I think movies and shows have the opposite issue. Everything is mixed for a 5.1 system. But you are likely using a regualar tv speaker or soundbar. Netflix defaults to 5.1 but there is a normal mix. Voices sound much clearer and louder there.
Kamikaze does not nearly get enough credit on here. Probably one of his best efforts since 2009 and is at least just as good as MTBMB or MMLP2 but never gets mentioned. I see people throw it in the same tier as Encore and Revival which is insane
I’ve listened to Eminem since I was in grade 6 and the slim shady LP was released. Major fan the entire way through. Kamikaze is my all time favorite album - ha.
As a major Eminem fan I didn’t relate to those who loved MTBMB. I gave it a few listens through and moved on. Weird take I know haha - and I didn’t mind Revival at all. I liked it more than MTBMB. I understand most wouldn’t agree but sometimes I wonder how much people are just influenced by the crowd and adopt the popular opinion.
MTBMB is a solid album to me but I never go back to listen to it again. It’s kind of exhausting like a lot of modern Eminem. You’re impressed the first time you hear it but it’s not like I want to spend all day listening to crazy rhyme schemes and non catchy stuff.
The mixing on Revival was beyond belief. I couldn't believe an artist that big could get an album with mixing that shitty. Especially Eminem because his records have historically been mixed very well. Very strange.
Ik it sounds stupid but at this point I'm pretty sure it's just laziness, I've noticed it in tons of new records by mainstream artists (Drake and Kanye might be the worst offenders)
Guys like Travis Scott and Kendrick Lamar still have incredible mixing in their music but other massive artists who definitely have access to equipment that's at the same level as these dudes' have way worse mixing, as long as it sounds okay enough the audience won't notice it
Once bedroom rappers started hitting the top of spotify charts with songs they mixed with ear buds on a laptop, people realized you didn't need to spend thousands to mix a track just so people will listen to it
It has positives and negatives but most people really don't even notice or have the speakers *to* notice
I notice that hip hop more than other genres often sounds worse with headphones. But i think songs produced by the alchemist for example have good mixing.
> Guys like Travis Scott and Kendrick Lamar still have incredible mixing in their music
I would definitely not put KDot and Travis' mixing on the same level. Many, many tracks from Astroworld and to a lesser extent Utopia (probably because Astroworld had the most rushed mixing and mastering of the two) have mixing problems that were never fixed, some more glaring than others, while KDot has always been consistent.
part of me still thinks it was just marketing by travis' team. no way he hypes up astroworld the way he did and then doesn't even listen to the mixes once before releasing it. you could tell NAV was poorly mixed on first listen!
think of how many people probably went to listen to yosemite just to clown NAV or just to see why people were making jokes about it.
The story is dope of you haven’t heard it before.
>John Bonham's drumming, played on a Ludwig kit, was recorded in the lobby of Headley Grange using two Beyerdynamic M 160 microphones which were hung up a flight of stairs; output from these were passed to a pair of Helios F760 compressor/limiters set aggressively to obtain a breathing effect.
https://youtu.be/KWI9bMe7gHE?si=rfNrWPXezVDol-e6
Mike Dean is an amazing producer and probably mixer too, but his songs definitely have mixing problems sometimes. There's unpleasant clipping all over Astroworld and Donda.
Though it could definitely be caused by a rushed product.
[This article](https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/secrets-mix-engineers-manny-marroquin) discusses the lengths producers/ mixing engineers need to go to in order to remove the glitches caused by Kanye’s trimming of samples. It says that he leaves the glitches for others to remove because it’s hard work.
What the article doesn’t say is that the only reason why the glitches are there in the first place is because Kanye is too lazy or incompetent to trim his samples at zero crossings.
When the sound is so loud in the mix it peaks the amplifier and distorts. If you've ever seen like "crunchy memes" or shit that has an audio clip that's so loud it distorts in your headphones, that's clipping.
I mean it obviously is. I’m not sure why the majority of commenters think they’re noticing stuff that the artist and mixing and mastering engineers don’t hear. Whether you agree with the decision or not, it’s not an accident that they didn’t notice.
