Hi all! This is a pastiche, rap-rock song I put together for a new album. Most of the album is finished and this track still feels lacking, but I don't know where to push it or what to emphasize. What do you think?

 

The biggest problem here is that there is way too much reverb on everything. Everything just becomes a jumbled mess without any definition when using this much reverb!

 

I'd say the drums need more balls, specially on the chorus. Besides level, some heavier compression and hard clipping on individual channels could help, sounds like you already did that to some extent, but it still meeds some more agression. If you're mastering it yourself, getting your limiter to distort a little bit could also help, but it could become messy unless you dial back the reverb a bit. Basically, it needs more violence, but clear violence.

The mids also need more work imo, but listening to your other tracks tells me it's probably not a good idea to meddle too much with that for now. Still, a little bit of cleaning wouldn't hurt, as Arabian_jesus said, there's too much reverb.

 

Yes, way too much reverb! What do you try to achieve by putting so much reverb on the signal? Do you want to recreate "live sound"?

If so I would use a completely different reverb sound with different settings. Try an impulse response of a large room or concert hall for a start, not some digital / algo reverb.

The drums sound horrible. Are they supposed to sound like "live drums" too or more like programmed drums out of a drum machine or sampler?

They are not very defined, not cutting through, they have no impact.

 

I mean the reverb thing yes, but damn there's like no dynamics with the drums, they sound flat as fuck. Work on them drums, bro. It's supposed to be rap, u gotta have banging drums.
Start from zero, the basics. U need kicks, get compression (slow attack, faster release) on the kicks to bring up the transients, try to hit -6 db, or 0 on a -18dbfs scale. Now layer snares, also bosting transients. Now your hats and such. Now with everything together, a basic 2:1 or even 4:1compression to get it to gel, and throw a limiter on there to get them to BANG. Boom, insta hot drums. u can try clipping and such afterward, but that's the simple recipe for basic banging drums.

 

Last edited: Feb 18, 2022

to my ears a lot of the levels arent what I hear them to be, things seem louder than they should and other things seem way softer than they should... drums seem real low db to me

 

? ive never done this but wouldnt that cause phasing issues? layering snares I feel like you would have one snare high passed, one snare low passed and the other bandpassed in order to not sound like phaser gun.... iv'e never heard of someone suggesting to layer kicks... for this very reason... weird idea ive never even thought about in my 10yr stretch of mixing/making

 

Can i have the wav unmastered version?

 

I'm not going to say this is a good song. maybe it is, I can barely tell. The mix has made sure it is not. Sounds like there are some ok musicians anyway.

The vocal would have more clarity if you used a bullhorn. It makes me feel underwater. I actually had to check my Interface control panel to make sure that it wasn't causing it.

bypass the reverbs completely and you will have much better luck fixing it. with it on there, you will be mostly guessing.

 

Sure. It was never mastered (and is far from peak gain) because I'm still mixing the track. Here is the link:

 

Hey man, I appreciate if you cut with the asshole attitude. No one asked whether it was "a good song". No one asked what you thought of the musicians. I asked what you would do with the track. You said bypass the reverb completely. Obviously that is not going to happen, nor should that happen. In the future, please try to be constructive.

Others have also mentioned dropping the reverb and that the drums need a more forward spot in the mix. I can understand what they're saying and I appreciate their feedback. I hope you can understand why I find your comment out of line compared to theirs.

 

Here we go, sometimes trying to master a song reveal's it's issues, i personally am a fan of transients, so i'd love to hear a more clicky kick, a snare with a bit of snappiness and body, there's a lot of atmosphere, which should be cleaned a bit more or dialed back a bit so other elements pop a bit, i tried fixing it as best i could, anyway enjoy.

 

Thanks! I'm currently remixing according to everyone's advice and I've been cleaning up the drums a lot and dropping the reverb.

For the reverb I dropped each reverb aux by 3 dB, but I'm having trouble getting the drums to sound right. At this point the track has gone through so many remixes that I've lost most of my perspective (which is why I'm here). To fix the drums I've basically just pumped the saturation and gain on my kicks and snares and used a transient shaper to sharpen the hits, but beyond that, I really don't know if I can make the drums into what you guys are suggesting.

Here is where the mix is at right now:

 

drop the stems and let us have a take at it

 

i suggest that you take a pause for a few days forget about the song completely, then once you do, open a note and write down whatever you don't like after you listen to it for the first time after those days...

 

I think I sorta grasp what you're after... I don't know that what you've done is necessarily that bad at all. For me it's beyond critique because I would philosophically come at it from such a different direction almost nothing would be the same sounds except the vocal samples. I would suggest at least finding a way to get low end into it, bass and kicks, guitar... It's a midrange-fest with no guts to me as it stands. But beyond that if you have a vision, stick to it.

 

I'd love to, but the session is a bit of a mess right now. It really is a pastiche project, with lots of automated effects. Even just to bounce the tracks separately would be confusing to anyone not familiar with it.

 

Thanks, this is how I felt reading the first few comments, that the vision just wasn't transferring. All the same, that's my fault as the producer, so tonight's mix pushed the drums (and bass) harder and dropped the reverb, but I also don't want to go too far away from what I already have because I've made that mistake before.

 

Very good song, at least 10000000000000 x more original than all the bullshit we hear nowadays even from emerging artists. The mix.... who cares I would say. This is just a big mess and I like it.

MrLyann did a good job at enhancing the sound quality, so to me it is possible to obtain a good result starting from your mixes.

The most important thing is that the song is original and unpleasant in a way. So keep it as "harsh" as possible, where not listening to a RnB or trap shit here. If some guys don't like it? Fuck them, right?

edit: I think you could achieve a better mix by trying different reverbs because I'm not a big fan of the one you chose (not the lenght or the type but the color of the reverb)

 

Last edited: Feb 18, 2022

Thanks! I have half a mind to just abandon it to my mastering engineer (who is very talented!).

And I agree, MrLyann's mastering was cool to hear.