Hello guys.
I’m a student in a Conservatory of Music, two more years to become piano teacher, but I love good techno/electronica; So here is a set of two tracks of the genre.
I would like your first impressions and feedback, how technically I can improve (and I know I need to. Next year, hopely no more quarantine, I’ll start taking DAW lessons).
Welcome to the forum, @Arjuna.techno — and nice job on this track!
I am by no means certified to opine on techo/electronica, but I will share a couple of general things about mixing which I learned from my Tonmeister friends. They made me think about:
Panning — kick drum (or the like) and bass usually in center, other instruments spread around the stereo image to taste. Low frequency generally correlates to center-ness (except obvious items, like vocals).
Depth — does something sound in front, i.e. hitting us in the face, or in the back of the field? Are some elements very clear while others are almost subliminal, buried deep in the texture? (There are some wonderful videos on YouTube about depth of field).
Listen to your favorite albums, dissect, and mimic—over and over.
I’ll stop here, as these are the concepts that helped me the most. Again, we have peers on this forum which are way more qualified than I am, so please take the above as an opinion only.
Best wishes — Thiago
Thank you so much for your opinion !
I already use the kick/snare/hihat in center technique (I can play with pan on the hihat) and the other instruments to the right or left. Things I don’t know which you mentioned are depths and true knowledge of EQlizing, I do it as how I found it sounding fine, most likely as near as it can be to what I want to hear.
I’ll be glad to hear some more opinions.
Thanks again.
Also, make sure you are working with a good pair of headphones. Speakers can be very misleading!
I use a Pro Headphone for finishing details.
You have a serious build up of high frequencies on your track which makes it very challenging to listen to (even on the border of painful). Get e.g. Voxengo SPAN plugin (it is free) and study how the frequencies of your track compare to commercially produced tracks.
I knwo, I’m still learning as said above.
What do you think of this other composition: https://samsaradore.bandcamp.com/track/the-seat-of-the-self
This track also suffers from eq inbalance. I am no expert on techno/electronica but you will need more prominent low frequencies to create convincing tracks. And less irritating high frequencies.
This is a snapshot of your track in Voxengo SPAN. The frequency division is far from even - it does not have to be even but still it should rather resemble other tracks in the same genre.
Here’s a random EDM track
You can also create an account here to compare your tracks to commercially produced tracks.
What about this track? I didn’t used any distortions: https://lavoixdarjuna.bandcamp.com/track/aavaaz-1
I think the high frequencies are still too pronounced on the latest track too even though there seems to be more bass on this track.
I strongly recommend you try e.g. the Finalizer web service where you can compare your tracks to the commercially produced tracks. Among other things, you will get visual feedback on how your track’s frequency graph compares to the reference tracks.
Here’s your track compared to Crabrave by Noisestorm in the Finalizer service (it was not easy to find an instrumental in Finalizer but this I found). Your track is the one with lighter gray graph.
Thanks, I now see that my high frequency aren’t much used.
You are welcome. Just go and try it. There are plenty of other tracks to compare to. Then take a listen to the reference tracks and your track and see what could do about you track to better match the other tracks in the same genre. You don’t have to aim for an identical curve but when you track’s curve is unlike most of the other tracks in the same genre, then you may need to adjust your frequencies a bit.
I have updated my work, here it is: https://lavoixdarjuna.bandcamp.com/track/aavaaz-1
But it seems in the spectrum of VSDC that it focuses on the left (basses), why?
(Edit) Some people in my entourage couldn’t recognize it, so I made a step back of my work and kept the latest version.
Someone better informed on the eq graphs can correct me if I have got this wrong, but the Finalizer spectrometer graph seems to be focused on the left (bass) because it is a logarithmic presentation of the different eq bands.
But what matters are the differences between the graphs (one’s own music and the reference tracks) and these can provide you some information on where you mix might have gone wrong.
