Mix and Master of "My Own" Little Chicago's Finest

Hey guys...
That's a catchy tune! Working with so many vocal layers is always fun. I did some editing to tighten things up even more. Here is my mix:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/67245094/mixes/my_own_001.mp3


InPhasemixing Thanks for sharing! Good job on moving the kicks low end punch to the initial transient. You have some serious bass going on for sure. But from a mastering point of view, I'd say your mix is too scooped, meaning too much bass and too little (upper) mids. Which can be problematic with the vocals on certain systems as they are the most import part for this kind of music. You don't want them to be masked by the bass. Personally, I'm not a huge fan of the reverb on the vocals. But overall: Good job!

jcode Here you've definitely gone overboard with the bass. Not only does it distort the mastering chain like crazy, it also masks a good portion of the other instruments. For getting a big, deep bass in a mix, I found it very usef... (read more)

Rap and Hip Hop are not part of my usual gig, so this mix off is particularly exciting for me.


My feedback is broadly the same as Gaz5674's and 140dBSPL's, so I'll keep it brief(er than how I usually talk  :P ):

InPhasemixing: I dig the thick bass, but the scoop pulls out much of the energy overall. I really dig the vocal treatment (so much so that I used it as the vocal reference for my mix  :) )  Possibly too much reverb for the genre, although that may have more to do my personal taste.

jcoode: Easy on the bass and (possibly) compression. Also big +1 for 140dBSPL's EQ tip here; I often use that.

140dBSPL: Love the vocals and love the synths. Did you add harmonies, or pitchshift some elements? It's a really nice touch and subtle addition that adds tonnes of flavour. I mostly dig the balance, but I feels it's missing some thickness in the low end.

JRH: Needs fatness. I also had trouble finding the fatness. The two tricks I use were ... (read more)

Hi RDS,

Thanks for your feedback.  I could hear what you were saying about my low-end and agreed.  I wasn't happy with how my vocals were sitting so I've tweaked my mix a bit.

[soundcloud]http://soundcloud.com/thebridgecv1/little-chicagos-finest-my-own1[/soundcloud]
Download WAV: http://soundcloud.com/thebridgecv1/little-chicagos-finest-my-own1/download

I like your mix - everything is well balanced and clear.  For the genre, however, I feel it lacks a lot of low-end. 

The kick in the multi-track has a delayed 'thump' so what I did was high-passed the kick around 130hz and then set up a tone generator and had it gated using the original kick as a side chain input.  The tone gen was set to 50hz which gave a nice low punchy kick.  I liked the origin kick's attack, so that why I kept it and just replaced its low end using a tone gen.

With the vocals, the verses were too bright and scooped.  I de-essed, and then I ran him through Fabfilt... (read more)