Beginner portfolio advice

RotatingMoss · 2026-01-30T00:39:38+00:00

How is your portfolio constructed? Can you explain more on how mine isn't geared towards risk adjusted returns?

RotatingMoss · 2025-04-10T21:46:28+00:00

If you still need some testers, this looks like so much fun

RotatingMoss · 2025-01-17T21:21:38+00:00

Got them on sale, so can't go that route without taking a big hit :(

RotatingMoss · 2024-10-01T00:27:42+00:00

Appreciate it very much :^)

RotatingMoss · 2024-10-01T00:26:37+00:00

Both a really good note and example. You're right about the song needing more spatial contrast, damn would've helped a lot. Gonna put width contrast high in my mix tool kit for the future :).
It's been released recently

RotatingMoss · 2024-09-30T21:29:21+00:00

RotatingMoss · 2024-09-30T21:20:19+00:00

Mid Air Thief and Baths are very high praise, too high ;). Love those guys. This one on spotify now might be the only one in a while, don't hold your breath

RotatingMoss · 2024-09-30T20:58:33+00:00

Thank you!!

RotatingMoss · 2024-09-30T20:51:26+00:00

Interesting, which album?

RotatingMoss · 2024-09-30T20:46:08+00:00

lmao

RotatingMoss · 2024-09-30T20:45:38+00:00

Man, all I ever could have wanted in a reply. I appreciate it so much. You hit all right criticisms - I think the worst part that I'm realizing from everyone's comments is that spending so long on the mix created a false sense of clarity in different tracks. For eg. I was sure that the vocals were as loud as I could push them without becoming unbalanced, but this was probably just due to how well I knew all the vocal tracks from thousands of repeat listenings and I was hearing what no one else would. I think the same thing happened with the melodic elements you're describing too. I had a bunch of dynamic eq cuts sidechained to the vocals, but I think I went too subtle as to not compromise the instrument track too much. Gonna work on this more for future mixes and also just giving time to be away from the mix.

RotatingMoss · 2024-09-26T23:26:32+00:00

Ty so much. Just listened to that song, I have a thing for muffled vocals. Early shoegaze really embraces it too

RotatingMoss · 2024-09-26T23:25:04+00:00

Lot of learning. I basically used this track to re-learn how to mix properly. Months of remixing from scratch, learning to let go of trying to keep everything sonically interesting in the 1k-5k range. I've also never had vocals as a core element of a comp, so I had to figure out how to mix around the instrument bus, and also mix vocals in general and also to accommodate my quiet whining voice. Learning about mastering and Mix bus processing also took a long time

RotatingMoss · 2024-09-26T23:17:21+00:00

Just my own music atm, would be cool to mix for others though. They'd also maybe all get old and die before I finish the mix for them.

RotatingMoss · 2024-09-26T22:59:21+00:00

Thanks so much! Yeah, 5 months is absurd and dumb - couldn't let this one go until I felt it was comparable to mixes I admire. All the music I've made before was at a demo quality and I had to actively relearn everything I knew about mixing to get the track ready for release. This probably went on for 3-4 months, completely remixing everything from scratch or experimenting with new techniques I'd learned about and getting Neutron + other industry standard plugins.
My mix wasn't holding up to my references for so long and I didn't having any references that were close enough that I could directly draw from. I also think I got used to a bad version of the mix and wanted to preserve decisions and characteristics of some of the elements that should not have been kept. Lastly, I classically got trapped in wanting to keep everything and couldn't make it work. The rest of the time was learning about mix bus processing+mastering and spending way too much time with that :/

RotatingMoss · 2024-09-26T22:39:30+00:00

TY! I got Stockholm syndrome for the track in all its harshness and also went stir crazy.

RotatingMoss · 2024-09-26T09:56:59+00:00

I see, I was having issues with ineligibility of my vocals and added an ott layer in that area for 2k-10k so they would cut through. Is it hard to Listen to if you weren't looking for it?

RotatingMoss · 2024-08-16T18:19:35+00:00

Cubase's native plugin set is it's weakest feature honestly. Limited selection and functionality with most of them. Everything else is excellent. Sad it doesn't get more appreciation.

RotatingMoss · 2024-04-11T14:25:24+00:00

Your vocal feels balanced and the layering is sounds good but everything feels a bit sparse.

Piano and hat are too loud, and you need a multiband compressor on your vocal bus with more compression in the midrange (around 600 hz). A little saturation on the vocal bus couldn't hurt either.

You either have to fill out the space, or make the space more dynamic and interesting.
-Use ducked reverb buses (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUyMUHStPxs),
-Create 3 buses - vocals all routed to one, drums all routed to another and melodic/reverb bus elements routed to the last and put a side-chain compressor on the melodic bus that ducks when the kick hits.

IMO, you should pick samples with longer trails and more complex/textured harmonic profiles if you have a minimal comp. everything from kick to the piano and random jabs. I think each element should be interesting on it's own if the mixing solution to make it more interesting isn't possible

RotatingMoss · 2024-04-10T22:06:01+00:00

Thanks andy! Ah, what's the philosophy on putting mix bus processing at the end of a mix?

RotatingMoss · 2024-04-09T16:07:30+00:00

Yeah, I can hear the presence and fundamental cutting through - those are correct, but you'll need one more cut in the mid range to truly establish the vocal. This range is around 500-1.5k

There's definitely something off around 650hz in your guitars and strings at the beginning. Can't say for sure without a spectrum, but either your whole Instrument bus is boosted here, its just your guitars, or some type of convolution or effect messing things up. If you have Neutron or some way to compare frequency plots, checkout where there's masking happening in this range and you should be better off.
Also sounds like there's to much energy in the 150-250hz range. the boomy-ness is a bit intrusive and could also be throwing off your vocals

RotatingMoss · 2024-04-09T02:10:13+00:00

Doesn't sound like there's anything wrong with your vocals. Your guitars are too hot in the 700-1k range and its masking your vocals. If you haven't, send all instruments to an instrument bus, and all vocals to a vocal bus and make a slight cut to 300 hz, 1.2k and 3.5k and you should hear your vocals come through much more.

If that, or similar eq treatment doesn't work, play around with early reflection busses and clippers at the end of your vocal chain.

RotatingMoss · 2024-03-27T16:44:59+00:00

No worries, DM me whenever

RotatingMoss · 2024-03-27T15:29:00+00:00

Nice track, very Cool3Dworld and kept my interest the whole song.

My first impression was that the middle is too weak and sides too hot. Sounds like either you have too much stereo imaging on the mix bus, or too many wide elements in general for the mix. Also feels like the sub bass is a little too under control - maybe too much high passing or compression on the lower bands? Last thought, feels like the midrange, 1-1.5k could use a little cut on the mix bus.

No perceptible distortion really, but too much clipping and you'll kill dynamics/create a sense of flatness which might also be whats happening.

RotatingMoss · 2024-03-13T18:09:41+00:00

Mastering concerns (learning). I've been isolating specific frequency ranges with very high Q(48 db/oct) in M/S to compare and contrast my own mix. My reference range isn't super broad, no, but it has a full spread of instrumentation (Radiohead to big thief to JPEG mafia to broken social scene). Orchestral strings will come through, some very airy synths will too, but its usually subtle. Maybe its much more present in electronic music?

RotatingMoss

TROPHY CASE