Can someone give me mixing advice on this song?

Hey Samson, I'll give you my take for what it's worth.

First off, I gotta admit, I find it really sad that you or anyone else would feel the need to apologize for the genre of a song. Don't ever feel that way man...seriously. Anyone that refuses to hear the art in a piece of music isn't the person you want a critique from anyway. Dance pop makes money. There's no such thing as soul selling unless you create music that you absolutely hate for the sake of income. Then again, in this economy, who could blame anyone for doing what they gotta do musically over working at Burger King? If hooks were easy, everyone would be loaded...remember that. Ok, on to the tune.

In my opinion, (having worked with this style for many years) what you do to it would be subjective. The songs in this style usually have a more forceful kick with better low end that gives it impact. I'm not feeling that in this mix.

Also, I'm hearing instrumentation that is super electronic. The more electronic and fake you go, the smaller the sounds will be. When you listen to the artists you mentioned, their mixes are fuller because they are using better instrumentation. They use the digital fake stuff to layer in for sound effects as well as enhancing sounds that are more real. But you've got quite a lot of lo-fi going on here...and when you have loads of that going on, the sounds and the mix will only be so big.

I love your use of panning, effects and auto-tune. I think all that is well done. But I'm just not hearing enough instrumentation in your core of the backing to bring this to the top. I'd also experiment with a different melody within your instrumentation because to me, and I don't mean this in a harsh way, but your hook you sing doesn't match the music. It seems like a good vocal hook, but there is no real melody that makes me go "YEAH!" Not to bring this up...but that tune everyone hated but me..."Friday"....the hook is so golden, it's beyond infectious. It doesn't matter what instrumentation would have been used there...the hook sells the tune. In yours, we're in reverse. I don't feel the main hook "melody" (not the vocal line lyric itself..that's fine) is working with the backing where it should. Add in the fact that the instrumentation sounds more digital and fake sounding than it should, and this really brings the shock value down in my opinion.

I know you probably weren't interested in my opinion of the song itself....but if the almighty hook is not there in this style with all the other stuff to go with it, it matters not what the mix is doing. But for what you have as well as the instrumentation you used, as is, I'd work on some good low end to drive it if you are happy with things for the most part. But if it were me personally...I'd either change up the vocal melody to fit the music more, or I'd alter the music to fit the vocal melody and improve on the instrumentation used.

I listened to it 2 times and as I type this, I can't sing back anything that was memorable. You know you got a good hook when you can remember it after 1-2 listens. So that's the stuff I'd work on if I were you. I think you have a great idea here that could be really good with a bit of work in the right areas. And hey man....don't ever feel the need to justify your art. I'm an 80's rocker as my personal preference....or pop rock type artist...but I write a bit of everything. I get bashed all the time from people for it...especially the 80's type stuff. But it is who and what I am...and I'm proud of what I do as well as what I've accomplished. It's paid my bills well for years and has opened up many new doors for me to work with other artists within other genre's of music. Stay true bro...and best of luck. :)

-Danny

@Danny,

No problem. I'm always open to constructive criticism. I'm not one of those people who thinks just because I created it, it's good. Like anyone else, somethings I do are hot, others not so much. This may be the case.

Although, I will disagree with you on the instruments. It's part of the problem  I have with my mixes. I agree it sounds"small". But, it only seems to be that way when I try to mix. When other people have mixed my songs, they come out nice and fat. Here's another song I did that was mixed by someone else and mastered professionally. Not as good as if I'd have it mixed by a pro, but the guys who mixed this one are certainly better than me. Dance, Dance!

I'm using mostly the same types of sounds and the same synths. Zeta, Korg Legacy Cell, Maschine, Rapture, etc ... The only differing factor is who's mixing. In this case me. It's got to be something I'm doing wrong. My buddy use to come and mix on my set up. Sounded nice and fat. I was told when I mix to keep my gain staging low. About -12. Maybe that's my problem?

Also, I was just being sarcastic about the whole soul selling thing. I put that in there because I know the disdain for the trappings of Dance-Pop that permeates these forums. Sometimes I like poking a stick in the bees nest.

That's not me singing. The guy I used didn't need Autotune. But, I like that sound right now. So, I use it. Auto tune is a tool. Nothing more, nothing less. I don't apologize for anything I create (unless I cuss and some old women gets her panties in bunch. Gots' to respect my elders). I like Dance Pop. I think there are some pretty cool things going on with that genre right now. When I get tired of it, I'll make other stuff. Simple as that. But, to put a fine point on things, I'm very proud of the music I make.

