Would love to get some feedback on my latest track. Any mix, mastering, production advice etc. greatly appreciated!

 

Any takers ?

 

I do not think I would call this house music, per se; but it does have many of the hallmarks of a house track.

You have a big part in the midrange-ish of this track, that I can't get past. It is midrange sound that is very prominent through the mix, and it is abrasive and eating up a bunch of the room in the track. You could change it with processing; but I would be tempted to hit mute on it and go a different direction. Then put it back if I still wanted it there. It is overbearing, imo.

 

There is an effect that starts getting turned up around 1:10. It's hard, harsh and drones. Easily the worst part of this track. Most of the other instruments have a cleaner airy quality to them so use something that goes with that.

I liked the some of the stuff going on in the background during the second half.

 

I agree about the genre mix up. I find it hard to target a specific genre - my main influences being trentemoller, Trent reznor, Claude vonstroke (dirtybird sound in general) , and gui boratto. I realize this lends itself to a “darker” side of the edm/dance/house sound. As far as the midrange I do agree with you and worked a lot on trying to tame it.

I’ve never used references in any process of the production and/or mix/master phase (no pun intended…) of the track.

When it comes to the mid range issues, what would be some potential solutions to this? Is this a mastering issue that I’m missing or is it just frequency balancing in general all the way through? I realize when listening to a Claude track everything sounds so perfectly “separated” from each other. For example, amazing low end, crisp hats, and just beautiful modulation all through out that carries the track to infinite and beyond.

I’m going to start using references for both arrangement and mix/masters to help with breakdown/drops and of course levels in the mix etc.

As far as mastering I have no idea what I’m doing (pretty much same thing with mixes too). I just turn knobs and say a prayer. I usually go with ozone and just run the AI on it however on this mix/master I basically used some basic EQ and compression into gullfoss master then into god particle (minus the limiter portion) then ran that into Ik multimedia tape then finally bx_masterdesk to for all the limiting and some final EQ/compression. I’m assuming this is a retarded way to do it, so any insight would be epic!

A lot of my sound and production is just turning knobs and saying a prayer, so any insight is greatly appreciated!

Thank you clone for your time and ears. I hope to hear more feedback from you and anyone else that is inclined to do so.

cheers!

 

Exactly this. I noticed someone mention one time that it can be braver to take something out, than putting something else in that covers it up. Or words to that effect. Unless I setup something elaborate outside of the box, I have no qualms deleting anything wholesale. Or doing the old Mute and Hide.

 

Worn sales - thanks for the input. I think what you’re hearing is a duplicate of the main melody that I fudged with and try to gradually increase the volume of said duplicated melody track that had some extra sauce from plug-ins like Rift and/or output thermal. I found some of these parts specifically to be the most challenging to both mix and make sure to get a consisted level. I’m also thinking this is causing some of midrange issues aforementioned by clone etc.

thank you for your time and ears! Cheers

 

I agree with both of you on this - I don’t think I mixed the “duplicated crazy fx melody tracks” correctly and it causes a lot of these issues. Maybe it’s a sidechaining thing? Or like clone has mentioned - less is more…

appreciate all the feedback.

Thanks to both of you !

 

One last thing is - on the main melody itself I have a 16 bar LFO gradually increases in an upward saw motion that increases the spread and detune of the voices in Serum. Also, I believe the same LFO is affecting the mix of both a flanger and chorus (increasingly adding the intensity/mix of the FX + detune/spread). I think this was one of the issues I was running into where I was trying to make this super sinister evolving lead sound and possibly started turning one knob too many.

and then on top of the 16 bar LFO gradually adding all the FX and detune/spread I was also layering the aforementioned duplicated rift/thermal tracks.

I have a feeling a lot of the midrange issues stem from these over zealous production moves.