Messing with mixdown

yo fellas.

can someone tell me what's good/bad here?

especially with snare and bass.

i just can't get the right mix, i spent hours mixing this and it still sound lame for me.

cheers

It sounds like everything is just put at 0db.

Turn everything down (until you can't hear it)
Then turn up the kick to about 80%
Then the bass, until is sound loud enough together with the kick
turn up all the other drums afterwards
then the rest of the track
and important: eqing.

@crizis

thanks for the response. i tried that but i think the biggest problem is in the bass. i just don't know how to make/eq it right.
thank you that although you answered.

hmm well, thats just trial and error I guess...
If you have problems, split the bass.

You need a sub, the the 'normal' bass part, the midrange, and the highs.
I feel that the sub mostly feels good when peaking around -6db (don't follow this exactly, just a guideline :p), this way it doesn't take to much headroom, but it's still clear in the mix.
The other parts are just trial... Every bass needs its own eq and volume.. It will only help if you eq split it. So you can change the volume of each eq range independently.

Crizis said:

hmm well, thats just trial and error I guess...
If you have problems, split the bass.

You need a sub, the the 'normal' bass part, the midrange, and the highs.
I feel that the sub mostly feels good when peaking around -6db (don't follow this exactly, just a guideline :p), this way it doesn't take to much headroom, but it's still clear in the mix.
The other parts are just trial... Every bass needs its own eq and volume.. It will only help if you eq split it. So you can change the volume of each eq range independently.

Click to expand...

It all comes to preference, but I like to have a individual sub, and individual bass.

to the OP: There's no rule of thumb, though: You'll need to trust your ears to "see" if a mixing is good. Crizis gave a pretty good approach on mixing (turning everything down, and then raise the volume one mixer track at a time), but I'd do the following: raise the kick to about -2,5 to -3db, then the snare a little higher than that. Then, I'd raise the volume of the sub, until you feel it, but it doesn't take the energy from both kick and snare. Then, I'd raise the volume of the bass (or basses), until it fit well with the kick, snare and sub. And then I'd raise the volume of the other mixer tracks (starting with the leads, if you have).

About the EQ, just stick a spectrum analyzer on each track, and see where, in the frequency spectrum, the different instruments are competing with each other. And then do some cuts. for example: if the sub is hitting on the 50hz mark, cut everything below 50hz from the kick, or make the sub "duck" whenever the kick hits, by sidechaining that specific frequency. Same applies to bass and snares and leads.

nice mainstream tune, but so much overload..\