Nice first attempt!

There seems to be some noise in the background during the intro. I'm not sure whether it's coming from the vocals or from the guitars. Have you tried using a noise gate to remove it from the mix? I personally like to use the Waves NS1 to remove noise like this. If the vocals are compressed then those bring out the noise even more.

The guitars in the intro sound like they contain just a tad bit too much low end/not enough brightness. Have you tried low cutting them? Maybe that or subtracting from some of the 200hz range? I feel like that would let the mids shine through some more. Especially since guitar's are primarily mid range instruments.

At 0:34 the staccato string just sort of jumps out from the mix. Maybe try balancing it better by lowering the volume. A little bit reverb wouldn't hurt either. Sounds a bit dry. Reverb will help it blend better I feel.

The only real complaints I have about the vocals is that I can't really understand the words. It's hard for me to be able to say whether it's the recording or the mix. 1:10 specifically.

The snare at 0:43 also seems to be a bit dry to my ears. Same as with the strings. A little reverb I think would help it blend. I also can't really hear the kick at the same section. I can tell it's in there buried beneath everything but either it doesn't contain much high end (It's missing the tick) or the volume is too low.


Overall good job! Definitely better than my first mixing attempts. Since you asked specifically for opinions on the mix I won't get too specific about the song. I don't hear anything that's out of key or odd so I'm assuming you either understand your music theory or have a very good ear. Great!

I did feel like the arrangement could use a bit more variations. Some parts seem to drag but hey don't just take my word for it. People have their tastes.

Hey guys so I've been thinking about this a lot more recently and does it seriously matter which EQ method you decide to go with? I know most people recommend subtractive but I never actually understood why. I remember reading a few articles saying something like additive adds artifacts to the signal that isn't originally there but I honestly don't hear anything "bad" being added. (Might just be untrained ears)

Right now I'd say 80% of the time I use additive EQ'ing. One of my suspected drawbacks of additive EQing is that sometimes I'll EQ the shit out of a sound and think it's better when really it's just because the sound is louder. I was thinking that maybe this was the main con behind additive eqing. Either that or it's all in my head.

Anyways... does anyone have any real experience with the topic? I'd like to be better educated on the subject.

I don't know whether the course is worth it because I've never taken it before. I will say that I have gotten a few things out of courses in the past but sometimes there's a ridiculous amount of "fluff" in between them. It's almost like searching for a needle in a haystack.

Learning by doing I think is the best way. Studying harmony specifically will bring you the results you want if you're looking for beautiful chords. All that information is available to you online for free. You just need to know what you're looking for.

I never have gotten to a point where I was 100% satisfied with what I was creating. It has never felt "done", so is this simply a matter of my production has not caught up to my standards and that for the time being I should just keep writing tracks until one day production level meets my standards?

This is the exact same issue that I face and only recently have I begun to look past it. The last track I made took me about 80 hours and that's because my standards are far too harsh. I know that my music is missing that special "something" that I hear in the tracks of my favorite artists. With that being said, I've come to accept that at this stage of my producer journey I'm just not going to sound as good as Zedd who as a child would write a song a day and has been recording/engineering since his early teens.

If so how do you get over coping with the fact that you are uploading (if you upload them at all) mediocre tracks?

Here’s how I cope with it. If I’ve learned something new since the time I started a track and finished a track then I am willing to get over it’s mediocrity. You aren’t going to get better by trying to jump from level 1 to 100. Progress reveals itself in much shorter increments. When I listen to a track that I made one year ago and compare it to one that I made today I want to be able to say “I’ve gotten better.” Nobody is forcing you to upload your music online if you don’t feel that it meets your standards. It may be beneficial though to share it with more experienced producers who can explain to you “why” those standards aren’t being met.

For me one of the biggest problem I think is knowing when to stop and questioning my judgement in deciding if it is appropriate to leave the track as is.

I don’t think you should ever stop questioning your judgement. If you know your tracks are missing something then you shouldn’t have to lie to yourself about it. Just realize that you might not discover that “something” at your current level of skill. In these situations you have a few options.

1. Spend hours trying to figure out why you’re track sounds like shit through trial and error.
2. Ask for feedback from more experienced producers and they’ll point it out to you.
3. Move on and the leave the track as is.

Option 1 is time consuming and extremely exhausting but can result in huge breakthroughs if you manage to figure out what the problem is.

Option 2 isn’t as time consuming but it can be difficult finding an experienced producer who will dedicate their time to listen to your track and offer quality feedback.

Option 3 is the least time consuming but still leaves you with a bad judgement of your track. Which goes back to what I was saying earlier. You might not discover that “something” at your current level of skill. If you find that no matter how hard you try you just can’t get something to sound the way you want it to then sometimes it is best to just move on.

It’s just like Marrow said.

RESPECT TIME.

Leave the day satisfied with the work you've done. If you aren't satisfied, then go back to it the next day.

To be quite honest, if you're finding yourself getting so worked up over a tiny little detail, i think it's time to call it a day and check out.

All great phrases IMO.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIjFMccr4kc

The one at 2:20. How do I make it?

Quote from: Lydian on March 13, 2016, 10:14:59 pm

I'll be sure to check out mr bills tutorials. I hadn't heard of them prior to this post. It isn't necessarily the sound design that I don't understand. I've experimented with lots of glitchy type stuff before through the manipulation of audio files.

What I dont understand is how they go about putting all that stuff together. My mind might be overcomplicating things but there sounds like there's least 10 sounds in those drops. It's that process of turning those 10 samples into music that actually still maintains harmonic its melodic complexity that gets to me.

Hoping the mr bills stuff is what I'm looking for. Thanks Marrow & Mussar!

Be careful with mr bills tutorials, i found them to be quite convoluted. Then again I haven't really used ableton that much and kind of jumped in.

BUT, what i got out of it was the ability to chain certain effects together and to keep them organized to achieve an end result.

I felt the same way. I think I'm just going to do it the old fashioned trial and error way. The new track that I started sadly isn't a dubstep/glitch-hop track so I can't really experiment with it.

Here are something things I've been able to determine about these types of complextro/dubstep/glitch-hop drops through critical listening.

1. The drums usually maintain a consistent pattern.
2. The growl/wobble/omgwtfbbq basses maintain the root note of the harmony (or simply the bass if there is no harmony).
3. If the drop is harmonic in nature then usually there is some type of chordal element that will play for a few beats and then dissapear to make room for all the other noises.
4. It's pretty trendy to include some sort of pitch fall bend on beat1 of the drop. (Isn't used all the time) (Madeons Icarus is a good example)

Honestly, it's hard to try to find patterns within dubstep drops because for one they aren't all the same and two there's always going to be someone who kinda just does their own thing.

I'll revisit these thoughts later. I know that I am going to feel incomplete as a producer if I never figure out how to make these types of drops.

I've checked out a few of virtual riots tutorials. They're really good quality. Maybe I'll revisit them and try to analyze what he's doing. The fact that not many people have replied leads me to believe that there aren't a whole lot of dubstep/glitchop producers on the forum that know the answers either. (Please prove me wrong guests/users)

This is a genius marketing scheme.