BTW - Any 80' kid who appreciates "Black Friday" as much as I did automatically gets my respect. I thought it was cute, gimmicky and fun. Everything a Pop song by a 13 year old should be. What should she have sung, "**** You." I don't understand people sometimes. ...lol

@Guitarhacker,

Thanks I appreciate it and I will keep mixing. I learned a lot doing this one. Hopefully, I'll be starting another next week. I'll post it when I'm done.

samson7842


@Danny,

No problem. I'm always open to constructive criticism. I'm not one of those people who thinks just because I created it, it's good. Like anyone else, somethings I do are hot, others not so much. This may be the case.

Although, I will disagree with you on the instruments. It's part of the problem  I have with my mixes. I agree it sounds"small". But, it only seems to be that way when I try to mix. When other people have mixed my songs, they come out nice and fat. Here's another song I did that was mixed by someone else and mastered professionally. Not as good as if I'd have it mixed by a pro, but the guys who mixed this one are certainly better than me. Dance, Dance!

I'm using mostly the same types of sounds and the same synths. Zeta, Korg Legacy Cell, Maschine, Rapture, etc ... The only differing factor is who's mixing. In this case me. It's got to be something I'm doing wrong. My buddy use to come and mix on my set up. Sounded nice and fat. I was told when I mix to keep my gain staging low. About -12. Maybe that's my problem?

Also, I was just being sarcastic about the whole soul selling thing. I put that in there because I know the disdain for the trappings of Dance-Pop that permeates these forums. Sometimes I like poking a stick in the bees nest.

That's not me singing. The guy I used didn't need Autotune. But, I like that sound right now. So, I use it. Auto tune is a tool. Nothing more, nothing less. I don't apologize for anything I create (unless I cuss and some old women gets her panties in bunch. Gots' to respect my elders). I like Dance Pop. I think there are some pretty cool things going on with that genre right now. When I get tired of it, I'll make other stuff. Simple as that. But, to put a fine point on things, I'm very proud of the music I make.

BTW - Any 80' kid who appreciates "Black Friday" as much as I did automatically gets my respect. I thought it was cute, gimmicky and fun. Everything a Pop song by a 13 year old should be. What should she have sung, "**** You." I don't understand people sometimes. ...lol

@Guitarhacker,

Thanks I appreciate it and I will keep mixing. I learned a lot doing this one. Hopefully, I'll be starting another next week. I'll post it when I'm done.

Well, I won't argue with you as that is not my intent. However, listening to Dance Dance there's a huge difference in the orchestration and sounds compared to the song I critiqued. The sounds in Dance are way more "stereo" and bigger sounding with more life. The sounds in "Unfreakin" are small, mono and a completely different animal. Dance is also a bit light in the low end...but has a stronger core of instrumentation backing it. So though you may disagree, to me it's blatantly obvious on the differences when I compare the tunes. It doesn't seem like a mix issue at all. You have a core in your new tune here that is basing its impact on the synthetic instruments...which to me, sounds like an instrumentation choice issue. In Dance, though there are synthetic nuances, the song isn't relying on them to be the core of the impact. The synthetic sounds are enhancing the more realistic sounds. I don't hear enough "realistic" stuff in your new song and it's more monophonic.
 
You can't turn mono instruments into stereo other that running HAAS effects or other imaging type effects without picking up weird artifacts or phased imaging. I don't hear any of that in Dance which tells me the instrumentation is different and the choices made were more stereoesque so to speak. Not to mention, I'm hearing lots of lo-fi in the new tune and lo-fi for enhancement on Dance. Anyway, sorry if I've offended you at all...just telling it like I hear it. By the way, just so you know, I'm not just a rocker that is clueless to this genre. :) I mix, write and produce music of all styles and would not comment if I was unsure of a style. I've worked with, and for, quite a few artitsts you'd know of in this genre as well as wrote and sold a few songs as "works for hire" as well. :) Best of luck with the song and whatever decisions you make.
 
-Danny

Danny Danzi

samson7842


@Danny,

No problem. I'm always open to constructive criticism. I'm not one of those people who thinks just because I created it, it's good. Like anyone else, somethings I do are hot, others not so much. This may be the case.

Although, I will disagree with you on the instruments. It's part of the problem  I have with my mixes. I agree it sounds"small". But, it only seems to be that way when I try to mix. When other people have mixed my songs, they come out nice and fat. Here's another song I did that was mixed by someone else and mastered professionally. Not as good as if I'd have it mixed by a pro, but the guys who mixed this one are certainly better than me. Dance, Dance!

