Foray into Dub Techno

[spacehxc]

My latest track, been working a lot on the production end of the track, but it still sounds a bit muddy to me. Any thoughts / criticisms would be appreciated

[ksandvik]

Cut anything with a hi-pass filter above 150Hz or so, excluding drums and bass. Especially the reverb (bus?) That should help with some of the muddiness.

I would also sparingly use a multi-band compressor to move up the kick sound so it has more presence.

PS: Sounds good, let me know when you have a new mix and I will download it.

[spacehxc]

Thanks for the tips, will be trying out the changes you suggested tonight

[Nephew]

While Ksandvik has the right idea, 150hz seems a bit high, just do it by ear (I find 125hz to be a bit better).

Also, what's your chain like for your "dub chords"? Do you have the FX on the channel or as a return?

[spacehxc]

Hard to explain since I'm still learning, here is a screenshot of my chain though for the dub chords

[Nephew]

Well, it's a basic "dub chord" chain, just two things. Doesn't look like your compressor is doing anything, so bring down the threshold and tweak the ratio to taste (I find a 4:1 ratio works well for this scenario). And I can't tell what your reverb is doing, but make you're taking out the lowend in the verb using its cutoffs and that should help a lot.

On a personal note, you might want to try putting the filter before the verb, and changing the filter to a bandpass as well. Can get some interesting textures in there as you automate the frequency.

[Nephew]

Also! Instead of automating the volume faders, I would slap a utility on each track and then automate the gains. That way when it comes to your mixdown and when your adjusting your levels you won't lose any of that automation.

And your levels all seem a bit too high just looking at them in my opinion. I personally start with my kick reading about -12db and then bring in the bass until I start to see -10db or until it sounds good, whatever happens first. Now you mix everything relative to these two and you should end up with a deep sounding mix while still leaving plenty of headroom for mastering.

[spacehxc]

Awesome tips, thanks a lot nephew