Tried to mix electronic and hard rock and here is the outcome - "December"

J

jerberson12

mucis procedure
Update 10/11/2023
Thanks for all the feedback.
Somehow the harshness were not emphasized on my studio headphone but was obvious if I listen using consumer headphones.
Tried a couple of plugins to fix it but the best I found was to use multiband compression between 300 to 12,000 Hz with 1300 Hz being the most reduced gain.
Attached "December smoothen" is the updated mix.



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Original Post

Please critique.
Instruments used are Native Instrument Kontakt and Massive X, and Splice.
Plugins are Waves.
DAW is Pro Tools.
 

Attachments

  • December.mp3
    10.4 MB
  • December smoothened.mp3
    8.2 MB
Last edited:
The song is ok, but the percussion parts sound really harsh to me. Listening on my headphones, I got through about 2 minutes but had to stop.
 
I thought the singer has a good voice. To me there is a little too much high end in her voice.

The rest of the instruments are OK. But they sound very two dimensional. There is no "front to back" image to them.

The mix could probably have just a little stronger low end - especially the low droning bass. Kick is plenty loud. But the bass instruments are a bit back in the mix.
 
jerberson12 said:
Please critique.
Instruments used are Native Instrument Kontakt and Massive X, and Splice.
Plugins are Waves.
DAW is Pro Tools.
Click to expand...
Ok...despite some of the more harsh comments, I feel you have something to be proud of there. Yes everyone has their own way they would do it, but this is your interpretation...and i feel pretty good. Me...(I'm a drummer and still new at this) I would have the snare be more punchy and out front in the quiet parts. It seems to back down too quiet. I would definitely crescendo more at the build. Maybe less variations with the backing track 🤷‍♂️ Nice work overall.
 
I like the song but it all sounds a bit harsh, overly bright, fatiguing on the ear and needs taming.

Without hearing the raw tracks I'd guess you've done a lot and got lost in the mix.
 
Last edited:
I tried listening to it again on monitors instead of headphones, and got the same perspective. There's just a LOT going on in the chorus, with distorted guitar, the wooshing sound, and the synth drums. It all steps on the vocal and becomes a mass of noise.. It seems to be really peaky around 2 - 2.5k, but even putting a 3 or 4dB cut there didn't help a lot. I think it's just too distorted.
 
Great song. Great songwriting. Great pop vocal.

My ears aren't very good, but my punters impression is you could improve this a lot by introducing a bit more dynamics to most of the parts (less compression?), so everything isn't up front in your face all the time. Alongside that take of some high end of some things, like others have said about the harshness.
 
Update 10/11/2023
Thanks for all the feedback.
Somehow the harshness were not emphasized on my studio headphone but was obvious if I listen using consumer headphones.
Tried a couple of plugins to fix it but the best I found was to use multiband compression between 300 to 12,000 Hz with 1300 Hz being the most reduced gain.
Attached "December smoothen" is the updated mix.
 

Attachments

  • December smoothened.mp3
    8.2 MB
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