Joe Jackson song - Bubba Po and NotThatBright collab.

[Bubba po]

That happens to everyone. You got to trust your ears, mixed with the ears of the small handful of people who's ears you also trust. I often get 3 people saying the snare is too loud (for example) before 3 others come in saying the snare should be louder, etc...Same with vocals, etc....Sometimes there's total consensus on something, but rarely. I have 3 or 4 people I always hope will comment on my song because they're usually right on. To me, Greg's word is #1 for me, not to blow smoke up his ass. Actually, I hope he doesn't even read this. I don't mean I disregard what anyone else says, because many others have very valid opinions too, but his ears are gold to me.

I think your third mix sounded great. I think they all sounded good, but #3 was the one for me.

Thanks RAMI. You've hit the nail on the head with your comment. I think Greg's assessment of the balance of the instruments was spot on, but I think my interpretation of how to achieve that wasn't quite right because I boosted too many of the high frequencies. In the end, I think I like my last mix best for the reason that Rob Green gave, In that the mix still has the warmth I wanted, still has the dominant bass I wanted, still has the meaty kick I was going for and the rest of the instruments are there in a reasonable balance and clarity to make the song listenable.

In the end I think it would take a more talented recordist than me to make sense of this track, which is irritating because it seems so simple.

 

[NotThatBright]

Chalk another one up for liking the 3rd version the best.

Question- what did you do to the drums to get this sound? I know you use a proper DAW, but these drums sound nothing like any drum sound I was ever able to produce. Did you use any compression on the snare, kick and/or overheads? How about EQing the snare and overheads? For the kick I know you cut a shitload at 250Hz, then boosted the hell out of 80hz and 5kHz. That's almost exactly what I do with the kick, but this still sounds way different.

I plan on tuning the kick properly for the first time ever. I'll also need to probably ditch half the crap I have inside dampening it.

 

[Bubba po]

Chalk another one up for liking the 3rd version the best.

Question- what did you do to the drums to get this sound? I know you use a proper DAW, but these drums sound nothing like any drum sound I was ever able to produce. Did you use any compression on the snare, kick and/or overheads? How about EQing the snare and overheads? For the kick I know you cut a shitload at 250Hz, then boosted the hell out of 80hz and 5kHz. That's almost exactly what I do with the kick, but this still sounds way different.

I plan on tuning the kick properly for the first time ever. I'll also need to probably ditch half the crap I have inside dampening it.

By 3rd version, do you mean the bottom one in the O.P., or my last one on this page?

I don't know what I've done differently to how you do your drums, but I did gate both kick and snare. I used loads of eq on the kick (Two hits of ReaEQ, a parametric eq plugin, with the boosts and cuts you mentioned), far less on the snare. I used very little comp on anything because your hits were very consistent and recorded so hot they were pretty much limited by the dynamic range of the track! The snare had two eq peaks, a large one at 4 kHz and a smaller one 8 kHz. The first one accentuates the crack and the second one brings out the wires. I scooped the low mids in the overheads and slightly high-shelved the frequencies above 4 kHz. I kept the overheads quite low in the mix.

I can't stress enough how much EQ I used on the kick - oh, and I just remembered, I pitch-shifted it down a semitone before the eq and after the gate because the drum was so "middly".

 

[NotThatBright]

I meant the "mix based on Greg's recommendation" was my favorite.

Got a couple days off, gonna pull that kick apart and have it sounding proper before I record anything else.