Deep House Mixing Critique - Blackout Music

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Blackout1107

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Hey guys,

I'm new to the forum here and have been producing electronic music in my home for the last 3 years or so. I'd love to have many different inputs on this track here that I finished earlier this summer. Too often I find myself sticking to myself as the sole judge of what I'm working on, but feedback away from the original artist is really the way to go. Mixing to me is one of the most crucial elements in modern music. It's what separates the men from the boys and gives a one-up to one musician over another. I just really want other ears to hear it for me. Any feedback you give me is appreciated and any advice on what to do to fix the issues you bring to light is also a huge help. I hope to post frequently in the future here and join the community.

All synth patches have been created by me with the help of the trusty soft synth from Native Instrument's called Massive. Many of the samples are from various Vengeance sample packs. The bass guitar, really the core of the low-end of this song, is a pre-bass sampler created by Scarbee that runs through Kontakt 5. The song was rendered at a sample rate of 44100 Hz and a bit depth of 24 bits through Ableton Live 8 as a wave file. It was then converted to an MP3. The audio peaks on average around -1.5 dB.

Thanks,
Blackout Music

View attachment deephousecritique.mp3
 
ouch! did you not get a headache mixing this ? i will if i carry on listening :(


turned it off,but from what i did listen to the loops your using are out of time with themselves ...
 
I don't understand the previous comment. Nothing sounds out of time to me. I like the song. Reminded me a bit of Underworld. I'm not sure how to comment on the mixing in this genre since I've never done it, but the mix sounded smooth and open. I had no trouble hearing the main sounds together with the subtle things happening in the background. That bass sample was sick! Don't know if you're interested in comments on composition or not, but here are a couple. A minor quibble: The first transition around 0:30 seemed a little abrupt. More seriously, the talkbox vocal effect after 4:00 took me out of the groove. I thought the composition had run out of ideas by about 6:00 and could have ended a minute sooner.

All in all, good work. I went through a phase about 10-15 years ago when I lost interest in rock and pop and listened mostly to electronica, as it was called then. I still dig it. I've thought of trying my hand at it, but the chore of dealing with all the technology kills my inspiration.
 
Robus said:
I don't understand the previous comment. Nothing sounds out of time to me. I like the song. Reminded me a bit of Underworld. I'm not sure how to comment on the mixing in this genre since I've never done it, but the mix sounded smooth and open. I had no trouble hearing the main sounds together with the subtle things happening in the background. That bass sample was sick! Don't know if you're interested in comments on composition or not, but here are a couple. A minor quibble: The first transition around 0:30 seemed a little abrupt. More seriously, the talkbox vocal effect after 4:00 took me out of the groove. I thought the composition had run out of ideas by about 6:00 and could have ended a minute sooner.

All in all, good work. I went through a phase about 10-15 years ago when I lost interest in rock and pop and listened mostly to electronica, as it was called then. I still dig it. I've thought of trying my hand at it, but the chore of dealing with all the technology kills my inspiration.
Click to expand...

Hey Robus,

Thanks for the reply! I appreciate your input. That last comment from that one guy kind of scared me. I never thought anything was out time at least so thanks for the reassurance. But thanks for the composition tips. Arrangement I think has always been my biggest struggle. And I agree with you on the technology comment. It's a lot of tech to learn and master to even begin putting quality ideas down. I never have too many issues with coming up with decent midi patterns(bass guitar solo, etc.) It's meshing it all together for me that's so difficult. Any ideas from what you heard, thinking about it as a listener, that you think maybe didn't need to be included for it to still sound good and entertaining? It sounds like the talkbox section was one of those for you.
 
Definitely the talkbox. When you listen to it, it's not a very attractive sound--kind of like a robot vomiting. Maybe it could be pushed back in the mix? I thought the section right before that, where you have a kind of bass and drum breakdown, was one of the best in song. There's definitely a swinging Jaco vibe to that section. Then comes the talkbox. And by that point, that background vocal loop is getting a little old too. You could go from the bass breakdown right back into the main groove. Just a thought.

It's a difficult genre to do well. Great electronic music is like a magic carpet. It takes you on a journey without you quite knowing how you got from point A to B. I'm sure you're familiar with Underworld. Some of their work is the best I've ever heard.
 
I thought it sounded pretty good. Not my thing musically. But the sounds were all pleasing. And it kept up my interest fairly well. The song was a bit long, but not too bad.

Kick might be a little on the heavy side. It dominates the bass in the low end. And I liked the bass sound more than the kick.

But all in all, I thought it sounded pretty good.
 
At around the 1 minute mark, the (sounded like a maraca) sound didn't seem to fit that well. That may have been the timing issue referred to in the earlier comment. Other than that, it seemed like everything mixed well.
 
Thanks guys,

So with house music I feel like when it comes to bass end, you can only have it one of two ways. The sub range will feature either your kick or bass but never both because it gets hectic. I'll definitely consider having the song sway more towards featuring the bass guitar than the kick. And about the maraca, yeah, I can understand how that would mess with the head a bit. I have it alternating pan positions in a 16th note pattern ("one" and "ands" in left 100% and "ee" and "uh" in right 100%). If I remember correctly that was a silly thing I made before I even made the actual drum beat and have just left it in there since, but I guess there isn't really a real need for it.
 
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