Wow, very solid! I feel if I were to give any feedback I'd want to hear a bit more air in the top top and for everything to be a bit less constricted and more 3d. That's totally taste though, great work!

Nice tune. Great vocals.

Overall I think it's a good mix and tight recording.

These would be my nits...

For me what jumps out is it is very crowded. I know everything is panned out, but it still feels like some of the sounds are competing with each other.

I think it's a level thing, the hard panned synth seems louder to my ear than the lead vocals. And for me that is interesting, but also distracting.

Love the sound! Especially the build up. Im engaged the entire time, well done. I agree with the statement by Darren. I mainly feel the release on the compression (mainly) drums could be a bit longer. Give it some breathing room. But this is preference and perhaps it doesn't work in this song at all as it will fill up the space even more. To tackle this you could try adjusting the pre delays of the reverb to create some space between the different sections and make it more 3D.

Love it.

I would personally like the vocals a bit more forward in the mix (except at the end). I feel the main vox gets buried a bit.

I kind of like the tight mix. The tightness/constriction sounds very intentional given that you have other elements that periodically move around, through and overtop the soundscape.

As you know, I'm a fan. So, it's great to hear some new stuff from you.

Thank you so much for your feedback, guys!
@Anthony Andrulonis Yeah you're right, I relistened to the song in my car and felt that the vocal levels should be raised otherwise they compete to much. Can you help me which passage you mean with the synth? Its actually all guitars that I recorded. But the Digitech Whammy and some other pedals I've used transforms the guitars to synth-like sounds so I get what your saying. ;D
@Joël Buijnsters : Thanks for your feedback and your tips. Yeah, I thought a lot about making it more 3D and tried different subtle settings on the seventh heaven plugin. Somehow i felt (especially in the chorus) it ruined the vibe somehow. Can't tell you exactly why it felt that way as this is very subjective. There's a lot of Delay and reverb and last buildup section though on the vocals and on some Instruments. What you think that if I increase the Release on the drum compression it would sound less tight / punchy? That's what I experienced. I also think I could have mic'd the drums better because of all the highhat spill. But this time I refused to put samples on top of the live drums for hopefully achieve a more garage rock/ i don't care-style.
@Darryl Wood Thanks mate! This means a lot to me. I increased the vocals by another 1-1,5DB (depending on the section) and will reupload a new version in a few minutes. Thank you for the listen!!

Hi Andreas! I like it!
As @Darryl Wood already said, the voice could be just a bit more forward along the entire song. Between 2:29 and 2:32 +-, in particular.

Thank you! I just increased the vocals a bit / also I increased some subbass frequencies (lowshelf from 100hz down) to give a bit more oomph and warmth.. i slightly decreased the levels of the midrange between 1khz and 4khz (around 0,5-1db) let me know what you think of the new mix:
https://soundcloud.com/andik-music/master-70-fooling-soundcloud-master/s-A8S2g14j0Lm?si=5938900c46a24db18d1f27a4c8f5bc09&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing

@Andreas Kaufmann second mix is much better to my ears. Everything is less in your face and warmer.

That is a great sound on the guitars, I thought it sounded a bit odd for synth playing.

The spot that bothered me the most with the side levels was in the verse starting at about :35 in. It seems much better now.

Thank you for the feedback @Anthony Andrulonis ! Yeah, you can get some cool synthy sounds out of the Digitech Whammy Pedal.. not just the Rage Against the Machine thing. ;)

New version sounds fantastic. Very much enjoying it.

Thanks a lot Darryl!! This is encouraging to hear!

The song is awesome! Loved it! I love the retro vibes you are going for. In some sections, the chorus sounds a bit too airy to me on my monitors while other sections sound fat and warm but I think its a creative choice and it does work and contrast well against the less airy or thick parts. Overall I really love the vibe and it is a well composed and produced song that is enjoyable to listen to. You have a new fan!

Cheers,

EDIT: Btw, I prefer the new version of the mix.

its day and night difference great work my man

@Sachin Shrestha thank you so much for your comment! This is too kind and means a lot to me! Yeah, you’re right that there is a kind of contrast between the sections (regarding the high frequencies) . I thought I get away with it but you got me 😅 the contrast was even higher before I started EQing / balancing it and it was a problem that I struggled with while mixing this song . Maybe I give it another go. Thanks!!

