Originally Posted By: JohnJohnJohn
Hey HearToLearn,

This is a pretty awesome modern pop song! Is this all BIAB? Certainly has a very contemporary feel to it (unlike the more "classic" sounds of 99.9% of BIAB songs here in the showcase and pretty much ALL of my BIAB songs!)


Thank you! I have to say, since this was a few year in the making, I feel pop music has already progressed beyond this a little bit. So it feels great to hear you say it sounds contemporary!

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I'm def no mixing expert, depending mostly on iZotope tools and presets for my mixes, so I have nothing to offer except high praise for the overall effort and maybe a couple of thoughts based on personal preferences.

1) Based on other pop music I'm listening to, this song might benefit from more dynamics. Maybe in the form of quieter/louder sections and/or additional instruments making very brief appearances as garnish.


I totally agree! The actual music bed has more dynamics in the way you are saying. Two things changed after the music. The vocals were added and I used an online mastering site which squashed the life out of it. I was more trying it out and this was the result. In an attempt to make it "loud enough" I lost the overall dynamics.

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2) To me, the bridge vocals seem too fast. I like the dynamic effect of the fast (double-time?) vocals but they seem too fast. Maybe they got speeded up when you sped it up to 135?


Again, I totally agree with it. I was going for a combination of Katy Perry and Eminem there. When I sped it up to 135 I went too far. I went plaid! (I have a feeling you will get that reference?) As I'm going to be remixing with tips from here anyway, I'm going to try to find a slower tempo that fits it better.

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But again, those are just my personal observations. Your song is quite good and is a Shining Example of pop music in BIAB (assuming of course it was built in BIAB!)


Thanks a million for being willing to say what you did. I'm not all that touchy when it comes to suggestions on mix. Granted mixing is similar to music itself in that mixing has many different preferences. I love hearing them, trying them, and learning something either way. You never know when you might need a different perspective than your own little box. You definitely seem to get what I was going for though!

As far as BIAB, some of the major parts are from that. I export everything to a DAW, like many do, and mess with it there. Unfortunately I will have to go back and see what the track names are. I forgot when they export they had names like "piano" no matter what track it was.

So anyway, it's a combination of, from what I remember, real tracks, some BIAB midi tracks, then I did some synth programming, and trigger samples. No loops where used.

Chad (Hope that makes it easier)

TEMPO TANTRUM: What a lead singer has when they can't stay in time.