Mixing feedback wanted - (Electronic mess)

[TritoneAddiction]

So I'm working on a what hopefully will turn into a full project, like a mini album or something. We'll see what happens.

Been working pretty hard on this track. And this is one of those tracks that is really hard to mix because there's so much shit going on, especially at the end of the song.
Plenty of sounds in this song behave pretty randomly each time they're played. So for the final release I'll do several renders and put together the best "takes".
But what I'm looking for here is feedback on the overall mix. The song is pretty abrasive and messy in its nature so I'm not necessarily looking for a clean or "nice" sound. I'm more interested if something sounds off or sticks out weirdly in the mix.

Let me hear your thoughts.

[robussc]

Interesting track, listening on my airpods i’m finding the snare to be stealing my attention. It was definitely so in the very first section. Not so bad when the track has more going on.

[Billy+]

So I'm working on a what hopefully will turn into a full project, like a mini album or something. We'll see what happens.

Been working pretty hard on this track. And this is one of those tracks that is really hard to mix because there's so much shit going on, especially at the end of the song.
Plenty of sounds in this song behave pretty randomly each time they're played. So for the final release I'll do several renders and put together the best "takes".
But what I'm looking for here is feedback on the overall mix. The song is pretty abrasive and messy in its nature so I'm not necessarily looking for a clean or "nice" sound. I'm more interested if something sounds off or sticks out weirdly in the mix.

Let me hear your thoughts.

Love it!

i would push the "lead" sound higher in the mix and possibly slow the tempo in the break sections or what ever the kids are calling the less busy sections, give the space for recovery it will definitely add more by increasing the space between full on / full off ------ let it hang for a few extra beats / bars

also it's very early Prodigy / breakbeat sounding, if that's your target sound / style

[Popey]

Really cool track tritone addiction, For me the mix sounds good although from around 2:47ish there is a lot going on and perhaps a little bit of work here (perhaps dynamic eq if you have one) to just give a couple of sounds priority. I find sometimes just a small 1db bell curve on clashing frequencies can make the world of difference.

I know robussc mentioned the snare and i do kinda agree with him although i am not sure if it stood out due to loudness or if it just felt a bit long. I wondered if it was a bit tighter (through sustain release time/transient shaping) it may sit better in the mix.

The above is nitpicking though and its stupidly good as it is

[TritoneAddiction]

Interesting track, listening on my airpods i’m finding the snare to be stealing my attention. It was definitely so in the very first section. Not so bad when the track has more going on.

Thanks for the listen.
Yeah the snare is neither subtle nor "normal" sounding. I don't mind if it grabs the listeners attention, as long as it doesn't get annoying. Though that could be subjective of course.
What makes it harder to mix is that a lot of the drums (kicks, snare and main hihats) are run through Scream as one unit, effecting each other. And I've also played around with the "body type" section of Scream, altering between different settings which makes the snare even harder to mix, because it's not the same sound played over and over. I've noticed some hits/settings sound louder than others. So I'll spend some time on that and see if I can figure out a way to even them out a bit. It's all done in a very non conventional way, which I like here. But at the same time it makes it very hard to control.

[TritoneAddiction]

Love it!

i would push the "lead" sound higher in the mix and possibly slow the tempo in the break sections or what ever the kids are calling the less busy sections, give the space for recovery it will definitely add more by increasing the space between full on / full off ------ let it hang for a few extra beats / bars

also it's very early Prodigy / breakbeat sounding, if that's your target sound / style

Thanks. Yeah I could play around with the tempo a bit and see how that affects things. Just to be clear, when you say ""break sections", what part(s) are you referring to? Could you perhaps give a timestamp?

[TritoneAddiction]

Really cool track tritone addiction, For me the mix sounds good although from around 2:47ish there is a lot going on and perhaps a little bit of work here (perhaps dynamic eq if you have one) to just give a couple of sounds priority. I find sometimes just a small 1db bell curve on clashing frequencies can make the world of difference.

