be very effective, learn to make great tasting food. Try some high end mexican cooking see what that does. As I said nothing major, just sometimes the creativity and elegance is not there and so what, now with this and some fresh ears, make this production rock, you can do it!!

One more thing. Your audio interface could be a lot better, sounds jittery/muffled, sounds like an RME Fireface or something similar...
Click to expand...

thanks a lot for the long respond, I deff understand what you mean with the lo fi drums, but I couldnt find anything else, its from an brazilian pack I bought. I wanted to make it in the style of their music which I really like lately, its called trabalho. I will look into the sounds I used and maybe make it a little bit simpler instead of all these things I added.

btw the song I used as inspiration and mix comparison is this one from one of my favourite producers:

I think his mix isnt perfect either, but it somehow gives me this epic analog feeling.

What did he do what I didnt do? I cant figure it out myself.
 
Ferdows said:
thanks a lot for the long respond, I deff understand what you mean with the lo fi drums, but I couldnt find anything else, its from an brazilian pack I bought. I wanted to make it in the style of their music which I really like lately, its called trabalho. I will look into the sounds I used and maybe make it a little bit simpler instead of all these things I added.

btw the song I used as inspiration and mix comparison is this one from one of my favourite producers:

I think his mix isnt perfect either, but it somehow gives me this epic analog feeling.

What did he do what I didnt do? I cant figure it out myself.
Click to expand...

I would say he left a bit more air overall, focused a bit more on tension and release, but with the air and atmosphere it becomes slightly more moody, almost dreamy, hence relaxing too. The mix itself is also more resonant, he has better signal. On top of this there are some pretty catchy riffs also his comp side chaining improves the dynamics a bit too, the combination seems to sound pretty classy and a bit sexy, therefore people like it.

I think his state of being compared to yours might have been different, also his focus and style of building it. Maybe he was relaxing a bit more, maybe you were stressed about something or was not in the same quality of mood, sometimes things like that can impact too. It is hard to say, maybe he was not totally sober when creating the song, that is a possibility too. Small things like this can have a pretty big impact on the end result.

Try this: Go out in the dark late at night. Have a drink and listen to that song you are referencing against with headphones while doing late night walk. Try to get into the mood of the song, while breathing in fresh air. Try to connect to that dreamy relaxing state of being, then do a mixing session in that state of being. Now you might go: no not that I dont like that, this is better, love this... Sometimes great mixes come from a beautifully creative and jazzy state of being, with jazzy I mean that you are very free but also elegant in your creative moves.
 
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DarkRed said:
I would say he left a bit more air overall, focused a bit more on tension and release, but with the air and atmosphere it becomes slightly more moody, almost dreamy, hence relaxing too. The mix itself is also more resonant, he has better signal. On top of this there are some pretty catchy riffs also his comp side chaining improves the dynamics a bit too, the combination seems to sound pretty classy and a bit sexy, therefore people like it.

I think his state of being compared to yours might have been different, also his focus and style of building it. Maybe he was relaxing a bit more, maybe you were stressed about something or was not in the same quality of mood, sometimes things like that can impact too. It is hard to say, maybe he was not totally sober when creating the song, that is a possibility too. Small things like this can have a pretty big impact on the end result.

Try this: Go out in the dark late at night. Have a drink and listen to that song you are referencing against with headphones while doing late night walk. Try to get into the mood of the song, while breathing in fresh air. Try to connect to that dreamy relaxing state of being, then do a mixing session in that state of being. Now you might go: no not that I dont like that, this is better, love this... Sometimes great mixes come from a beautifully creative and jazzy state of being, with jazzy I mean that you are very free but also elegant in your creative moves.
Click to expand...

He men, really appreciate these responds! thanks a bunch. Never looked at mixing this way. I just mix when I have the time. I will try to give my mix more life and have some tension and release as well !
 
Ferdows said:
He men, really appreciate these responds! thanks a bunch. Never looked at mixing this way. I just mix when I have the time. I will try to give my mix more life and have some tension and release as well !
Click to expand...

Cool man, I hope I was not too harsh, want to help bring the absolute best from you.

In regards to warmth, try lo pass filtering around 200 Hz and 4 kHz. In regards to resonance try a high voltage analog brickwall peak limiter (alternatively clip the mix at 256 times oversampling) with the mix attacks bypassed. Do not dither if you cannot bypass it through an external route. Leave the last ceiling at -0.6 dB.
 
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