I would agree with previous comments, the Chorus is a little loud / airy compared to the rest of the mix. I would try some volume automation on those parts before playing with the EQ, I am not hearing any glaring issues there.

Other than that, great mix.

@Lee Walker is there a specific moment, where it stands out the most to you? Is it when the second Chorus comes in? Or do you mean the first one, too? Thank you Lee!!
@Ali Vejahati thank you so much for your feedback !

@Andreas Kaufmann, It is all of the Fooling yourself all the time. I think just ducking the volume there a little on the bus during those verses would help. The balance on the rest is great. Most of it is a melodic singing, however, during the chorus parts, it is loud singing with several backup singers. It compounds and sounds louder.

@Lee Walker : Got it! Thanks for the reply!

Very welcome

Dude the song is SO good, I love everything about it. It´s kind of simple but then it is not simple at all. I loved the production and arrangements, the playing and the singing so much I was vibing all the time and didn´t really pay attention to the mix haha. That´s a great sign IMO.

Congrats, you have a new fan! do you have this kind of stuff in spotify?

Cheers from Spain!

Let me preface by saying im a perfectionist and your diamond ears award makes me wonder how much of the things i noticed truly are technical and what parts are just personal preference.

I'm not quite sure this is what you meant with having a rough feel to it but the kick sounds a bit weirdly layered to me. Like the top end has a small delay compared to the low end and its just not doing it quite for me. It also has a sweep up in some sections which sounds like it doesn't fully connect to the initial hit of the kick.

Overall i think the crashes/noise for me unnecessarily clutters the otherwise very clean arrangement. Wouldn't have minded some soothe on the cymbals and high synth for example on 1:17 either.

I do really like the vocals and the arrangement of the chorus. As a bonus tip id try adding some delay/echo on the vocals and turning that down quite a lot in the mix to blend them into the track even more. (you already did this in some parts but left others imo a bit too empty and makes your focus disconnect from the voice entirely for a short time). This goes particularly for the verses, I don't think this tip would work extremely well in how you arranged this chorus. Which as I mentioned is already great.

That all being said i believe you can make some really valuable tracks for many people if you get a few more reps in. Maybe try creating a few songs in a short timeframe for a while. Might be interesting to see what you learn from that.

This is freaking awesome dude! I don't really have any critiques, mainly just wondering about your process navigating the Tempo changes in Ableton! Really cool work.

@Sergio Gabaldon Thank you so much for your kind feedback! The song will be on spotify 10, August, 2024. Glad you liked it!
Here's a link: https://open.spotify.com/intl-de/artist/3hOQMohnRvPvQ2tS4aEzTH?si=218f2fcac0184cc9
@Aike East thank you for your detailed reply!! Really appreciate that you took a lot of time for critical listening!! The kick thing is very interesting to me. One challenge with this song (I also did this on a few of my other songs) was to not layer anything on the drums. So there are no samples at all. I played and recorded the drums with 2 relatively closes Overheads (XY-Technique) and then one mic on snare top and kick (in). Because of the closeness of the overheads, there might be just a tiny bit of delay, which could create phase issues with the kick or snare mic. I didnt correct these, because to my taste the phase or the general sound of the drums sounded ok to me. Even after close listening I wasnt able to tell the kick thing. But that could be because I heard the song so often, that my brain becomes deaf to those nuances. ;) Another guess is that I was playing a bit sloppy in a few passages. ;) Thanks for the vocal tips, too. Its funny because I had a John Lennon-Type Slap Delay on whole the choruses at first. I felt that I was losing the tightness and the aggresivness somehow. Thats why I decided against it in the end. But maybe that decision was wrong. ;) Its always hard to stay in the moment and go with your gut instead of overthinking every decision. That's why this forum is so useful. Very thankful for each comment here.
@Matthew Joseph Thanks !! Too kind! You're the first one to feedback the massive tempo change between chorus and verses. When I created this song I thought that would irritate a lot of people. Its arround 12bpm difference at times. I did this mainly because each tempo felt more right for the corresponding passage. One way would have been to play the drums at first (which I did) and just ignoring the click to play in my own tempo/feel. But I decided against it, because there is this Guitar-Interlude where I slowly increased the song tempo. It caused me a lot of headaches and extra steps though. If I would do this again, I might just play the drumtrack without using a click. But maybe I would have to practice drums more often that I'm not all over the place, when playing without a click :D On the other hand this is indie rock and all the bands from the 60s/70s had major tempo and feel-shifts in their songs. Thanks again for your comment!

