Park

[shadow drum]

basically was making an intro inspired by the old JH intros from covid where it dropped into a track, so i made this as that intro track but then thought it was so good that i should make it its own track
lmk what you think
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[lilac zenith]

Its a cool concept. I think you need a solid reference track. Focus on evolving the song a bit more over time with: automation, changes in the drums, some sort of synth leads / ear candy. Experiment with shifting the rhythm elements forwards and backwards a few ms to help with the groove!

[shadow drum]

yeah i might add a little more with automation there isnt a lot right now

i have got some feedback that the synth is too repetitive so ill try some different lead sounds with it

thanks for the feedback!

[shadow drum]

so this is probably a stupid question but how do you guys get the levels right? i just put a loudness meter on a random house tune i like (surprisingly the random one was the lean back JH edit) and just matched the LUFS it was telling me that track was

[shadow drum]

did some tweaking, how is it now?

[lilac zenith]

mix is much better! would still like to see more change over time to keep things interesting. Like risers, drum fills, white noise, impacts, meaningful changes in the drums instead of the same loop throughout. Drum loop is occupying a lot of the mix as well, would do some subtractive EQ to make the bass's mids shine through the mix more. Some more sidechain on everything would help with groove and overall clarity/loudness.

[shadow drum]

ill see if i have some more things to drop in

[lilac zenith]

kick's sub peak can be a a few dB louder. possibly shifting its pitch up 1 or 2 might make more space for the bass in the mix.

reference some tunes and just look at their low end in a graphic EQ like span or EQ8 and you will see that your references have more subs on the kick

[shadow drum]

yeah ill check pro Q and see how the low looks on them both

yeah sub layer looks lower than my reference

[lilac zenith]

ya im referring to peak volume mainly. bit more side chain on the subs of the bassline could help kick punch thru a bit more.

Mix is nice n loud which is good. some more subtractive EQ on vocals to make room for bass and drums would be nice too. subtle cuts

there's also a lot of uncontrolled side information, especially in the drums. I would tame this a bit, to pull it in and make it more consistent (can use a MB mid/side compressor and focus on the side highs to try and help, or just use EQ and do a high shelf cut on the sides only). Then I would make up for this reduction by boosting the mono portion of the drums in the same frequencies. Essentially re-balancing the high end of the drums so theyre less side and more mid focused - this will prevent them from getting lost in mono (which is happening a bit) and make more space for the wide vocals

reference a few tunes' high ends and try and get yours to be similar.

[shadow drum]

just put this on my tops, something like this?

and how would i go about boosting the mono part?

[lilac zenith]

i dont know how it will sound based on the pic so its hard to say.

but i was thinking a couple dB of reduction for the highs above 5-7k (play around with the exact numbers)

[shadow drum]

okay

[lilac zenith]

i think in the settings for each band there's a sidebar "expert" settings area where you can set it to do mid/side processing.

or can just use regular EQ, doesnt have to be a compressor, just sometimes compressor sounds betteer as its dynamic

reference a few tunes to make sure it sounds good whatever you end up using

[shadow drum]

ok lol now im confused again which one should i use?

i assume i need to do something with the stereolink thing?

[lilac zenith]

ya im not sure exactly how to set it up, ive never used it... but honestly EQ is probably sufficient for this task. Just get more presence in mono for the highs and reduce the sides slightly.