HI! I've just finished the Mixing stage of this track. It has taken me a couple of days to get it right (or so I thought), so it's nothing 'Pro' really. I would love to hear some feedback, if you could analyze it with detail I'll highly appreciate it. Thank You! (PS: It's not mastered yet)

 

00:00 Intro
01:00 Drop [40 seconds of "dance"]
01:40 Breakdown [1 minute and 20 seconds!]
03:00 Drop [45 seconds of "dance"]
03:45 Outro [one minute]

So we have a 4:41 song, with beatless intro which will drive any DJ mad, then 1 minute outro which usually will be the point the DJ fades out the song. As outlined above, 1 minute and a half of actual beats, this is kind of a bummer for the dance floor and also the radios don't like songs with huge breakdowns. So structure is very unfortunate.

On the other hand, there is no difference between the dance drops, the second one always have to be slightly different (additional counter melody, new instruments or ride cymbals etc.)

For the future, if you want to see how your song stands against the market, make a mini DJ mix of 4 similar songs from established producers, with your song the 3rd in the mix and listen the flow of the mix and you'll notice immediately if it's up there with the pro's or not.

Copy the structure of other songs for a while bar by bar (that track has 8 bars of beats, your is the same; that track has half a bar of kickless, yours the same). Watch the energy distribution (how the first part of the song is not releasing the entire "arsenal") and the tensions and microtensions (fills, reverse fx, transitions). And the most important: play every instrument in your song. Play the song, select the synth track, map controls to midi controller and slightly change filters or add some delays or reverb in certain spots. Then play the song once again and vary the hihats from time to time. Think as a drummer: when it hits a crash, there's just one hand left either for snare either for hats but not for both (so you must cut something during a crash). Then play and remove the kick at certain points, then the bass, the samplers. Make it as you have a band and you're one by one each player. Key word here is play. Don't "program".

Good luck!

 

Maybe it's my ears playing tricks but where is the bass? All I heard was a kick.

For me the track was so lacking a consistent beat that you certainly couldn't dance to it, most of it was just empty. I think you need to totally restructure it if you intended to make a dance track.

 

Yeah something is missing and for me it is the bass too. Add a groove to it and its a nice track.

 

Who do you think was the first person proposed this worthless structure?

 

need bass and more hihats or shakers, chords would help too. the "mix" is ok

 

I guess it was Helvetica because that was a breakdown of their song structure not an example of how a song should be made.

 

These tips seem to be really useful indeed, I tried to rely on the structure of this track (it may sound similar in general) :



Then I made something like this (before even start making my track) for organization purposes:



I didn't really worked on that project, but instead decided to work on another 'on my own', so maybe that's why my track turned out to be disorganized.

The break (I know, it's too long by itself) was 'inspired' on the intro of this other track :

Summing it up, thank you for your critical listening, I'm happy that I'm able to recognize my mistakes.
Cheers!

 

Boring. no spirit, no soul, no balls.

 

There is already really useful info that you got from jayxflash. Read also the comments that are more like "reactions" to your work.. those can reveal a lot about how people perceive the music instantly. I see you listen to selected and similar. But if we take as a reference a nice DEVI rmx - that is 80-85 % danceable whereas yours is ~50 % if we take similar criteria.

The other example indeed doesn't have a real kick in the intro, but it has a deep short note stab (emphasized by upper synth) that comes in counterpoint with the clap. And this interplay between low-freq stab / high-freq clap sounds almost like there was a "bass-drum".

One last think would be about "where is the bass?" comments. Well, there is none (unless my monitors are a wreck..). If you want to produce deep house (label it like that and ppl - before listening! - expect something will punch their guts), you will have to learn a lot about the most important element in it. I see you like the +5th/7semi ol' Plastic Dreams like bass that can come up pretty high, for just 2 notes tho, if you listen to DEVI remix. Make it with FM for today's production. Maybe this was deceiving.. the problem is that that is not the whole bass package. Usually you will additionally have the mid-lo and the super important sub layer. There are lots of tutorials on how to make different deep house bass sounds and there is a lot to learn because you are playing in that tricky area (esp with the kick) where a good monitoring plays a big part.