I know robussc mentioned the snare and i do kinda agree with him although i am not sure if it stood out due to loudness or if it just felt a bit long. I wondered if it was a bit tighter (through sustain release time/transient shaping) it may sit better in the mix.

The above is nitpicking though and its stupidly good as it is

Thanks for the listen Popey.
Yeah that ending part is a mess. I can't decide if it's a wonderful mess of everything being over the top, or if it's just a mess. I have applied some of what you're suggesting already. At times I went too far and the part lost its power. It's a fine balance to get right when there's so much crap going on at once. But I'm open to revisit that part and see if anything can be done to improve it.

Playing around with the sustain on the snare is a good idea. I like the punch of it, but can see myself tame some of the snare tails a bit. I'll have a go at that.

[TritoneAddiction]

Updated the mix/link. I'm letting you know since that might effect how people read older comments.

Made some tweaks to the drums. Shortened/softened the decay of some snare hits a bit. Turned down the volume on some hihats during the end.
Turned down the volume on drums and bass slightly on the whole mix.
Turned up the volume on the chord swells.

Everything is still very similar to before. Just tweaked things a little bit.
Might still make changes.

[FrankJaeger]

Didn't get to hear the first iteration you posted but the current one is awesome and unique. I don't know why but I got "Blade" vibes from this track. Nicely done.

The mix sounds very professional to me. Balanced.

[selig]

Sounding nice, not sure how to comment on snare length or busy-ness at the end since I don’t believe I’m hearing the original mix on the original post, correct? Nice sounding mix either way!

[TritoneAddiction]

Didn't get to hear the first iteration you posted but the current one is awesome and unique. I don't know why but I got "Blade" vibes from this track. Nicely done.

The mix sounds very professional to me. Balanced.

Thanks, appreciate the listen.

[TritoneAddiction]

Sounding nice, not sure how to comment on snare length or busy-ness at the end since I don’t believe I’m hearing the original mix on the original post, correct? Nice sounding mix either way!

Thanks Selig.
Yeah I've already updated the mix a second time, after you posted your comment. Any comment I get will be based on how the track is in that particular moment. It might make for a confusing thread to read, but it still helps me out.

I've changed a few things. No major moves, but things like removing some of the deepest frequencies on the bass during the break at 0:41. Once the drums kick in the lower frequencies in the bass gets added again. I've also raised the volume on the cymbals a bit to get some more of that bright high end in the mix. Also added a tiny bit of midrange on the "kalimba" to get it to cut through better.
I keep finding these little things to tweak. Hopefully for the better.

[TheGodOfRainbows]

Sounds awesome as it is to me. I don't really have anything constructive to add, plus I'm not the best judge of mixes. Many of mine have been all over the place - sometimes somethings way too loud, or the drums just disappear into the mix. Part of that is because I can get too ambitious and try to do to many things in one song, then the mix gets away from me because of all the tonal shifts going on, or new instruments being introduced later in the song that then disrupt the overall balance.

But in your case, and for most people's music on ReasonTalk (and really most people in general), I think you have more consistent, concise and uniform arrangements in general than I do. I try to have alot of dynamic range in my stuff because I fear sounding like "midi music", but that often creates more difficulty in mixing, possibly creating more problems than it solves. I still haven't quite figured things out in that regard.

So from my point of view, this mix sounds rock solid and I wouldn't change anything. If I had to pick one thing, maybe the snare could come down 2 or 3 db, and it has a slight harsh edge to it that I might eq out a touch. Other than that, great stuff!

[TritoneAddiction]

Sounds awesome as it is to me. I don't really have anything constructive to add, plus I'm not the best judge of mixes. Many of mine have been all over the place - sometimes somethings way too loud, or the drums just disappear into the mix. Part of that is because I can get too ambitious and try to do to many things in one song, then the mix gets away from me because of all the tonal shifts going on, or new instruments being introduced later in the song that then disrupt the overall balance.

