Mixdown Practicing & Learning

MAGGHY JI

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Ben Sinclair
Nov 28, 2021
Hello everyone, hope you had a great week and didn't make too many poor financial decisions involving plugins during black friday :p!

I had a good time mixing the track this week even though I kind of deviated from my strategy early on. Since this is a multitrack from Produce Like A Pro and was produced/recorded by Warren, I figured the tracks included were purposeful and I should try to keep as many as possible. However, I axed a few of the drum stems (a bass drum, a couple of snare drums, a room mic and the tambourine) and a couple of the bass tracks. I got rid of most of the distorted/heavier bass tracks and figured if I wanted to push the bass in that direction, I'd be able to do it manually. Same sort of idea with the drums, one of the snares had a built in tail/reverb and rather than mix around that, I decided it would probably be easier to make my own verb if I wanted it.

I was going to use a Neve console because I thought the track would benefit from some warmth, but I actually found the SSL-J sounded better and ended up using that. I tried to keep the track pretty natural sounding aside from a couple of reverbs to add depth, I found the track had more of a spiritual/mystic message to it so I tried to convey that with my FX choices. It was a really good track to mix and pretty painless, I think the only thing I had a bit of trouble with was the lead vocal. He sounds like he's singing really close to the microphone at the start so there's a lot of low end because of the proximity effect, but his voice really thins out when he goes to his upper register. It was tough to get enough low end out of his voice at the start without affecting his voice later on in the song.

https://soundcloud.com/user-519015469/open-up-your-eyes/s-tE0BQpowe56?si=7ab5b7eb3e2241b1986da0deaf393f53

Looking forward to hearing how everyone else did!
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Vlad Po
Nov 28, 2021

good mix, but I lack brightness and want the voice to be closer
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Pierre Collins
Nov 28, 2021
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MAGGHY JI
Nov 29, 2021
Hey Ben, I agree with the comments above, the mix is a bit on the dark side probably because the drum section is fighting with the vocals for the main role.. (less drums more vocals would be my option).. good mix though! ;p
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Anne Schutte
Nov 29, 2021
Hi Ben, nice mix! For me the vocal lacks a bit of brightness. For me the hard panned e-guitar was tilting the mix a bit towards the right (the acoustic is not compensating enough?)
Other than that, the overall balance is very nicely done.
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Leigh #111
Nov 30, 2021
Ben, the first thing I notice is the snare is louder than the rest of the kit. Take that down a bit and then take the whole kit down a fraction and I'd be happier. But overall everything sounds good. Perhaps use a de-esser to remove some of the sharper pick sound hits out the acoustic guitar on the left.