Hi can I get some feedback on my mixing and mastering please

Hi I made this track along with the 138 Trance with Bjorn Akesson. I did follow along to the arrangement and most of the samples and ANA patches he used. I did add a few different things here and there. I made this in ableton. I appreciate any feedback I get. Cheers for listening.

Update
I was digging this track so I changed a lot of things in it now to make it more my own. I never followed any of the melodic content anyway. So now I’ve been using ANA2 changed most of the samples etc.

Can’t get to the track using this link, even when logged in SndCld - Been deleted ???

Sorry yes that version was I forgot to update it on here my bad. I’ve put the updated version up now. Cheers

Hey again, if you update your track on SndCld, then you have to edit your post here and update the link too, otherwise people won’t be able to access you mix from the forums. :wink:

Absolutely, That was an oversight that I will remember about next time. Cheers.

OK, so finally got to listen to this track… :smile:

Nice progression and quite energetic track. Might still benefit of some mixing/mastering tweaks but overall it’s already sounding good. You have lot’s of headroom in this one, so you should be able to push the sound further at mastering stage.

Didn’t know about this “Clyp” upload platform BTW, does it worth it over SoundCloud ? Their pricing policy is much higher than SndCld if you compare their Premium plus or Pro plans against the SndCld Pro Unlimited ones.

Cheers !

Thanks for chasing my track down to listen to haha. I had already attempted to master this one. I really need more practice mastering it’s an art form all on it’s own right. I feel I don’t really have much of a clue and end up pushing things too far and making them sound worse. Yeah I only found out about Clyp recently. I prefer it over sound cloud because they don’t do the same sort of compression that soundcloud puts on your track. Every time I uploaded this track to soundcloud I really didn’t like how it sounded so I opted for clyp this time. But your right the pricing plans are much higher and also it doesn’t have the kind of people power soundcloud does. But I’m always looking for somewhere new to upload music as I’m really not a fan of soundcloud like everywhere unfortunately it’s so over saturated nowadays.

1 Like

Have you watched some of the Protoculture’s tutorials BTW ? I find his approach and courses very “serious” and gold mine for best practices.

Now the thing is, are you trying to master 'In the Box" with Daw plugins or using some 3thrd parties plugins ?
That might be where it’s less applicable to follow Protoculture’s courses, many times high end plugins are involved & used. But the concept behind the tools is always good to grasp IMO.

You’re right about Mastering, it’s an art form on it’s own somehow, but I’m a big believer in all the work that comes before with levels, gain staging, frequencies filtering and fine EQing and then levels again. Once there and then pushing things & knowledge further with notions like MS EQuing, sound placement in space, mono & stereo field adjustments… You’ll get this already very nice balanced sounding mix and with that you’re more than half way from a good mastered version.

That also likely depends on how people are producing I think, if you’re on the creative side of things and able to draft a quick mix out of your inspiration, you may not want to be interrupted by the technical fine tuning of the track… But then, will it be easy to mix & push to a correct master level when getting back to the mix ??

When another approach is to build the mix elements by elements, taking care of how everything sounds as a all during this process and slowly crafting a “technically” good sounding mix… But then, will this piece retain the originality and good digging vibes that you could have had during a "creative " session ??

IMHO, you’ve got to separate those 2 ways of doing, keeping “creative” & “technical” sessions for what they are and learning a all lot out of both. If you’re producing in one specific genre and trying to craft your own signature sound, one may become very efficient using the 2nd approach thanks to templates, crafted presets and go to plugins & tools but when you listen to many producers, they all admit that it takes a very long time to get there. I think that’s the point really, so just keep learning, trying things and most of all enjoy doing it : don’t be harsh with yourself & your work and give you the time to get there…

But well, enough talk from me… :slight_smile:

Thanks for your comments here on the forums and for getting involved in track feedback, being able to do fine critical listening on other’s work is also a good way to learn about your own production level.

Cheers !

@Tekalight I am in the middle of doing one of his trance tutorials now. It is great and he is very knowledgeable. One of the guys in my discord group does a retreat where him and a couple of other trance producers do lessons in production the industry and things. It would be great to go to something like that one day.
I am using a mixture of third party plugins and stock ones. I agree that the concept is always good to grasp. I use ableton but find it useful doing his tutorials as obviously you can apply it to your own DAW and I try to do this if I haven’t got the same plugins he is using. One of the things I struggle with the most is how to get things to sit in certain spaces in the spectrum I am trying very hard to learn how to do this better.
I personally try to mix as I go and then go back to do a final mixdown when I feel the track is nearly there. I really want to get better at mixing and mastering. So many people make music now that I feel just making a good track will not be enough if you can’t craft a great mix and master it well. But as you say most of all enjoy doing it. Because if you’re not enjoying it there is not much point really. Thanks again for all the great advice.

1 Like