Benedict wrote: ↑26 May 2020
EdwardKiy wrote: ↑26 May 2020
Even if you withheld from posting for 25 years, you still risk hearing criticism, such as this:
The mixing is bad, the bits with guitar + chorus sound muddy
The arrangement, harmonic decisions and solos are all good, and that's the hard part for the producer, so a really good job overall
Good luck!
Do you mean for that to be as offensive as it reads? You did similar on my album too. This approach is really not helpful (esp when you only show one track and call yourself a newbie). es.
If you really have a valid criticism, you need to explain & back that or this just comes off as insulting & belittling.
Wasn't meant to be, and I think it still isn't at all offensive. You may notice that I've graded the "musical aspect" highly and I even underscored that THIS is the job he should have been focusing on as a producer. If I'd be working on a guitar passage with tasteful guitar shreddage, I'd come to consult this person for it. But regardless of what I may think about my mixing skills, this is the audio engineers' domain and I pointed out that this aspect needs either way more work or straight up consulting an actual audio engineer to make the piece polished.
We ultimately come here to hear an alternative opinion of fellow musicians/producers/engineers, because our own becomes tainted and biased as we put in more hours into the piece. And this is the perfect tool.
This is simply how I work with other musicians when we need to produce something together:
'oh man, bring up the synth, now bring down the base, NOW we can hear that our (snare) is shit, now move that kick a 16th to the left because it's messing up the groove and where the hell is the bottom-end mud coming from still??!" - this is my usual framework and this, I think, is the way to go.
When working as a group nobody ever goes "oh this is great, keep doing what you're doing
" at something that can be better, because everyone cares for the end product. It would be damaging to lie and give him a false sense of what is right or wrong in his music. Not something I would want for myself, at least.
As to being more constructive on my "this is muddy" comment - I simply don't know for sure what will help, that's why I didn't write it down. Reduce the reverb on either or both instruments (guitar and chorus), or try Eq'ing them both out of each other's way - I really don't know. Trial and error.