Hi all, I've just uploaded an amended version. It's quite different but I've tried to work on some of the aspects you guys have touched on.

It's a long way from finished and I still have a long way to go with the mixing and clean-up side of things, but I was able to hash out a few extra ideas and get a some better transitions working...maybe...

The end drop needs work but hopefully you can hear what I'm trying to achieve there.

Cheers!

 

It's a lot better, got real potential, think in 16, 32 and 64 bar sections, not 8, you are confusing a single with a club mix.

Effects are ok, no processing needed though, when finished send raw stems to a pro mix engineer then Pete Maher will master it for £30.

Eurosolution would probably go for it, they don't take anybody.

good job, good luck

 

That's really helpful and thanks for the kind words. I like your thinking regarding breaking things down into 16 and 32 sections.

 

Hi guys, I've been working my ass off to try and learn mixing and limiting, here's what i've been able to come up with:

I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on it, I think it sounds a bit tidier to me now. Hopefully the final drop stands out a bit more and is more emotive. I think if you listen to previous versions, the piano was a bit masked out.

Cheers!

 

You're bringing too much in, too early, a single needs to be 2.30 2.45

at 3.45 this is a club mix, 16 bars not 8, even for a single you're shoving all your best bits in at intro, stretch it out, wiv dance, drums are as important as the music, need to look at them too, they act in unison

 

thanks! When you say no processing needed, what do you mean?

 

Processors are EQ, Limiter, Compressor etc, stuff that shapes/sculpts the sound.

Effects are Delay, Flange, Chorus etc, stuff that effects or changes the sound.

Up to you, but you will never produce a mix anywhere near the quality a pro engineer can and you can't master without full range speakers and a treated room. Oliver, the boss of Ghost Town Studios hackney can mix to a high standard, cheap as chips, great musician, then get that mastered.

You can make a great sounding mix with just the raw unprocessed tracks, that's wot i give to my engineer that's all he needs to hear my take on it, level wise, that's it.

Leave master fader where it is, pull down the fader on the first track about half way or less, start adding tracks pull down that fader 'til its level matched, do that for all other tracks, just worry about the levels nowt else. That's all I do, as i write, then the mix is as good as sorted when track is finished, then just send stems to my engineer.

I mix as i write cos i need to see the picturte i'm painting, it's just a simple matter of swiftly levelling the track you just added then move on cos i'll also change/balance some already set levels as I progress.

People who timidly claim they are a producer or a creative, are usually no such thing, as you need to write before you can produce und as for creating, well, some folk create good meals, others could create excellent lies, others could create mayhem etc, so we are all instinctively creative, no big deal eh.

 

Everything that changes audio is a processor. EQ, compressor, reverb, delay—it’s all the same category. Calling half of them ‘processors’ and the other half ‘effects’ is just advertising jargon for people who never opened a signal flow diagram.

And trolls.

 

it took me 10 years from when I started making music for my ears to pop open and be able to start hearing the things I needed to in order to make solid mixes or masters, make sure you have full range very flat speakers, compare your mixes to other songs you absolutely love, listen on shitty speakers to make sure there isn't too much mid or mid-lower or having a level way off, most of writing is very subjective, so don't let anybody tell you your song is written or arranged wrong, there are some basic formulas that many use but it's not a law. Mixing and mastering is far more obejective...if something sounds horrible through a PA stack, most everybody will agree it's horrible. Happy mistakes happen when you fuck up though...detroit techno came to be what it is because the only vinyl mastering guy in the Detroit area was an RnB guy, so he mixed the techno the way he would mix RnB, really hard and heavy handed on the low end...made all the difference on the dance floor!

Something else you can try is just exporting all the stems and asking somebody else to mix it for you, won't do any harm, it will likely speed up your learning based on hearing how somebody else's ears think it should sound....and don't master your own music until you're able to successfully master other people's music to perfection first, you'll only be hurting your music.

as for the final song, I'm not as nitpicky, some levels are off yes, maybe a weird timing bit or two but it's not bad, assuming you like prog house which I guess it is. I've never heard so many vocals in real house music tbh...and I have to admit the very first section of the song DOES sound like Technotronic, which isn't bad they got a slamming beat, but you know...each to their own