I'll give it a go

Hi guys, have a question regarding the volume of tracks.

I've seen some "how to mix" tutorials from all over the internet and a lot of them start their mixdowns with the whole 'faders down' approach (sorting the levels out at the start) which is fair enough. Whatever suits.

And in more than one occasion I've seen people start to use the EQ after they have said that they sorted out the levels. I know the levels is a flexible kind of tool that you always seem to touch throughout the mix but some of these people think the volumes or levels of the tracks are done and dusted thanks to the old 'faders down' method. I've seen these people not touching the levels after adjusting the EQ which doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me since you are changing the volume of the signal when EQ'ing.

Unfortunately I can't think of a source that takes this approach but I remember learning this approach from some tutorial videos and living by it for a while and then realizing it doesn't make much sense.

Am I just confused or am I making some sort of sense?

I really like this! Just my sort of style really. Really like the vocal it sounds great!  One thing though, I found that the bass is quite unclear, maybe throw it up one octave, and if it sounds too high, through a nice sine sub under it and turn it down a bit. And making sure it's in mono can really help.

Maybe try syncopating the bass notes more to the original chords? Adding some variation within the bassline can really add more groove.

Here is a great article that I'd highly recommend for bassline grooves:
https://www.attackmagazine.com/technique/passing-notes/passing-notes-disco-house-basslines/

Other than that I like it the way it is.

Keep it up man.

Well whether you're the best mixing/mastering engineer in the world, this still has it's uses. Perhaps I could have rephrased the title a bit better, outlining that it's compression and not much of a trick.

I agree that you wouldn't do this before sending it off to a professional mastering engineer. This is however a handy method of getting a loud mix if your not going to send it off for mastering. Just putting this chain on the master may be far less destructive than you fiddling around with EQ's and other things.

I'll experiment tonight with some multiband to try and achieve the same effect, thanks for the tip!

Boards of Canada, Kiasmos, Justice, Jon Hopkins, Tycho. There are so many!

One I haven't seen here is Quantic, look up 'Time is the Enemy' and 'Not So Blue'.

Oh and Djrum!!!! Holy shit his sampling is just crazy. Mixed so well, personal favourites of mine is Watermark and Plantain.
He has like mad textures and really interesting rhythmic motifs.

Hi guys, first post here.

Since there is a lot of EDM heads around here, do you guys think reverb plays a big part in the drop? I feel like when I'm flicking through presets, when I remove the internal reverb from the plugin, a lot of the power is lost in some cases. So I've started to experiment with reverb on a send channel and I am getting great results. Does anybody have any tips when processing reverb separately? I've been applying it in Mid/side mode and it's sounding pretty cool in some contexts. Also I've recently discovered that scooping out some of the mids and having it on the sides can be helpful mix wise. (Probably a very basic tip but whatever!)

I've always wondered about the reverb in this tune also:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OG2Fm-7kgTQ

The reverb is like sidechained to the synth I know, but it almost has a more distinct pitch to it?

So if anyone has any tips/tricks on reverb processing/manipulation whatever, do share!