jesus christ that was long and detailed but very informative im sure the guys here appreciate it , interesting mix bus comp choice

 

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Last edited: Apr 26, 2018

thanks for this lol

 

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Last edited by a moderator: May 23, 2018

AND THE WINNER IS.......................

The winner of 20 Sterlings + Very Rare Sample Pack + Detail Mix Breakdown + My personal step by step mix checklist + Free Professional Master of a track with 2 Recalls

It was a very close call
..... @Calvin Lanz

@Calvin Lanz

This was a well thought out, well mixed, well put together and well imagined, mixed with the additions of other elements that fitted in pretty well. I can tell you this track had me smiling the most most from start to finished . faccccckin lavvvvly son.


Strong Points - All the instruments sounded clean and well mixed I like how you rearranged some of the instruments in the track to be more impactful. I this you know everyone likes that synth you added its so damm groovy had me swaying from sided to side in between the bopping of my head. All of the sounds effects you added like the scream before the beat dropped was so fitting to the theme. I like the extension to the beat the end which finishes it off nicely. I like when the beat cuts out multiple time to allow the voice to stand out and lyrics to have more impact.

Low lights - i wish the stereo image was better and there was some more depth to the mix. I wish the voice was a bit more processed and had a bit more presence to stand out from the other instruments and well i also wish the kick drum was more punchy. I think the main improvement would be some eqing and balancing of frequencies in certain spots

Improvements - Just a better mix, I would actually love to mix the production that you created it would be a banger! fo SUREEEEEE

However at the end of the day you won and i think you additional production work edged it over @Introninja mix !

Thanks for participating and I really appreciate it , I may have to hit you up for some colabs ideas in the future.

Please can you share with use a brief summary of your process also you know when the beat switched up and the vocals " represent my city always yeah im form the south , london city is where im from ill shove it down you mouth" wtf did you do to the vocals it sounds evils and growly ! .....DO TELL!

Let me know 1 if you want your prizes and 2 how you want to receive them , inbox me the details.

Thanks

 

the mix seems nice don't get me wrong but maybe its just me? (ultra flat response playback system here)
but the vocals have a lot of sibilance (not too crazy though)
no offense meant or anything I just thought
beatmagnus
was of a very good caliber. just some food for thought take it or leave it .

 

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Last edited by a moderator: May 23, 2018

ADDITIONAL WINNERS


Most Effort
@Sylenth.Will.Fall

I think you probably put so much effort into this to switch up the whole track in such a short space of time AND make it work as an idea. This track could of actually been this winner if only it was executed better and better mixed lol . I know me saying that dont make sense bacuse you dint place in the top 3 but there other 3 tracks were just better mixed and put together. This is definitely the track i played the most lol so half of your you tube views are probably me . And it is the only one that actually got me out my chair and dancing ! so well done dude and thanks for participating !!! I love this track LOVE IT!

@Sylenth.Will.Fall

Most Creative
I felt like i had to create another winning slot just for this because the effort you put into this track with all your crasy panning was pretty dam good and creative ! Great arrangement work too and a freaking nice balanced sounding mix and i love that autopanning arp !So well done for this defo the most creative track of the bunch IMO
@junh1024
@junh1024

@junh1024 @Sylenth.Will.Fall you both win Good Effort Prize 5 STERLINGS + Shout out+ My personal step by step mix checklist Inbox me if you want it and for details on claiming


Honorable Mention

@gyerosaski
@gyerosaski

The lead at the end dude, the best sounding lead of eveyone what the heell did you do to it or is it and instrument you added

@Tod Slaughter
@Tod Slaughter

That snare in you track .... amnnn I love it Pretty darn nice, and the timing of the vocals changes the flow of the track I like it ... im not sure if you did that by design but it works in some ways.



To everyone else @Vampiretna @Spyfxmk2 @beatmagnus Big thankyou for participating!

 

Last edited: Apr 26, 2018

I guess this is for intro ninja to feed back on lol. sounds cool to me

 

Explain your monitoring set up ...

and i think you can see that i said the mix is not perfect the main issue was balancing while @beatmagnus had an interesting mix it was just not exactly what i envisioned with all due respects

 

@Calvin Lanz Is probably hanging out in the longer with the 1975 right now or writing older the kooks

 

Thanks everyone for their comments. I don't really have a detailed regime like introninja. Armed with mainly stock plugs (& some panning), I did some careful listening & adjustments as appropriate.

ED: MQ: might wanna wait till the weekend for people to get un-busy.

 

Last edited: Apr 28, 2018

Thanks for participating great job and i thin @Introninja talked about his mix approach in general not what he did specifically for this track i dont think. fair point

 

Congrats to the winners! Well deserved.
I too had a good (but short) time mixing this track
It would be nice if you let me know my mistakes, so that i could also learn something out of it.
I was going for a late 80's early 90's sound. I spotted too much reverb on the vocals and some timing issues in my reverse effects. What else?

 

YAAAY thanks man hey for sure I can work on any changes for the final mix, this is great! Kind of busy finishing up my final projects right now, but we'll make it work! Will drop a write up of what I did in a day or so. Thanks for the feedback will take it into consideration!

