@Dubspencertron
Fully loving the minimal vibe on this track! the chanting in the beginning is lush and really brings the track in. While the chanting is happening, the drums accompanying that bit might need some mud removed in the lower mids, try doing a small cut at around 400/500Hz and a small boost up at around 10k and also maybe a bit of transient shaping (
Flux Bittersweet to bring out the attack on them. The plucked/slapped string snippet is
perfect for the vibe of the track. Well sampled, well placed. If you're looking to add more depth to the tune I'd experiment with brooding, dark, dissonant soundscapes/pads placed subtly in the background and little echoed fx shots, maybe individual male short tribal shouts, reverbed and slightly delayed, keeping with that cave/tribal vibe. You could also mess with flange/chorus, the odd delay dropped in e.t.c. on some of the samples bought in in the second/third section e.t.c. to add a little progression to the elements there without changing them all together. Great sound so far man, it's got a very clear identity. Props!
@Mthrfnk
House isn't really my thing so I can't say much about this in terms of critical thought. It sounds, well, housy
. The drop is groovy and there's a nice relationship between the drum rhythm and the lead rhythm. Maybe the intro is a little too long/minimal? I wouldn't know though, maybe that's a standard house intro? I do feel like the intro does need more elements though, play about with some hats/shakers? and maybe a female chopped vocal sample or two could add some nice movement to the tune once it's dropped? Sorry about the crap feedback lol, i did try!
Boman sorry I skipped you, another house track! Didn't want to give un-helpfull feedback twice in a row! Hopefully the feedback from other people has helped you enough so far though!
@Jetpack.
Mixing ideas! Ok. in the first section> 00:00 to 00:28, I feel like the plucky/attacky keys that come in at the end of each 8 need to be bought forward and the pads surrounding need to be pushed back and to the sides, you could do that with a little mid side processing on the pads, taking down the mid channel a couple of dB, same on the plucked keys with a bit of compression to bring them forward and add more snap to the transients. Only subtly, they still need to gell, but i think their placement in the mix in terms of how close they are to center stage need to be swapped. You could even play about with having it how it is now at the start and automate the change as it leads up to the end of the first section @ 00:28.
At the cross over @ 00:28 There's an obvious quantum leap in the timbre of the pads, I don't know if it's intentional but it's jarring and sounds more like a technical glitch than artistic decision. I'd play about with having some kinda subtle build and drop (white noise/riser e.t.c.) on the intro's repose to mask that.
The break down before the drop sounds ok mix wise, though it sounds quite empty, you have a lot of room to add much more excitement up to the drop, a lot of the freq spectrum isn't being used and the build up seems quite quick. It's a choice you made which is fine, I'm simply pointing out that you have the whole breakdown section to build excitement rather than the last 8 of it.
When the tune drops and the mid range stuff comes in your sidechain comp between the pads and lead is very noticeable, unless it was your intention to have the audience hear this (creative choice?) I'd argue that EQing fighting freqs is a better option as it's more transparent than this (or in the worst case re-thinking the arrangement so clashing elements don't meet). I may be wrong but it's my opinion that sidechain should be done in a way that's transparent unless it's a prominent groove element (most house tracks for e.g.). It works in some cases, it doesn't in others. Unless the sidechain is sure of what it's there for, it simply translates in to sounding a bit confused as to what it's supposed to be achieving. If you've done it as a technical reaction to fighting freqs, the rule is, it should be inaudible. my opinion anyway. See if you can get these elements sitting together in a way that's transparent and compare, see which one you like best.
Drums. You've also got a lot of room to make these drums much more punchy and generally have more presence. It's ok to exploit things like the 100/200Hz thing with the kick/snare (depending on samples of c!). The tops have room for lots of wash/crisp/sheen, the lows could do with some boosting, there's not much going on in the lows so you can fill that with weight from the break.
I almost feel like some of the issues you're hitting with the mixdown come from fighting for headroom, everything seems quite compressed and you're fighting for room when you've not actually got that much going on in terms of elements. Occamz razor dude! Turn everything down, turn your monitors/soundcard/computer up, mix using -12dB as reference point, it'll take quite a few tracks hitting -12 to begin clipping on the 2 buss. If you haven't already check out the thread on here about gain structuring. Mixing tracks of your style is notoriously hard because everything wants to be as loud as possible, you're going to get clashing all over the place, good luck man.
OK. me... Been working on this for the past 3 days, it's a weird one, very barely Dubstep imo lol. I'd like feedback on arrangement and mixing, and of course overall vibes, where it could go e.t.c. Ideas on where to take the second section, what to add/take away, so on and so forth, you know the drill!
Soundcloud
i think the kick could be a little more punchy aswell i'll have to play around with that! thanks for the feedback
I need fresh ears to tell me if it sounds even somewhat good, and if the vocals even fit in? I can't for the life of me decide if I should finnish it or just leave it.
Ever tried to produce deep house ? I feel like you could do great stuff by combining the clean 4x4 of this one and the moody ambience of your more dubstep oriented tracks.
