There are a few issues with the mix though. I’d say the brass is far too loud and overpowering first of all - lower the levels and turn down the reverb. Then I’d maybe want to brighten up the high end a bit for some extra clarity - though I don’t know if this is just due to Soundcloud compression. The panning of the mix seems a bit offset. See if you can separate the mix more, and hard pan something to the right to balance out the organ to the left.
And the brass line at 1:34 sounds like Uptown Funk!
@JamesVMusic Hello, I fixed a lot of things - most notably, I lowered the levels and reverb, added a guitar hard panned to the right to offset the organ, and EQ’d things differently to get less mud and more separation. I should also probably mention that there were a lot of… um… wrong notes in there that I am ashamed to admit I didn’t notice.
The track has definitely improved. The panning is much better and overall the mix sounds cleaner and airier.
I still feel however that the volume on the brass is too high, and still too much reverb. The rest of the mix sounds good, but the brass sounds like it’s playing very loudly behind. I would lower the levels of the brass and reduce the amount of reverb. Brass is a tricky instrument to deal with and there have been many cases where otherwise great tracks have been dragged down by incorrectly mixed brass.
I agree, but it’s hard to tell how much is a reverb issue and how much is an EQ issue…everything that’s hard panned sounds fine and groovy, but it is leaving a bit of a hole in the middle of the mix that the snare/bass drum/bass don’t seem to be filling sufficiently, at least in terms of eq, so there’s a bit of the “empty middle” sound. I would concentrate on applying EQ to the drum kit, bring out the hi’s in the cymbals, the smack of the snare, some slight punch into the bass drum, maybe gate some things…right now the drums sounds a bit flat and faraway to to my ears. I actually think the brass sounds okay, I just think the middle instruments - specifically the drums - are a bit flat sounding and that flatness is contrasting with the tone of the brass. Cool track though.
@JamesVMusic@adammonroe Hello - I just wanted to say thank you so much for listening and writing in. Your feedback has really helped and I really appreciate both of you taking the time to help me out. I made a few more revisions:
As @JamesVMusic was saying, the horns seem to have too much presence, especially since they are MIDI and sound like… well, like MIDI horns. Instead of thinking of this track as a “horn melody-driven” piece, I changed my perception to a “rhythm section-driven” piece. I think this helped me figure out how to reduce the horns and use less reverb on them.
I also added more body to the bass, and more crack to the snare. After @adammonroe mentioned it I heard the huge hole in the middle of the mix. I think this revision addresses that issue.
Once again, thank you very much for your help. Please let me know if you have any further comments.