Need some fresh ears for advice - Mix critique!

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Rozzy80

New member
Hey everyone --

I'm currently mixing a project for a local artist, it's sort of ambient type hip hop.

Let's just say the sessions given to me weren't of the greatest quality compared to what I'm usually given, but I've done my best as to what has been given to me and I'm really trying to help the guy out as he kind of got the short end of the stick from his previous mixing engineer.

This is what I have so far on one of the tracks, and I was wondering if I could get some fresh ears for what more tweaks may be needed?

This hasn't been mastered yet so it's not as loud as the final version will be.

I didn't produce the track, so please just mixing advice, not what the composition needs because unfortunately I can't add anything! Haha..

Thanks so much!
 

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Rozzy80 said:
Hey everyone --

I'm currently mixing a project for a local artist, it's sort of ambient type hip hop.

Let's just say the sessions given to me weren't of the greatest quality compared to what I'm usually given, but I've done my best as to what has been given to me and I'm really trying to help the guy out as he kind of got the short end of the stick from his previous mixing engineer.

This is what I have so far on one of the tracks, and I was wondering if I could get some fresh ears for what more tweaks may be needed?

This hasn't been mastered yet so it's not as loud as the final version will be.

I didn't produce the track, so please just mixing advice, not what the composition needs because unfortunately I can't add anything! Haha..

Thanks so much!
Click to expand...

I just had a listen. This version will not pop, but it can pop, you are very very close to something great here. There are certain creative aspects about the production that are really sweet and very professional. There are a few things you need to do before this could pop in the mainstream world of music. The rapping words/phrases are a bit on the complex/deep side, it adds some density to the song as a whole which makes it a bit hard melted. Try to simplify it somewhat and make a few more repetitions around some great phrases instead, there are lots to choose from. The dirty language is a bit distracting, try to remove some of those most aggressive words, because it takes away some of the cool that is in the production, no need to try to convince like that, put the listener on the artist's side much more clearly instead of singing in the mood "here I come, I don't care who you are". So that is definitely going to make this rap pop, it is very good rapping though!

The kick and bass are awesome, this is exactly what this kind of production needs. The density is very good, but it could have more balls overall. Lower the vocals a bit, raise the karaoke and in mastering limit it with a rather fast attack so that it pushes the groove a bit more. The low end push is not there, be careful not to over do this though.

The whole high end is a bit sharp, mostly the hi-hat, this is your main issue, it is not so bad but when it is limited it is going to be an issue. I think you should at least lower the hi-hat in volume, but be careful not to do it so that the groove is damaged too much. The vocals at 02:40 are awesome, it's really great that you decided to make such a dramatic shift here, it's awesome, it really works! What you should do when this happens though is to also size up stuff in the karaoke, make the drums much louder here so that the whole production really starts to kick ass.

If you do these things and you get very good hardware based mastering on this production, then you'll going to have a very good hip hop production ready! I am very curious about how the final master is going to sound.

Great work bro!
 
Your vocal sounds band passed. The kick sounds too loud in comparison to the vocal. (I know you said you didn't produce the track but if you had contact with the producer you could mention this.) I could use more low end in the bass especially since it doesn't have much stage time in the track. Maybe in the beat give it a bump in the 60 Hz range by like 2 dB. I'll give the vocals 1 dB of boost and maybe look at raising some presence with a low Q around. You have a really good vocal tone it just needs that last bit of presence. The stereo vocals is more what the lead should sound look to me. I would switch the tones of the stereo vocals with the lead. You might get a little creative and add either some distortion or saturation to the stereo vocals to enhance the aggressiveness of his performance. Too me it sounds TOO clean for this track. The s,t,plosive transients on his vocal are very comfortable. In other words this track is like 80% there. Releasable to the mastering engineer? I would say so but If you're going further with it it just needs that last push.
 
To me it does sound like the kick is too much. If the vocals didnt sound like he was reading them, instead of actually putting emotion in the words, then the kick probably wouldnt stand out so much. If it was me, i would do some eq work and lower the kick and bring some more of the bass out. If you got the track as one file then that will almost destroy everything else. If you got the tracks separate (vocal files and instrumental), then the corrections would be much easier. It almost, to me, sounds like a few eq changes and maybe an adaptive noise reduction and the track should be there. Even though I have studio monitors on this computer, my studio computer and speakers are in an acoustic sound area. Listening to the track in the area I am in, it is hard for me to give you a list of things that I would do.
 
Thanks for all the suggestions! I've already started to utilize them and its bringing it that much closer. Like I said, I've been limited in my choices as the recording was pretty subpar to begin with and I wasn't part of the recording or production process.. but it's getting there (or as close as it's going to get).

Thanks so much again for taking the time to listen and respond and I'll post the mastered version when it's completed.
 
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