Looking for advice/tips/critiques on my first ever attempt.

[hamishbrennan]

Hi guys, just looking for some help with what I should change/do next etc. It's my first ever attempt at producing. Thanks! https://soundcloud.com/jamiebb05/preview

[SFBM]

Not bad! I think your bass frequencies are a little bit muddy though, track sounds a bit overly compressed to my ears and lacking a bit in high frequencies (Seems overtly bassy to me) , I think a bit of precise EQ cutting could really clean up the mix a lot and it could do with less compression (sounds a bit too "loud" to me), but I do like the swing of the kicks and that lead

[hamishbrennan]

Sweet thanks for the reply! I've done some work on the EQs now so hopefully it sounds better but I was just playing it by ear as I've never done it before. Any tip for EQing and reducing the compression on it that I could use? Thanks again.

[hamishbrennan]

Have done some more work and tried to clean it up a bit, any advice now? https://soundcloud.com/jamiebb05/preview

[mattie]

Liking the rhythms, nice work for first attempt for sure.

[SFBM]

Yep, that's much much cleaner! Bass is still a tad heavy though, but the highs are balancing that a lot better than before!
Did you boost EQ or cut (or both)? As I wouldn't weigh too heavily on boosting first and try do all your EQing as subtractive at first, then do light boosting as it's needed.

As for compression, I'd just try not go overboard for your first times (as I used to do) , and read as much as you can on the subject: It's quite easy to shove one on and get a general "loudness" out of it, but when you're consistently asking "what will this do?" when changing a parameter, then you'll know exactly what you need every time, or what you'll need to change for a sound etc. It's a very good effort for a first time though (y)

[rick_]

Good start, frequencies a bit muddled, use a visual spectrum analyser and see whats going on, best thing to do is load a few tracks you like and run it on that and see what goes where and you will start to see a pattern, also helps when doing the mix. Also look at the eq's and roll off any unwanted frequencies. e.g for the bass roll off the high etc.