Hi guys,

So I'm quite new to producing - i've only been chipping away at it for the last few months.

I'm close to completing this track but I know its not quite there yet. Problem is, I've kind of hit a wall with it and I've worked on it for so many hours now that I can't help myself think it's really terrible. That said, I felt like there was a good idea in there somewhere when it started taking off a little, in the earlier stages of me working on it.

I'd be grateful for anyone's feedback on the mixing, the structure and any areas where you guys think it could be improved.

I'm also happy to send around the project file but i know it's pretty shit and it's unlikely for anyone to care that much.

Anyway, I'm grateful for this community and hope to hear any of your thoughts good or bad, so that I can continue to improve.

EDIT: 6/5/25 - I have made some changes to the track taking in all of your awesome feedback! Thank you. Let me know what you think.
Before


After



Thank you all in advance.

 

Last edited: Jun 6, 2025 at 10:44 PM

You are mixing at an ok level if you want to work at -12dB or -18dB. But you should make yourself a little pseudo-loudness chain to stick on your master bus which can give you an idea of what this will actually sound like when you bring it up to your final levels. You can bounce a copy, take some notes about what you want to change if anything and so on. You can render something at this level when you send it to someone for mixing, mastering or whatever; so they have room to work. For Soundcloud or even just the purpose of your post here, you want to bring it up to something close to your full final volume. You will get more feedback, and maybe more accurate feedback too.

 

I didn't know this, so that's awesome feedback. i'll make sure its much louder for next time. Thanks for the dm too! Legend.

 

Thank you for your response earlier, any chance you can re-share it, I was in a rush to get to work and I remember thinking it was really solid advice and was looking forward to re-reading but it seems you'd deleted it?

Anyway, thanks a lot for commenting and listening in the first place. Means a lot.

 

My feedback concerns both your mix and your arrangement since they are closely linked.

Your main vocal sample sounds a little harsh, like It's low resolution, so not something that could be changed with EQ.(could be Soundcloud's compression). If that's deliberate It's not necessarily a problem, but my first impression Is that It doesn't sit too well with the rest of your sounds.

At the very beginning try making your fade-ins a bit slower and gentler, I feel they are to sudden/fast and rob some of the impact they could have. Your hi-hats seem a little bright to me, but that could just be my taste.

Your synth sounds seem just a tad mid-range heavy. At 0:50 try doing a gentle cut in your synth lead at around 450Hz. -1.5 dB or so could help It sit better during the drop and help the depth perception of your track.

At 1:06 your vocal sample enters in the "and" of the downbeat (the second eight note of the measure). I don't know If that's deliberate, but It kinda threw me off specially since the groove of the track is firmly on the grid.

Then at 1:22 the transition Is a little awkward between bass/no bass and your vocal sample. In general your delay seems to have a set number of repeats that don't fall off too evenly and suddenly stop.

Starting from 2:40 the whole section sounds a little too thin and empty. I understand It works as a "palette cleanser" of sorts, but I'm missing a little something to create some subtle interest.

Aside from that, your track is decent and has some legitimate good ideas. I really like the mid section starting from 1:36, I started to unconsciously bob my head lol. Keep going, I listened to your Californication remix a few days back and you seem to be improving.

Hope this helps you.

 

This is exactly what good feedback looks like to me. Each point needs to be taken into consideration with the DAW open or just even a wav copy of the track. Maybe every point is perfectly on point, or not; but it is at least obvious the writer listened to the track.

 

Last edited: Jun 4, 2025 at 1:52 AM

There's no such thing as a producer, that was back in the day.

I'm a writer producer, you need to write something before you can produce it, all the plugs in da world could not salvage this cos there's nowt there.

You can write a great track using just samples, two free packs on my site, get a drum loop, drop it on bar 8 of 16 bar riff, find a bass loop.

Copy one drum loop on another track, cut the kick drum out of that loop, and put that single kick on every quater note starting at 5 bars then drop it at 8 bars, then start your track wiv, da bass, continue to add & delete parts while extending the track to appropriate length.

Basically, jus copy und paste the arrangement, nothing could be simpler eh?

