Mix Breakdown - August DM Mix Competition

August was a busy month. Among other things, I entered a mixing competition organized at the Dueling Mixes forum. It was great to see how all of the submitted mixes were so different. I was quite happy with my mix, even though it didn't rank at the top 5. So I decided to open up my mix and shed some light to some of the more interesting parts of my mix. Welcome to my first Mix Breakdown.

First, I suggest you check out my mix at Soundcloud or YouTube. Then later at the Mix Breakdown, you can hop to the parts marked on the text and take a listen. Soundcloud has a better quality sound, but YouTube is easier to navigate. Choose your poison and enjoy!

What's This About?

Dueling Mixes is currently the only really organized system for me to learn mixing. Official pace is quite slow (one mix per month). This relaxed pace is quite alright me, because as you might know, I don't have unlimited time for my hobby.

One of the more experienced fellow members at the site, put together a mixing competition. I found out that this unofficial event was maybe the biggest learning experience for me since I joined. Kudos to you Rob, if you are reading this!

At my mix breakdown, I will try to open up some of the things I made in my mix. I wont go to the boring things (that are actually the really important stuff) like balancing, compression, EQ etc... Instead, I will focus on some of the little tricks, sweetening and more obvious effects. Admit it, those are the interesting parts, not the hard work involved in the overall balance creating the real mix.

The Mix Breakdown

Here are a few tricks for you to chew on and for me to reminiscence. This time I will focus on the choruses and I'll drop a quick bonus bridge-tip too.

Drive that Chorus!

Volume envelope on the Snare track

The easier parts of the song have a nice groove going on, and the overall attitude of the song becomes more aggressive during choruses. I wanted to add a little more drive to the them, to really enhance that difference. Easy way to get more punch, was simply to push up the volume of the snare drum during the choruses using a simple volume envelope. The slight volume change can be seen from picture as the green area on the snare track.

You are quite welcome to start listening from somewhere before the chorus (e.g. at 0:35). The first chorus starts at 0:44 where you can hear the snare get a little bit more in your face and fall back in line at 1:11 as the chorus ends.
 

Down up and away!

Transition Enhancement in Practice

Since I had recognized that the chorus, when compared to the other parts, was clearly in a different state of mind, I wanted to make the transition into the driving part more clear. That's where I made two things that really make a difference. I dug a hole and made a big jump from there. By digging a hole, I mean the creation of a part that is silent or very low intensity just before the chorus. And by jump, I mean that the chorus begins with an even bigger push than the chorus sound overall. I have tried to visualize the essence of this transition-idea to the graph below.

Transition Enhancement in Theory

The hole was created by cutting out a lot of guitar tracks (also leaving room for the bass slide to come forward). The removal of such a big sound layer should wake up the listener on the fact that something is happening. Then when moving towards the chorus, the illustrated high peak is created by increasing the volume of the guitars for the first chorus chord, creating an explosion of sound that leaves no question about it - Here comes the chorus.

Go ahead, take a listen. You can start again at somewhere before the first chorus (e.g. at 0:35) to hear the hole and the featured bass note as the song progresses from verse to chorus at 0:44. You can spot the jump with a lesser hole at the last chorus starting at 2:13. Even though the holes are quite fast, You should be able to feel them.

Twist that bridge!

By the time we arrive at the bridge the listener might be a bit too accustomed or bored with the vocals, so time to spice things up. I decided to have a strong effect on the voice to make it more distinct and as if coming from somewhere else, therefore creating a pause effect to the overall feel of the song. The effect is pulled away simultaneously as the organ pushes more forward, also creating a nice transition to the normal pace.

Funky Vocal FX-chain

The effects used for the funky vocal are the following; CLA-2A compressor supersquatting the signal. Over-the-top equalization strongly emphasizing the midrange. Followed by a heavily driven tape recording emulation and finally spiced with the Chorrosive distortion plugin.  

Check these out. The effected vocal starts at 1:52. Then the organ comes up at 2:02 and vocal effects are withdrawn leaving the clean vocal free continue.

Feedback and Thoughts

Here's some raw uncut feedback I got from the competition participants.

muffled vocal, kick sounds weird, low end feels very muffled/undefined, needs EQ help, vocal at bridge is too loud, vocal balance needs work, end is too loud and muffled. Mud on the vocal in the beginning, roll the mud off or EQ it out, I hear the desire to get this vocal to be fuller, but don’t overdo it.  Cool doubling effect, dig that, a bit over the top but I personally like it that way!  "How’d you get to me" is too low at 1:03. Nice energy at 1:50, Dry vocal in bridge needs to be placed into the mix somehow. Too many elements in the bridge it becomes a more confusing mix. Consider carefully trimming and removing parts. Good mix. Interesting middle section. Kick, snare and melody guitar could be louder.vocal is very "wooly", chorus is nice and balanced, lead vocal is still wooly. Vocal low freq resonance? vox / guitars a little too low in volume at times, 2nd Chorus balance is great. Hear some noise in the intro, Vocals sound too muffled, Low/mid muddiness in the song. Vocal could be brighter.


The feedback I got confirms my own observations, that my vocal mixing is in a dire need of some help. I will sure to be focusing my efforts on that. Other than that and the weird sounding kick (i agree), I think this mix was ok. The final part of the song was a bit confusing with the multiple vocals and the whole mix was overall a bit more muffled then the other mixes. I think that in addition to my vocal mixing, I need to concentrate on overall clarity. Which I guess means mixing all together :)



Please leave a comment, Maybe you have a personal sweetening favorite of your own?