I'm using mostly the same types of sounds and the same synths. Zeta, Korg Legacy Cell, Maschine, Rapture, etc ... The only differing factor is who's mixing. In this case me. It's got to be something I'm doing wrong. My buddy use to come and mix on my set up. Sounded nice and fat. I was told when I mix to keep my gain staging low. About -12. Maybe that's my problem?

Also, I was just being sarcastic about the whole soul selling thing. I put that in there because I know the disdain for the trappings of Dance-Pop that permeates these forums. Sometimes I like poking a stick in the bees nest.

That's not me singing. The guy I used didn't need Autotune. But, I like that sound right now. So, I use it. Auto tune is a tool. Nothing more, nothing less. I don't apologize for anything I create (unless I cuss and some old women gets her panties in bunch. Gots' to respect my elders). I like Dance Pop. I think there are some pretty cool things going on with that genre right now. When I get tired of it, I'll make other stuff. Simple as that. But, to put a fine point on things, I'm very proud of the music I make.

BTW - Any 80' kid who appreciates "Black Friday" as much as I did automatically gets my respect. I thought it was cute, gimmicky and fun. Everything a Pop song by a 13 year old should be. What should she have sung, "**** You." I don't understand people sometimes. ...lol

@Guitarhacker,

Thanks I appreciate it and I will keep mixing. I learned a lot doing this one. Hopefully, I'll be starting another next week. I'll post it when I'm done.

Well, I won't argue with you as that is not my intent. However, listening to Dance Dance there's a huge difference in the orchestration and sounds compared to the song I critiqued. The sounds in Dance are way more "stereo" and bigger sounding with more life. The sounds in "Unfreakin" are small, mono and a completely different animal. Dance is also a bit light in the low end...but has a stronger core of instrumentation backing it. So though you may disagree, to me it's blatantly obvious on the differences when I compare the tunes. It doesn't seem like a mix issue at all. You have a core in your new tune here that is basing its impact on the synthetic instruments...which to me, sounds like an instrumentation choice issue. In Dance, though there are synthetic nuances, the song isn't relying on them to be the core of the impact. The synthetic sounds are enhancing the more realistic sounds. I don't hear enough "realistic" stuff in your new song and it's more monophonic.
 
You can't turn mono instruments into stereo other that running HAAS effects or other imaging type effects without picking up weird artifacts or phased imaging. I don't hear any of that in Dance which tells me the instrumentation is different and the choices made were more stereoesque so to speak. Not to mention, I'm hearing lots of lo-fi in the new tune and lo-fi for enhancement on Dance. Anyway, sorry if I've offended you at all...just telling it like I hear it. By the way, just so you know, I'm not just a rocker that is clueless to this genre. :) I mix, write and produce music of all styles and would not comment if I was unsure of a style. I've worked with, and for, quite a few artitsts you'd know of in this genre as well as wrote and sold a few songs as "works for hire" as well. :) Best of luck with the song and whatever decisions you make.
 
-Danny

@Danny

I'm not offended at all and I believe you know what you're talking about. I've read some of your other post and you give some good advice. I put my song up to get opinions in the hope that I would learn how to make it better. I'm not hear to get my ego stroked. I appreciate honest opinions. A person doesn't get good by hearing only what they want to hear.

I think you may have struck on something. While I am using the same synths (Zeta was my go to synth) on both songs. However, on UFB I made all of the synths mono. I was told that's what I should do. Make them mono and use delays to flesh them out. Was that wrong? Am I getting bad advice?

Lateef

I listened again today... and it seems like it's not so much about whether an instrument or effect is mono or stereo but rather how the resulted tracks are panned in the mix.

Dance Dance has very obvious panning... some of hard and some of it actively moving across.

Some of the delay effects are also emphasized as stereo.

It is almost as if the big pans are part of the arrangement.

UFB just doesn't have any of that.

Plus, It seems, to me, that as Danny says the instrumentation is different (although I think there are more similarities than differences) and because of that I think UFB really needs the bass line to be louder as it works in the arrangement differently than the bass does in Dance Dance. The Bass in UFB is vital to help define the rhythm while Dance Dance has a clear low note percussion pulse.

In general UFB isn't as wide a freqeuncy spectrum either. UFB doesn't have the low growl that Dance Dance has. Dance Dance has the hyped upper midrange... and that really helps support the stereo imaging too. There's a lot more energy up in the upper midrange in Dance Dance.

Anyways, I dislike telling people how to make their art... I'd rather just enjoy their art... but that's the stuff I'd think about while mixing UFB to play side by side with Dance Dance.


all the best,
mike

mike