KVR Audio

Katelyn · Post by **Katelyn** » Mon Jun 29, 2015 11:26 am

edit: see post 10 (or 9?) for the mix I did after getting feedback in this topic.

I slaved over this all night to get in some finishing touches lol. I Actually did most of the percussion a year ago and didn't know what to do with it for the longest time... was trying to do something other than 4 on the floor to be more interesting.

[removed]

DJ Warmonger · Post by **DJ Warmonger** » Mon Jun 29, 2015 11:57 am

+ Nice acis sounds
- Terrible mixdown. Instruments are equalized in bizzare ways, mid-lows are overloaded and low end is almost non-existent.
- Stab coming early is clipping or clicking

Katelyn · Post by **Katelyn** » Mon Jun 29, 2015 1:10 pm

If you mean the sub-bass I've always had trouble figuring that out as it might sound one way on my half decent headphones but it would sound another way on pretty much every other sound system I tested it on (even my somewhat good speakers). Add to that anytime I tried to beef up the bass frequencies too close to the sub-bass even a bit' it would just drown out everything else.

Not sure how it's EQ'd weird... (maybe how I got the tb-303 bass and the buzzy lfo bass to fit in together?) though admittedly I didn't use any compression and only EQ'd where I heard things clashing/drowning eachother out. I try to not use too much of those because I always feel like the instruments sound flat/lifeless after too much and I'd rather deal with a slightly more messy mix. I usually try to just avoid instruments using the same octaves.

And I'm gonna go ahead and admit I'm not a good mixer at all... but like, just *how* bad is it?

layzer · Post by **layzer** » Mon Jun 29, 2015 1:34 pm

warmonger is correct here, way too much energy in the 200-500hz frequencies.
cuttin it down in those bands and bringing up the overall level could even it out.

see the spec graph below of a busy part of your track.

the thin red line is the average level output of your track, the yellow line is the "ideal"

Katelyn · Post by **Katelyn** » Mon Jun 29, 2015 1:42 pm

Lol, ya that makes sense, I like the sound of tones in that region and I guess I tried to squeeze in two instruments that both use a decent amount of that range. Didn't know that about the ideal amount though. I will try making it more like that overall and see how it sounds.

recursive one · Post by **recursive one** » Mon Jun 29, 2015 2:18 pm

I agree that the acid lines sound tasty, but the mixing is not very good. I would also completely rework the drums. I udnerstand that you didn't want to make a standard 4-on-the-floor goa track, but the drumline you've come up with is excessively chaotic. The kick has zero iteraction with other elements and therefore the track sounds static.

layzer · Post by **layzer** » Mon Jun 29, 2015 2:43 pm

Katelyn wrote:Lol, ya that makes sense, I like the sound of tones in that region and I guess I tried to squeeze in two instruments that both use a decent amount of that range. Didn't know that about the ideal amount though. I will try making it more like that overall and see how it sounds.

yep, the ideal can be different for different types of music. yours falls under techno/dance
so your ideal freq curve should emphasize a solid low end(50-100hz) and an even, slight decline of midrange and highs to a sharp rolloff at around 15khz

here is a good read on the subject:

http://thehub.musiciansfriend.com/tech- ... ical-style

Frantz · Post by **Frantz** » Tue Jun 30, 2015 2:45 am

Quirky track. Where did the vocals come from? They give it an electro-punk quality.

I would follow Layzer's advice on the mix suggestions. I would also shorten it by several minutes. There is too little variation for it to go on for 6.5 minutes IMO.

Katelyn · Post by **Katelyn** » Tue Jun 30, 2015 6:31 pm

Thank you everyone for the responses.

Already in the process of cleaning up the track to see if I can make it sound better with the feedback given.

The kick has zero iteraction with other elements and therefore the track sounds static.

Lol I guess I didn't do it right then with the percussion as I thought I had lined it up nicely with some of the rhythms but maybe I changed something and forgot to check that it still fitted.

Frantz wrote:Quirky track. Where did the vocals come from? They give it an electro-punk quality.

I wrote them. I figure it's better than adding some kind of random vocal sample that has nothing to do with the track. I tried doing a lot things differently in this track over what I've done in the past.

Though I was kinda worried that I had too many words in it and cut a lot, I tend to cut more when I work on it but I didn't this time to see how it would be received. And yes, I know the vocalist isn't the best lol.

"Frantz"I would follow Layzer's advice on the mix suggestions. I would also shorten it by several minutes. There is too little variation for it to go on for 6.5 minutes IMO.

That same argument could be made for a lot of psy and acid.

Originally had planned to make the harmony play a larger role in the melody's evolution but the sh-101 emulation (I think the real might be the same way) can't play chords. And since it's mostly 32nd and 16th notes using an arpeggio method won't really work

I think I might just clone the track and have that one play the other parts of the chords to get around it instead of dropping it like I originally did.

Katelyn · Post by **Katelyn** » Tue Jun 30, 2015 9:14 pm

EDIT: never mind, upgraded my sound system today and found out that this mix isn't that great either after listening to it... listening to other artists I can now see what everyone meant lol. Also having a decent sound system now I kind of realize how badly optimized most things are for many styles of music... esp. stock car speaker systems. I'm gonna redo it now that I can actually tell what's going on. And yes, I know, get professional grade monitoring headphones, but I'm kinda too poor to do that and the best I got is a $50 pair of headphones I got second hand.

There are some other small changes but most of the major stuff was the percussion, EQ on various stuff and length and some minute changes to the melody.

https://soundcloud.com/katelyn-rajas/wa ... ht-kvr-mix