Before you can produce any work of quality, you need to be able to hear that quality in others work.

You need to learn to walk before you can run, you're barely crawling at da mo'.

 

You have a good imagination but need to learn gainstaging look it up. Try to mix kick at -6 DB and bass -6-12DB and then adjust the other sounds around that level, learn how to EQ, try cutting bass at 30-35hz and a shelve at 55hz where the kick is, and some light sidechaining to the bass,

You have a track here with changes and vocals, even the sound choices are good. So you need to become a better mixer at this point imo.

Now mixing comes naturally anyway, there is a lot of miss information so i recommend you to learn from what you think sounds good, there is a lot of unknown tutorial guys that is x10 better than guys with 200k followers so you need to find what appeals to you.

The track is divided nicely but arrangement can be improved, like creating anticipation with risers and snare rolls or just a bit of tempo "pump"
then into the chorus.

Anyways the mixing and gainstaging is most important for you at this stage, try to use saturation on tracks instead of compression, DO NOT use compressors on tracks, this is the biggest miss conception online today. EDM uses saturation, rock n roll uses compression and saturation,

Compression is done on the mixbuss controlling the dynamics.

Good luck and keep going.

Johnny

 

When the first file uploaded was at exactly -12dB or -18dB, it's quite obvious the poster already knows what gain staging is. You are already running your mixing session at that levels to leave headroom, and also to feed -18dB RMS to the input side of any analog style emulation plugins you may want to use. If you are gainstaging to -18dB, there is no reason for your kick to be at -6DB or it's all you will hear. All that can wait until you bring the track to final target volume.

The best time to use compression, is when a channel needs it. Not when it doesn't, and never too much of it.
When you should not compress channels like this, is when all the samples you have loaded have compression and other pre-processing done to them already. If you are triggering all samplers and virtual instruments, and using note velocity values and also track volume automations; some buses only need compression for glue. When you say something like "sidechain" you shuld actually specify what kind of processor you are sidechaining. Otherwise, someone will likely stick a compressor there, instead of an enveloper plugin like Duck or Kickstart etc.

What you are describing is called "cookie cutter mixing". Watch the Daniel Wyatt Logic video from about 2016 or something.
It contains some good information, even now for intermediate level mixing EDM. But he does use Fabfilter Pro-C2 all over the place, and also Pro-MB, again; where it is needed. Not just somewhere he wants to stick it. Since he is now hawking Sonnox plugins instead of Soundtoys and Fabfilter, it is a bit out of date. Like when he says peg the kick to exactly -6db.

You can add saturation wherever it is needed too, but if you are also wanting to avoid compression and still avoid overshoot on channels and buses; many EDM mixers today are even passing on the saturation processors by themselves; because they are going to use a clipper. If someone is mixing for pure competitive loudness, many incorporate portions of or just use the entire CTZ (Clip To Zero) strategy from documents written by Baphometrix. https://docs.google.com/document/d/...pps3rXewPM/edit?tab=t.0#heading=h.lwtkibvu0gr
and accompanying video about Kazrog Kclip 3 using the gain input and monitoring the delta to hear what is actually being clipped.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLxik-POfUXY6i_fP0f4qXNwdMxh3PXxJx

You will get minor variations on all the same suggestions no matter who you listen to, since they are all just repeating one anothers' youtube videos at this point.

 

Great feedback, thank you bro

 

I’m really grateful for your comments here. They have also been really helpful. I’ve been working on the track a little and look forward to posting an update soon for you guys to check out, having taken all these points into consideration.

It’s amazing having you guys to critique and offer your thoughts.

Hope you’re having a great day.

cheers

 

I 100% need to get good at writing and i’m definitely not trying trying…even if crawling!

You make a strong point re the plugins. I have definitely more plugins than you can poke a stick at, and I’m not really a master of any of them yet.

What I would say though, is that I find them amazing for inspiration. A certain delay or a phaser can really turn a track’s direction and can be very inspiring or interesting.

send me your website, id be interested to check it out.

thanks for listening and for the feedback

 

It was great, I really enjoyed it. More please.