 

Last edited: Apr 28, 2018

Actually I have some time now, so here it is:

Vocals

12345 introducing some compression, boost a couple DB around 10k to get it brighter as it was quite muffled in the original state. Just in the beginning it is quite sibilance heavy, thats why I had it fade originally from a low pass to full clarity when the drums drop in, but the first lines lost a lot of impact when doing so, so I got rid of it. Will implement a De-esser along the chain to fix that. Very minimal drive. A bit of Axx compression. EQ -4dB at around 480. Dub delay automated to come in only in the last section, first just some words and towards the end the entire vocal with automated intensity.

To be honest I did no further processing to the “gritty vocal” in the middle you are talking about MasterQ, just how it turned out once I applied that processing. Also having the dub delay come in for that gives it a proper grimy feel and having the drums low passed also helps a lot. I feel like that section was a different take and he had a different position to the mic, so just from that it already sounded different to the rest! I also duplicated that part and pitched it down an octave and have it in the mix very quietly to add some extra thickness.

Drums

Drumkit:

12345 for presence and boost around 4200 is where it sounded good to me. Felt they where a bit lacking in punch so used the ableton drum buss to add some soft drive, tiny bit of transients, crunch and boom, while dampening it to around 3.5 kHz to calm some of that High Hat/Ride sizzle that is through out the drum loop. Fat scoop around 1700 to remove a lot of that snare as it was too overpowering. I wanted the other snare to be the main snare element so I had to make room for it to cut through nicely.


Beat Box:

Firstly noticed that that beatbox “snare” was way too late so corrected that. Compression to bring it all up, Transient shaper to bring up some of the attack and take out some of the sustain giving me more punchy beatboxing. A little boost around 8000. High resonance low cut at around 340 just where the BRRR hits to accentuate that and at the same time lower some of the “kick” frequencies. Seperated the chain into 2 to create a manual dry/wet, with containing no more processing from this point and the other containing an auto pan set to 3/16. have that in the mix at -7db lower than the dry and just gives the beat box a bit more stereo spread. Any more I found too distracting tho.


Snare:

Sounded good just some compression and eqed out 4.20dB at 830, boost at 223 and 4500 to bring out whats good and lower whats not.


Extra Snare:

Tiny compression. Low Cut to 446 and High cut to 2407. Very low in the mix.


Shackles:

Light compression, Low cut at 400, dip at 2407 and a little boost at the top.


Tamborine:

Very tight filtering 2400 - 5400, didnt like much of the top end but the groove was right. panned hard right.


Glok:

Low cut at 225, dip at 2950 with the right channel having a high cut around 7500 and the left channel having it high cut around 8500. The sound moves from left to right and I didnt want as much high end content on the right side, so I used different values for each. So know not only does it move from left to right but also from darker to brighter.


Live Hat:

Added this in because I didnt like the hat sample provided it was so piercing and small. Not processing, just a good sample.


Small hat:

Another smaller hat I added to add extra bounce.


Instruments/Sounds

Live Bass:

Compression. Boost around 400 to bring out more attack noise or what ever was around there. Will turn down the lows tho a bit like the one comment said, there was a little too much ;)


Filthy Bass:

Comp. Defo cut some of that bass frequency wanted it to be more mid to high end and not have much low substance. Saturn my boy for that sweet distortion. 10% 1/8 delay.


Kush Lead:

Comp. Low cut 250 and subtle high cut around 17000 didnt want it too sizzling more a bit distant, muffled sizzling if you get me. Stereo Imager to really push it behind your head and full send to reverb.


Synth:

Chopped it from a loop and placed it in the right positions where it had a nice bounce to it. Was like a reversed loop of some sorts, but just taking a little fragment and taking it out of context worked really well and gave it a new vibe. Some nice reverb added and it feels right at home in this beat. I'm really happy you like it, because I felt like it fit really well too!


Water:

Hard eqing of the low end just had it sit level wise where it was barely audible but still findable if you went hunting for it.


Extra Samples:
Just a bunch of cool sounds like animal growling and coyote howling and shit like that just to beef up the mix a bit. I knew what sounds I wanted in a broad context and then just let myself be inspired by what I had laying around. Explosion sound when he talks about wanting to blow up, gunshot sound when boys are packing tools, noting too crazy.


Mastering


Won’t dive into this too much because otherwise who’s going to pay me for my work lol but mainly just different EQs, MB compression, more eqs and finally a limiter which is barely touching the mix some times like -0.1 db reduction just to bring it up to -1.0db.


Addition notes

In the intro a lot of layers get faded in, mostly both the low and high cut have some sort of automation which comes to its end position when the drums come it.

And thats pretty much all! We can have a bit of a DM discussion @Master Q about how or what you want me to do to have a better stereo image and in what way you want the vocal to be further processed, because in that regard I was quite hesitant to try out anything too crazy and rather just have it be audible and have a good place in the mix. Hope there are not too many mistakes in this, if you have trouble understanding anything or want to know more let me know!

 

Hey Calvin congrats again this is a pretty nice breakdown of what you did no wonder you won !

 

Honestly your mix was pretty nice , i cant really you too much of a breakdown because that was one of the brizes maybe the other guys can chime in to hel you with that buttttttt form my point of view the timing of the instruments were all out of place so at that point everything else did not matter ever if sonically it might of sounded good.

 

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Last edited by a moderator: May 23, 2018

lol i want to do one me and @Introninja got aqn official score to settle