Having a track that sounds super wide is great, but if you’re constantly pushing your track to the edges of the stereo spectrum then you might not be achieving your goal in the best way possible. Let’s look at two ways Flume contrasts the sections in Never Be Like You. If both the ‘build-up’ and the ‘climax’ have very similar technical properties, then your listeners won’t notice much of a difference. For that to happen the sections have to contrast. ![]() Listeners want to have that moment where the track builds and climaxes. Big Entrance: Verse vs DropĪ great song often has a chorus that comes in with an epic entrance. The best test is to monitor your mix in mono through one speaker, if you’ve done a good job the balance will be similar. To avoid phase cancellation issues, I recommend that you mix your low-end fairly mono and make sure you use quality stereo widening plugins and techniques. It’s important to make sure your track translates to mono well, especially if your track will be played in a club (where audio is almost always output in mono). The bass becomes exceptionally weak and the main synth also sounds quite different. You can hear this for yourself if you listen to Never Be Like You in Mono. The red in LEVELS shows that phase cancellation is going to affect the tonal balance of your track in mono. Check out the image below of LEVELS highlighting the width of the low end. Having analyzed a lot of mixes, I’ve discovered that most producers add a touch of stereo width to the bass to give it some separation from the kick, however, Flume took this a little too far in my opinion. Try peppering in some unpredictability to your panning and stereo placement to add some novelty. What can we learn from this? When there is a frequency conflict in your mix, utilize the stereo width to add separation and clarity. This spices things up when listeners are used to hearing channels positioned statically in a mix. There are a number of snares, hi-hats and percussive elements that jump in and out of the mix in an unpredictable way. The bass is actually positioned fairly wide in the mix and the kick is totally mono.Ī notable characteristic of the mix is the panning of the percussive elements. This minimizes the conflict between the two channels. The ‘Vocals’ and the ‘Main Huge Synth’ occupy very similar frequencies, however, the ‘Vocal’ is positioned right down the middle in mono and the ‘Synth’ is spread super wide. There is a little bit of overlap as is expected in any mix, but each element has its own place. Take a look at the stereo separation infographic below. With the next song just a click away, it’s important to grab your listeners attention and keep it from start to finish. Too many layers can make a mix sound bloated and ends up confusing the listener. A production with lots of instruments battling for the listener’s attention can often lead to the listener losing the will to stay focussed. What can we learn from this? When we’re producing and mixing, often it’s better to use fewer sounds rather than adding layer upon layer to your mix. Just having these four elements makes it easy for the listener to stay engaged with the music. ‘Never Be Like You’ is dominated by just a few main elements the bass, drums, a synth, and the vocals. Keeping The Arrangement Simpleįlume makes the track easy to digest by keeping the arrangement (choice and number of instruments) minimal. Once the listener is pulled in, how does the track keep their focus? Read on to find out. ![]() Why? Because it’s so different and unique. When the listener hears the instantly recognizable high-pitched fastpaced “Never Be Like You” vocal, it grabs their attention. This creates an easy-to-digest foundation upon which the vocal can add more complex and unusual melodies. For example, the chord progression is relentlessly simple: C, Dm, F, repeated all the way through. ![]() Why was ‘Never Be Like You’ so successful? How did it manage to get so many radio plays and still maintain it’s artistic credibility? The songwriting and production have a great balance of simplicity with novelty injected at the perfect points. We can then use these techniques to help guide our decisions to get great results in the studio. In this post, I’ll be decoding the mix of ‘Never Be Like You’ to see what we can learn from Flume’s approach to making music. 4 years later he released his second album ‘Skin’ which won the best Dance/Electronic album at the 2017 Grammy Awards. The lead single on this incredible album was ‘Never Be Like You’. 0 Likes Decoding The Mix – Flume: Never Be Like Youįlume ascended to stardom at the age of 21 when his debut self-titled album topped the ARIA album charts and reached double-platinum.
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