Hello folks,

i have to mix a reggae song for a project very very soon and i bet you for your help, because i love reggae but i have never done such a mix. Please could you give some hints in direction to accomplish the mix fast, effective, and accurate to the genre? What i know or suspect is:

1. Bass preponderancy (under 120Hz or 100Hz mono mixed)
2. Echo fx for voices, guitars, rimshots/sidesnare, caribbean percusion
3. Offbeat layer, guitars & keyboard (panning?)

That's it! T.I.A., cheers

 

IS it modern roots, oldschool sounding roots or dub-influenced? The sounds and techniques differ a bit.

"Always" mono basslines.

Effect-wise there is a lot of things you can do, in order to accomplish a good mix. If you want your hats to sound like some of the old dub masters' hats, you can run them through a spring reverb, send the signal to a phaser and then back to the spring reverb. Another trick is to send to hats to a flanger.

I think i would be able to give you more tips, if you define the specific style of reggae

 

Don't forget to take your smoke breaks at 4:20. Seriously, short reverb works well for all percussive sounds. Tight or timed delay on guitars with short verb. Mix leaving space. Often they will want a dub version, Simply cut the vocals in and out and overuse delays almost like adding more musical parts.

 

Last edited: Feb 4, 2016

thx @Rollins , the song is between oldschool and modern roots, i mean is modern but simple, not so full in arrangements, the voice predominate, have to retain the reggae elements in arrangements and mix.

 

recommend this great tutorial:

puremix.net/video/andrew-scheps-mixing-fly-rasta-in-the-box.html

it's on audioz too.

 

Could you post an example of another song, in the same style? I would love to help, but need to know a bit more about where you're going with the sound.

When you are mixing the keys playing the skank, cut the low and high freqs and give it a bit of distortion.

 

so like this mood..

 

i've recorded quite a few reggae tracks in the past, automated FX is a must.

 

Echo the most? Phase or Flanger at release?

 

delays and reverbs mainly, like small sections open the send up wide and close again

 

also, automatization for open and close fx (delays and reverb)? not wide open reverb all the time?

 

yeah for example automate your sends amount and in certain bits, say like one snare hit. have the send at like 100 when it might be at like 20 on the other hits.

try to give the mix a more high end presence it's easy to focus on the bass and although a big part of reggae is the bass playing.
its not the dominant sound.

 

this, stacked delays are the trick. also seriously reconsider the purpose of dotted quarter and triplet quarter notes overall and inside delays... inside delays you could also modulate between them...
that's just my 2 cents

 

super hints! thx all, i will report later when am advanced into the mix, while then advices are gladly welcome!

 

Kick and bass shld be at the same level