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WeeklyBeats.com / Music / theGuen's music / Booze and cigarettes

Booze and cigarettes

By theGuen on August 19, 2016 4:28 pm

I started with the bassline, which I really like. Then the disaster began.
It was a hell to mix with that distortion. Also it's so dominant that i wasn't able to find a catching hook.

I don't know if I am happy with it or not...

critical comments are always welcome.

Have a nice week,
Gunnar

There's a lot of very interesting elements in this track, for sure. But it feels a bit much at a certain point. I think that you should have taken a bit more time to let the track develop, so that all the elements would flow together more organically. Now everything happens very fast. But again: I think all the elements for a great track are already here.
Not only the bassline is nice, btw, I like the echoed sax aswell, and the vocal. =-)

I really like this.  Great groove with the bass, drums, and sax, and a great atmosphere.   I think your mixing issues are coming from some kind of buildup in the low mids--can you put a spectrum analyzer on the master out and see where the peaks are?  I'd bet that you could fix it with filtering on each channel, probably a bunch of high-passes with different cutoffs, so that things aren't interfering with your lows.  Which DAW are you using?

dj someguy wrote:

There's a lot of very interesting elements in this track, for sure. But it feels a bit much at a certain point. I think that you should have taken a bit more time to let the track develop, so that all the elements would flow together more organically. Now everything happens very fast. But again: I think all the elements for a great track are already here.
Not only the bassline is nice, btw, I like the echoed sax aswell, and the vocal. =-)

Thanks a lot for listening and taking time!
I know what you mean and I think that's exactly what I like so much about your music. There should be a kind of steady progress. I will try it... i always getting bored of my own ideas very fast wink, I have to learn some patience and should take some breaks and maybe listening to other music.
Thanks again

onezero wrote:

I really like this.  Great groove with the bass, drums, and sax, and a great atmosphere.   I think your mixing issues are coming from some kind of buildup in the low mids--can you put a spectrum analyzer on the master out and see where the peaks are?  I'd bet that you could fix it with filtering on each channel, probably a bunch of high-passes with different cutoffs, so that things aren't interfering with your lows.  Which DAW are you using?

Thank's a lot for the tips. I use REAPER as my DAW.
I tried the spectrum analyzer meter but I am not really able to understand it. I have a 50Hz notch filter on the bass here which makes the sound better for my ears... but I did not see any difference in the spectrum analyzer.
I definitly will try the highpass filters on each channel.
cheers,
Gunnar

Yes, the midbass is overpowering the other elements in the mix; mostly just in volume. Spectrum Analyzer is a good idea.

Otherwise, there a lot of good stuff going on. Definitely worth a remix.

theGuen wrote:
onezero wrote:

I really like this.  Great groove with the bass, drums, and sax, and a great atmosphere.   I think your mixing issues are coming from some kind of buildup in the low mids--can you put a spectrum analyzer on the master out and see where the peaks are?  I'd bet that you could fix it with filtering on each channel, probably a bunch of high-passes with different cutoffs, so that things aren't interfering with your lows.  Which DAW are you using?

Thank's a lot for the tips. I use REAPER as my DAW.
I tried the spectrum analyzer meter but I am not really able to understand it. I have a 50Hz notch filter on the bass here which makes the sound better for my ears... but I did not see any difference in the spectrum analyzer.
I definitly will try the highpass filters on each channel.
cheers,
Gunnar

I'd suggest moving the spectrum analyzer around from channel to channel.  Check to see where the peaks are--you might have a non-bass instrument that ends up having  a lot of energy in the lower frequencies; if that happens, that channel would benefit from a high-pass there.

Of course I listend a couple of times. I do not see so many critical parts in here. I love that fat beat in the mix. Very cool samples and vocals. The distortion is a clever ambient trick and doesn`t bother me even after the 9th time. Your track is compact and a brilliant bunch of ideas and makes me hungry for more.

Definitely lots of good musical ideas in here, and without reading the comments I probably would have considered the dense lower frequencies an intended mixing decision. But the mix would probably open up very nicely if you figure out which channels contribute most to the density.

Q-Rosh wrote:

Of course I listend a couple of times. I do not see so many critical parts in here. I love that fat beat in the mix. Very cool samples and vocals. The distortion is a clever ambient trick and doesn`t bother me even after the 9th time. Your track is compact and a brilliant bunch of ideas and makes me hungry for more.

Thanks for taking so much time and also for your nice comment.
I hope I can keep up. smile

Jim Wood wrote:

Yes, the midbass is overpowering the other elements in the mix; mostly just in volume. Spectrum Analyzer is a good idea.

Otherwise, there a lot of good stuff going on. Definitely worth a remix.

onezero wrote:


I'd suggest moving the spectrum analyzer around from channel to channel.  Check to see where the peaks are--you might have a non-bass instrument that ends up having  a lot of energy in the lower frequencies; if that happens, that channel would benefit from a high-pass there.

Plantrain wrote:

Definitely lots of good musical ideas in here, and without reading the comments I probably would have considered the dense lower frequencies an intended mixing decision. But the mix would probably open up very nicely if you figure out which channels contribute most to the density.

Thanks for your help and for the encouraging comments.
I found that it was the channel with the delay. I put a highpass on it and voila everything is a bit more separated.
But since I was a bit lazy there are also some of the pianos on this track and these need some more low frequencies. I think it will take me some time to clean this up... but lesson learned big_smile

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