I know that feeling :o) No problem Jim, I appreciate your honest critique never-the-less, keep sayin' it as you hear it ..actually, first off the 'it's a bit busy' is a critique I myself have mentioned before on some of Craft's multi-collabs (so I hear where you are coming from .. I tend to like a bit sparser mixes) .. but when in the driving seat myself .. you have to decide early on: to cut things out here and there or have a go (at least) at blending a bit of everything in such a large multi-collab as this.
This is more the 'producing' than 'production' side of things .. in the end I focused on the latter, although truth be known, Craft and I came to a decision to drop one of EZamor's flutish parts purely on the grounds you mention (sorry EZamor).
The buzzyness *might* be a side-effect of my slide guitar parts?? (though some synths have a zing to 'em), which I nudged downwards to the point where they are just about audible on phones .. I just wanted the slide-up to remain to stay with the slap bass that does the same.
The E/G tuned slide guitars are perhaps something that could have been made more prominent for just a short time .. then dropped out.
Panning wise: the strings (coming in at 1:04- pre-chorus) have some stereo-widening .. during the chorus there is one auto-panned synth .. (this was chosen
to be brought up and add a little spice and more drive to the refrains - perhaps a little loud) .. other than that .. there was one higher FM synth in the verses that comes in on the right ..but it is in very short, not that wide (around +15 I think)..and not intended to distract from the vocals.. just a little variation..perhaps too near-field makes it distract more from the vocals??. I think with over 30 odd tracks, I also ditched the standard approach of maintaining a balance the stereo field all the time and sometimes you just have to put some small parts off the centre to give them a chance to be heard in the mix... this is much less noticeable when listening through speakers and not phones needless to say.
In some ways, sinking the instruments for a (perhaps) more traditional hip-hop sound was a conscience decision to not do .. makes it a bit different IMO (a taste
thing).. and personally I think all the vocals are still adequately prominent, relative
to the instrumentation. I think Craft wanted to see/hear what happened if I mixed it .. part of the idea of a multi-collab .. (as he is an excellent mixer himself).
But it is fair points - and I think a remix done with more focus on making x part
appear just at y in the arrangement etc .. is a valid alternative. Some of this was
done .. some guitar parts are saved to just appear after Benny's bit... I was
confident no-one would mind me cutting out my own bits :o) .. but perhaps some
more of this could or should be considered in a remix.
Also, a small idea was perhaps to have a bit more emphasis on the drums for
Benny's bit .. and have spitlogic scratch some of the backing in that section .. this
idea came a little late to be practical.
Thanks for your critique, feedback.
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Cheers
Len
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