 

Your motifs are creative aiming to vary the thematic concepts of your work.
As for production, unless all the instruments are recorded live or dry and without FX, these days most samples and loops already are pre-compressed, pre-saturated, pre-EQ'd and often, pre-limited. So there's not a lot of real production involved.
As for the engineering aspects for mixing it if this is where you are inquisitive, there are comments above about EQ and gain staging which are pretty correct.

Keep writing you are creative and like to mix it up. That's a great thing to have instead of boring monotony that goes nowhere, all at the same volume with the same repetitive ad nauseum triads and patterns that show a lack of imagination. You are not lacking in imagination. Musical dynamics (not engineering), with intensity and volume always generate enjoyment to many listeners too.
Linking of your themes better is the only place I could criticize if I was going to, but I'm not, I'd rather encourage you to keep at it.

 

Last edited: Jun 6, 2025 at 2:35 PM

Thanks so much for taking the time to listen. I definitely don’t yet have the technical knowledge regarding the mixing etc, but I just love music like nothing else and so I am going to make it happen.

I enjoy the process even if sometimes it feels like I’m going to go a bit crazy. Haha.


I think Johnny mentioning gain staging is a good place to start - particularly because I’m not using a reference track to compare the volume of different elements.

Do most of you guys start off using reference tracks?

 

Hi guys, I think a key element of this track is going to be that piano part at the end. I think it has a bit of a vibe that can be worked with.

To make it really stand out and bigger, how would you guys suggest I approach this? This was played by myself using Kontakt and I’ve added some reverb and a delay. I’ve tried doing some EQ sweeps in pro Q 4 to remove some of the whistling that I notice. It’s cleaned it up a little bit, but I’d like to sort-of thicken it up and make it more impactful.

If any of you guys have any suggestions on how to boost this, feel free to jump in.

cheers!

 

Thanks Wick, you’re too kind. More coming up!! Watch this space

 

It's generally the first thing you do, he's right There are some decent free tutorials on gain staging on YouTube. I have my own tried and true methods but it pays to watch a few and pick the process that works easiest for you, i.e. find someone doing a tutorial with the same DAW. Cheers

 

There is a decent Mixlab one from Luca Pretolisi on sister site. MyMixLab.Gain.Staging.TUTORiAL-DECiBEL.

Get Klanghelm VUMT from sister site, if you want a VU meter every one can agree is decent enough.

You have to get used to looking at your tracks in both pre-fader listen and post-fader listen so you are not clipping the signal before it even hits the input side of your channel strips. I have no idea why Ableton does not have a direcly copied from Logic version of this. You can find a simple enough workaround though. You need to make sure you are using input trim so you are not clipping before you can even see it. Also, try to get used to using Abletons Utility plugin instead of moving faders away from unity. You can data enter any adjustment more quickly, and still precisely as a numeric value, any time that option is available to you.

The levels you are hitting each plugin with in your entire session is not exactly rocket science. It's frequently a term that shows up, when what you really want to learn is gain structure.

Using monitors, I start with an iphone SPL meter. You can use a reference track for that little step if you want. You want the monitors output at 85 dB SPL. There are headphones workaround solutions for the same purpose. The closer to "the same" you start out makes a lot of things easier. Calibration is important, but it does not need to be a dictatorship thing. "Close enough" will work when you first start doing it. The reasons are numerous, but you just want to be able to trust what you are hearing. Most productions start with the DAW session, interface software, and monitors calibrated at 85dB, so you know your levels are not different from everything else you are hearing before you even start working on a mix.

 

Last edited: Jun 6, 2025 at 8:31 PM

Sounds like you are on a good footing.

You said you have not been dabbling for long, and with that in mind, this is a good start and base to build from.

Definitely check out the many PML (Production Music Live) Tutorials for tips from guys you are aspiring to emulate. Learn the technical as well as the musical, keep your passion and enjoyment high, follow the genres you love and spend time DEEPLY analysing what it is in those tracks that catches your groove and makes your head nod and your feet tap.

With some fleshing out, tweaking and work on arrangement, this is a cool early effort. Please remember me when you are jet-setting around the globe, DJing at all the big events, VIP tickets for me please!!!