New producer looking for mixdown help/advice

celodnb

celodnb

Member
Joined
Oct 8, 2017
Location
Aarhus, Denmark
Hi all. I've been producing for approx. one year now, and I think I'm starting to get some OK ideas down, but I feel like I'm having trouble with one part... the mixdown (notoriously the hardest bit of making DnB).

I have a few tracks I've made recently, with a couple that I'm feeling quite positive about, but I would love to ask if anyone out there would be willing to help with a mixdown on this track? Just so you know, it's kinda a liquid DnB tune, produced using Serum and sample packs. Here's my attempt at a mixdown (and a limiter, AOM invisible limiter, last to turn it up to somewhere near normal levels, around -8 rms).

https://soundcloud.com/carl-loader%2Ffall

Would anyone be willing to take the stems, which I can of course send, and try a mixdown? I would be forever grateful, just really trying to learn as much as I can :)
 
mate to be honest this mix isn;t half bad. still needs a bit of work. i'd bring out the mid-range bass a bit more, the 'wobs' kinda get are getting a bit lost. also i'd group the drums and compress them together, izotope alloy is perfect for this. it's got a multiband transient shaper which give your drums more punch, and you can boost the stereo, in multiband, with the saturator it has. doing this will give you a better balance bewteen your kick/snare and your other percussion, then once that's at a more consistant volume you can start cutting frequencies to bring out the mid range of the bass.

another habit you wanna get into is putting an EQ on everything. take the low end out of every sound that isn't your kick, snare or your bass. the low end takes up a lot of space in a mix you that needs to be as clean as possible, anything above 1Khz is a bit more forgiving.

finally, you're never genna get better at mixing if you don't do this stuff yourself so have a go at it. Duplicate the project and start doing some crazy EQs, that way if you fuck it up you can start over on the original project.
 
Thanks very much for the feedback, much appreciated. My current process, is that I produce the track in one session, where I just choose the samples/make the sound, and roughly set the volumes. Then I start a new project, where I mix everything, EQ (as you said, I always remove the low end on everything except the sub bass and kick drum, and keep everything below about 200Hz mono).

The drums are grouped together (I use Ableton), where I have also used Neutron with it's transient shaper, maybe it needs a bit more, to bring out the drums more? I have also added a bit of parallel compression on them, but maybe that could also have a bit more.

I was also really unsure about the mid bass (it's actually made up of one main layer, plus about five others for various little sounds, textures etc), as I kept feeling like I hadn't EQ'ed enough out of it. Perhaps I could just leave a bit more of the upper mids in.

Thanks again, much appreciated, gives me something to consider when mixing it down again :)
 
Hey friend,
just keep going...i startet one year ago too. My mixdowns are not that good too ^^, but i try to get better each time. And that Songs you made so far are really good. :)
One thing that helped me...maybe... i try to avoid using samples and make patches and sounds myself. That way i am forced to mix a lot more. One day, when i am good enogh mixing, i will switch back to using samples and maybe understand better whats working.
 
Hey, thanks, and yeah I will just keep at it. I can definitely tell, that I'm much better than I was 6 months ago, so it's just a question of time and practice :)
 
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