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Song Title: Glace Acide Artist: Intervolver URL: https://soundcloud.com/gabriel-tripp/glace-acide Genre: Acid Breaks (I think!) Song length: 3:47 I'm focusing on mixing and mastering right now, trying to get better at production in between studying synthesis fundamentals, so I thought I had made a breakthrough with this; better volume range, more dynamic sounds etc... A friend told me it sounded "weak" and that it lacks "juice". I'm not sure what juice means, and if he was describing a problem with the mix, the volume, the range, or the composition. My self-assessment is that my composition needs the most work at this juncture (I'm not absorbing music theory as quickly as I'd like), but the worst thing about being wrong is that you don't know that you are wrong! I need to keep growing, but essentially everyone I show my work to say the equivalent of "nice track!", and I'm feeling kind of stranded and directionless about how to continue improving. I would really appreciate any input on what this is lacking, what might be wrong with it, and what I should focus on to keep moving forwards.
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Dec 17, 2016 09:30
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intervolver posted:Song Title: Glace Acide I feel you pain, because I feel like I'm in the same boat with feedback and uncertainty about my mixing skills, and recently find myself in the similar places. As an unbiased listener just trying to help out (not necessarily an authority), it seems like your friend's feedback could partly just be his own expectations about what he thinks an electronic track should sound like. I personally didn't find anything "wrong" per se with the mix or composition, but I know there are things you could do to give it more punch if that's what you're after. If it was my track, for example, I would probably experiment more with compressing the kicks harder, and see what happens in the master if I push the whole thing a little harder against the roof of the limiter. Maybe find a good tape .vst to glue the mix together and give it a little more push and texture. Or if the clean conventional electronica sound isn't what I'm after, I might I go the other way, mangle it more with the analog effects and modulation, see if I can get something interesting and warped sounding out of it.
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Dec 18, 2016 01:44
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Drink-Mix Man posted:Advice Thanks! "Punch" is probably what he means by "juice". I'm still new to mixing and mastering and I'm kind of erring on the side of the light touch, and stuff doesn't seem to have enough emphasis. I will work on driving my next track a harder. I'm using ableton's glue compressor and I can certainly do more with it than I am currently. I'm also learning multiband dynamics to compress more accurately. And you're right about my friend's expectations, he's into breakcore and upbeat dubstep. Having someone tell me my work is "weak" helps motivate me in a weird way but he's not the best at giving technical insight. If you want to point me to a track of yours I'll give my amateur appraisal for whatever that may be worth.
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Dec 19, 2016 09:35
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Cool, glad my thoughts were useful. I'll take you up on your offer. Here's the most recent track I've been messing with, kind of a laid-back affair: https://soundcloud.com/eric-zak/squares-12-4-2?in=eric-zak/sets/meditation-for-dogs I usually stick with ambient/experimental things, so this is one of my first forays into doing something with a groove that's a little more controlled...
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Dec 26, 2016 21:39
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Drink-Mix Man posted:Cool, glad my thoughts were useful. Main criticisms: - Some elements are too low. It's not that they don't work in a textural sense, but more that they're pleasant enough to be featured more prominently. I'm thinking most of the left channel flute that comes in about 1/4 of the way. It deserves more emphasis. - The voice sample near the beginning seems out of place to me. I would either put it even closer to the start as a kind of statement of intent, or near the end as a closing thought. It's okay where it is, but it doesn't mark a drastic enough change where it is. - While not necessary, it would have been nice to solo the percussion somewhere. The rhythm is nice but provides more of a pulse than anything. Drawing attention to it early in would make it more noticeable when it recedes back into the mix. If it was soloed right after the vocal sample, for example, the position of the sample would make more sense as a marker for change and kind of force the listener to become aware of the rhythm. - The percussion could be mixed up a db or two in general without dominating the track. It's fine as is, so I think this is more of a subjective preference point for me, but it deserves the attention. I hope that's worth something, I really enjoyed Meditation for Dogs as whole. Jade City is probably my favorite with its mysterious harmonies and pitch bends. Space Jazz is a great ambient piece (that toy laser is weird :p).
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Jan 2, 2017 23:40
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