Listened again to your music now. I think there are interesting elements that get lost for the reasons above. And work on that bass.. Deep House is one of those genres that doesn't even have to be labeled as such (there is some history to read about it too ;)).
Good luck and keep working - you will just get better!

 

Foster my friend, don't take this the wrong way but when it comes to 'worthless structures,' you are royalty! (But you do have the best Avatar on here!)

I've tried to block out other people's comments before listening to the track, but it's not easy, they are all spot on. That isn't to say if you adjusted the levels, go back and EQ properly before the mixdown stage, AND alter the structure, that you wouldn't have something there. I think you might just need to use more imagination, because as Matt says, you do have some of the key elements there!

One last thing. I think you used the wrong track to base yours on, perhaps listen a a few others before choosing!

 

Last edited: Jul 22, 2017

Alright guys, I fixed a couple of things in my track. I'll post the new edit so you can have a listen!



Thanks for the tips you've given me, and let's see if it has improved!

 

don't get me wrong, but this is the first decent bit of feedback I've read from someone in the dance scene in a long time. Most of the time, it's about nothing that has got anything to do with actual songwriting or any other elements that really matter: this is a very positive exception. Of course there's a thin line between being creative and being a creathief in any style of music, I find that EDM has a lot of the latter kind walking around. Wanna-be's that don't want to bother getting into playing an instrument, decent music production, songwriting and so on. Spend 10,000 hrs. trying and don't cut any corners, just do it and use your senses. If you are gifted, the talent will emerge soon enough but first of all, you put in your best before something will give. Listen to this guy (@Jaxyflash) because he seems to know his stuff.

 

Helvetica this is a warning:
Do NOT deviate from the 1998 Detroit Accords Treaty. I repeat, do not deviate from the 1998 Detroit Accords Treaty. Deviating from it will cause an international diplomatic crisis. Please govern yourself accordingly.

 

I think you did a good job esp in such a short time. The bass in the first version was really anemic and some "bridge" elements were just dragged for too long.. Now this has become a presentable piece (atm I don't have a good monitoring env. and I'd have to download the material to listen to it at the same level, you know - louder is not better). Last "observation" I will give: the "main" bass you chose has quite some release (or decay), on top of that there is probably some reverb on all musical elements, which adds to that. Maybe you could experiment with tightening some(!) of these. From now on this is your creative process, and nobody should dictate what exactly you should do. Learn and forget, when it comes to creativity. Also decide, if you want to spend any more time with this one or move to the next.

Maybe somebody could comment on the mix. I don't feel like I have enough knowledge in that field. And I am one of those who think that mixing should be done by second and mastering by a third person. Don't get me wrong here, though - you should know as much as possible about mixing/mastering. That way you can produce presentable material and also decide which is your "top hit" ;) that deserves special treatment.

 

Bait Bomb!

 

Thank you for this answer, it's really helpful, and a plus when it comes to learning to improve as a producer. I think I'll leave this track as how it is in the second edit, my main focus right now is finishing tracks, and moving to another project; improving. These are my first months as a producer, I know there's a lot to learn, but skills comes with experience. I'll try to get into different genres, as it would be a benefit for my workflow in general, maybe I'll figure it out how certain things are made in X genre, which will come handy in an specific idea that I could be trying to express in my DAW.
Cheers!

 

I think you have done a great job considering that you just ventured into producing music. We can all say this and that but the real test when dealing with dance music is how the crowd will react. I took the liberty of asking a DJ friend at The Wall Lounge inside the W Hotel in South Beach to play your song in one of his sets on Saturday to gauge the crowd reaction and it was nothing but positive with even a couple of people asking who it was. It shows you are on the right track. Congratulations!

PS I callout to all club DJ's from this site to start playing during your sets material uploaded by other members AND give a feedback to the artist or producer. Just like we did during the 70's and 80's in the Record Pools.

 

LOL! What's the right way to put this?