@Andreas Kaufmann Had another listen to the kick, I think its the cymbals layered on top that don't hit at the same time. Or the processing of the kick or the stereo delay, probably a combination of those three. Already thought I saw you recorded the kick yourself. As far as I've heard that seems to be its own unique specialty and skill, I wouldn't really have a clue how to do that. An idea for you could be though to record a few kicks and tweak them exactly to your liking so you can just program them in next time but im guessing that wasn't what you intented to go for.

As for the vocals i think you made the right decision for the chorus, the arrangement of the chorus sounds awesome like this as do the vocals with their effects. Think a subtle one in the verse would've been a nice addition, just to keep your listeners attention on the vocals.

The tempo change is really interesting btw didnt notice it until i saw Matthew's comment, very nicely done!

Thank you for the reply!

Hey Andreas, Zeta here, only say if you are searching for this be commercial, or a 1 time experience, if you want it commercial its a little too heavy with giant dinamics and a little harsh, if you want it to be more like a experience its good there, its like good to listen 1 time but the second you may be saturated. Only my humble opinion. Keep working hardddd

Thanks for your reply @Zeta ︎︎! Really grateful for every comment. I'm not trying to get commercial success with this song in any way. I think the music taste of the top 100 on spotify can tell that the song is already the wrong genre. But as you say the dynamics should be in place. So I'm asking myself which part of the song was too dynamic for your taste? The chorus? Thank you so much!!

As always, fantastic production Andreas! I'm finding the hi-hats in the intro a little aggressive in the upper midrange, and maybe the vocal a teeny bit overcompressed and maybe 0.5dB too soft for my taste - for whatever reason, I notice the vocal compression as being over the top in the verse. The chorus/intro doesn't bother me, neither does the outro.

Don't worry about the Top100, you're music is rocking. Maybe you won't get played at John Reed, but I think you'll survive it!

Love this song! I like the vocals a lot. Here are some things I noticed. Please note I'm nitpicking here and some things are musical taste ;)

- 00:20 - The panned synth sounds a little too distracting to me. I would turn it down a little or blend it in more with some reverb.
- 01:07 - You can hear a tail from the bell synth(?) in the short silence but it sounds dissonant to me. You're in the key of Dmaj. The notes I can hear in the tail are D, F#, G and A# with the G ringing out over the vocals when they start again. If I were to produce this, I would cut off the tail entirely OR knifing some of the frequencies out with an EQ. I would start with that A# since that note is not in the key of Dmaj and see if that helps. As soon as the vocals start at 01:09 I would cut of the tail since it can distract from the vocals.
- 01:18 - I would turn the sweeping synth down a little so it blends in more and distracts less.
- 01:42 - same as 01:18

I hope this is of use. Would love to hear the result :)

@J N @Femke De Wolf Thank you so much to the both of you!! I'll go back and look into it. Regarding the 1:07min: You really have good ears, Femke! Do you have perfect pitch? @J N Yes, John Reed isnt exactly the target group. ;)

@Andreas Kaufmann glad I could help :) I don't have perfect pitch but I did go to college for music. I had A LOT of solfège and music theory classes. I still need a piano to figure out what I'm hearing but it turned out to be a pretty useful skill ;)

@Femke De Wolf Cool! Yeah, that is indeed a very useful skill. Should also work on my listening skills. Its so underrated. Really good relative pitch would be enough for me. I guess there are even times when perfect pitch could confuse you (somebody playing out of tune) and be not beneficial.