James Dupre – Another Love Song – Mixed By Stephen O’Brien

Good job, Stephen! Two things that caught my attention:

– I hear a bit of pumping. Maybe the kick drum is triggering the mixbus compressor is a little too much;
– I think you put too much de-essing on the vocals. You can hear it on the first verse. The de-esser is ducking the vocal when there’s sibilance.

Overall I think this is a good sounding mix! Thanks!

De-essing manually is a great trick! I do it very often.

The compressor will play a huge role in this situation. In order not to have that ducking effect, you’ll have to set it in a way where the gain reduction will make the volume drops less noticeable. Also, the eq is very important too. It’ll help to fill the frequency gap.

I always use two de-essers on my vocals. Maybe even three lol.

Setting kick and bass up is always tricky and challenging. I was taught to think like you have to fit them in a little frequency box. Let’s say from 20hz to 300hz.

If I make my kick drum too big, my bass won’t have enough room to fit. So I’ll have to make it smaller (cut frequencies) to fit it in the box. The opposite also applies. You’ll have to decide which one will be placed more in certain frequency range. Let’s say you want the bass to carry the low lows. Then, cutting some subs from the kick will probably make them work better together.

I also have my version here. Let me know what you think! Keep it up, man!