a thoughtful web.
Good ideas and conversation. No ads, no tracking.   Login or Take a Tour!
comment by CrazyEyeJoe
CrazyEyeJoe  ·  3786 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Russian Sex Lizard Satellite track 1: early version

Well, here's some constructive criticism for you:

Let me start out by saying that it's quite obvious that your main instrument is bass guitar. The reason why I say this is that it's taking up WAY too much space in the mix.

There's a big difference between practicing your bass alone, and putting it with other instruments. What you want is for all of the instruments to have their own space in the mix, so that they're not fighting each other. Your main tools for this are equalizers and filters. Other tools you can use in addition are panning and compressors.

Basically, you need to decide what goes where in frequency. You can't have the bass swallow up everything, or else everything sounds muddy. The most obvious casualty is the kick drum, which can barely be heard when the bass is there at the same time. Do you want the kick to fill in the bottom end, or do you just want it as a rhythmic instrument? Do you want the synthesizer to add the crisp high frequencies, or do you want it to strictly be in the background of the fuzz of the bass? These are decisions that need to be made. You can't have both at the same time. Either get a different kick that doesn't boom as much in the low frequencies, or equalize the bass on the b. guitar. Either work more on the synth so that it takes charge of the high frequencies and EQ the bass, or keep the high frequencies on the bass and move the synth further up in frequency, so the bass gets that space. The bass will sound less intense and visceral by itself, but in the context, it will allow your mix some breathing room, which makes it more pleasant, and less fatiguing, to listen to.

Both the bass and the kick sound a bit overcompressed in my ears. Did you put a really low threshold on them? It's a bit much. The kick also barely has any snap to it, which I assume is because you have too short of an attack on the compressor. Increase the attack, and the drum will have the chance to get a higher amplitude before it's brought down by the compression. Even by itself (without the bass guitar), the kick is too "booming". It sounds like you've tried making it fatter by applying a ton of compression, when really what you need to do is get a better sample, or work with it to give it more character (try overlaying other samples, or play around with some light distortion/saturation).

I hope this helps.

Simply put, the mix is suffocating. Too much compression, and not enough EQ. Too much bass guitar, and not enough kick.





zebra2  ·  3786 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    Let me start out by saying that it's quite obvious that your main instrument is bass guitar. The reason why I say this is that it's taking up WAY too much space in the mix.

Definitely, and I'm well aware of it. I haven't actually EQ'd distorted bass before and I'm finding it more challenging than I'm used to.