But in your case, and for most people's music on ReasonTalk (and really most people in general), I think you have more consistent, concise and uniform arrangements in general than I do. I try to have alot of dynamic range in my stuff because I fear sounding like "midi music", but that often creates more difficulty in mixing, possibly creating more problems than it solves. I still haven't quite figured things out in that regard.

So from my point of view, this mix sounds rock solid and I wouldn't change anything. If I had to pick one thing, maybe the snare could come down 2 or 3 db, and it has a slight harsh edge to it that I might eq out a touch. Other than that, great stuff!

Thanks for the feedback.
I’m aware the snare is pretty abrasive. I’m just not sure whether I like it or it needs tweaking. For the moment I’ll let the song be as I need some time away from it.
I’ll get back to it again when I’ve written more material for the project and can listen to it with fresh ears.

[PhillipOrdonez]

It sounds good to me as it is now.

Reading up on your old comments, you mention Scream processing all the drums. This is fine. Just put the scream on a bus, you still have a ton of control of the individual elements before they hit the scream; you can add effects to each drum sound if you separate them to their own mix channels that then feed into the bus with the scream. Having a drum bus with effects that trat all the drums as one element is pretty much standard mixing practice.

edit: subjective opinion alert... The snare loses energy and feels flat, the attack is too subdued. This is most likely a creative decision and I respect it (SQUASHED), so as I said, entirely subjective, but if I was mixing this I would do something about it cause the snare is the energy driving force on this piece, and my brain tells me it could benefit some processing to address that. mvh.

[TritoneAddiction]

It sounds good to me as it is now.

Reading up on your old comments, you mention Scream processing all the drums. This is fine. Just put the scream on a bus, you still have a ton of control of the individual elements before they hit the scream; you can add effects to each drum sound if you separate them to their own mix channels that then feed into the bus with the scream. Having a drum bus with effects that trat all the drums as one element is pretty much standard mixing practice.

edit: subjective opinion alert... The snare loses energy and feels flat, the attack is too subdued. This is most likely a creative decision and I respect it (SQUASHED), so as I said, entirely subjective, but if I was mixing this I would do something about it cause the snare is the energy driving force on this piece, and my brain tells me it could benefit some processing to address that. mvh.

Thanks for the listen and feedback.

The drum bus thing is a good idea. I might try that out, even for future songs.

I haven’t felt any need to add any extra attack to the snare during this time that I’ve worked on the song. But like I said to GodOfRainbows, I’m gonna take a longer break from the song as I feel I can no longer listen to it objectively. I’ve gotten so used to hearing it this way. If I start messing with it more now I worry it might do more harm then good. So when I finally do get back to this track I’ll have a fresh listen to it and see what I think. And then I’ll have a look at these comments again and see if I want to make any changes.

[Billy+]

Love it!

i would push the "lead" sound higher in the mix and possibly slow the tempo in the break sections or what ever the kids are calling the less busy sections, give the space for recovery it will definitely add more by increasing the space between full on / full off ------ let it hang for a few extra beats / bars

also it's very early Prodigy / breakbeat sounding, if that's your target sound / style

Thanks. Yeah I could play around with the tempo a bit and see how that affects things. Just to be clear, when you say ""break sections", what part(s) are you referring to? Could you perhaps give a timestamp?

sorry for the delay been busy..

I'm talking about the 30 second mark and at 2 mins.. (still a great toon.. )

[TritoneAddiction]

Thanks. Yeah I could play around with the tempo a bit and see how that affects things. Just to be clear, when you say ""break sections", what part(s) are you referring to? Could you perhaps give a timestamp?

sorry for the delay been busy..

I'm talking about the 30 second mark and at 2 mins.. (still a great toon.. )

No worries. Thanks.
I did try out different tempos for the song after your comment, but realized that I liked the original tempo best after all. It was still worth checking out though and I appreciate the listen.