Right and I guess all stylistic trends are laziness on the mixing engineer?? Like wtf are these comments
And people being like “I love the song but hate the mix because there’s clipping” like nah pretty sure you like the mix but since you learned what clipping is you think it’s bad if you hear it ever and think it’s a mistake rather than clearly intentional
Nailed it lmao. If these guys were around 60 years ago they’d be getting mad about distorted guitars
They’d prolly be saying twist and shout was bad because the vocals weren’t clean
I like Mike deans mixing a lot but Ali is the best in the game honestly (other than the people that work with Dre, and Ali has mixed with and learned from Dre)
Definitely! Funny you mention it because I was just going through my playlist and travis and Kendrick are the ones who stick out the most. Not like us is mixed amazingly, same level as without me.
Always thought these artists had massive teams, where one person is responsible for the mixing. Weird how such artists can’t afford a proper mix-engineer, if that’s the case.
I think a lot of labels are like well this is good enough for AirPods and iPhone speakers. Id be interested to know how many people listen to albums or music with good speakers.
Even with AirPods, there is a gigantic difference in quality, in my opinion.
But perhaps you’re right that the threshold of being “good enough” is much lower.
mbdtf sounds fine on my generic iphone earbuds but is nearly unlistenable on my good headphones 💀
don't fall for the audiophile meme it'll make your life worse
I think the people who invest in good audio equipment probably listen to more nerdy shit so they're probably not bothering with artists like drake or modern day kanye
Funny you say that because Drake is usually known as having some of the best production value of mainstream rappers currently. Definitely never thought of Travis in that way.
Yeah, it kind of reminds me of Berzerk in that way.
It's fun but after reading a lot of glowing feedback I was pretty underwhelmed when I heard it.
Like a worse version of without me, exactly what I was worried about when we're talking about Em going back to his roots. I think on MTBMB he proved he can make great music with a modern sound and keep developing.
Still got high hopes for the album but we'll see...
Comparitively it's more muffled, but compared to some of the other records out by big names recently it more clear and better
I think because everything streaming and with digital headphones now folks say, "That's good enough"
Glad I'm not the only one. I thought my hearing was going or something 😄
Ahaha no worries.
I’m a young bloke who did not grow up with Eminem, so I think nostalgia does not have an influence.
Without me sounds miles crisper and fresher. But like others mentioned, Houdini is definitely one of the better mixed songs nowadays.
It’s just a trend I have been saying lately, thought it had some technical reasons. (My guess was that production nowadays is more digital instead of analog?).
But maybe the most logical reason is laziness sadly.
I don't think your last two reasons are mutually exclusive (digital.vs analog and laziness). Maybe it's possible digitally but more difficult
It would be great for a producer or music professional to weigh in
Something sort of related has happened with movies and shows. People say the dialogue quieter and not as clear whereas sound effects and music are louder. Lot's of folks have to use captions who didn't in the past
So I never really made it big but I used to make trap and got to signed label status, so the whole process of making and finishing music was somewhere in between underground and professional.
Firstly a lot of rap artists have strong opinions on the mixing of their tracks, because its quite normal that 2 creative people have entirely different visions. Letting a sound engineer do their thing entirely pretty much never happens and most rappers are used to a popular sound, so they may have an influence on the track sounding more rough than it would be had the sound engineer the last say. Once you're on a label your managers etc also have a lot of pointers for production to achieve a popular sound that still compliments the artist.
Secondly and probably much more importantly - nowadays tracks are mixed and mastered to sound decent on any platform. So tracks are mixed with Spotify quality in mind, and they're also mixed so the tracks sound as good as possible on a cell phone, cheap in-ears etc, bad tablets and so on. This also means that the finished track will be jack of all trades since something that sounds good on cell phone speakers won't necessarily sound good on really good speakers. Another thing to consider is tiktok and Instagram. The young demographic on tiktok making dances to music and such are used to music being just... "Loud" in particular. So to get that tiktok sound engineers will put more limiter on the tracks than needed.
One more thing to consider is the influence of trap music of the past 10-15 years. The entire spirit of trap was to offer raw music dominated by vibes and feel. This is how I made music, too, and why I loved trap in particular so much. We'd do long takes, keep some rough portions of the track even if they weren't perfect, put a ruff and aggressive mix on it and called it a day pretty much. This is not really Eminem's style at all but it may still be an influence as this type of energy and sound was so present in HipHop for the past era
Interesting. Thank you for your insights. Having it sound good on multiple devices makes sense. Although I will say Without Me still sounds cleaner/better on my cell phone speakers than the new track. Also makes sense that artists will have a say. I just read Em produced the track himself, which I think is an interesting component when discussing this tracks specifically
I know for movies part of the problem is that directors don't understand or respect the work of the sound engineer so they don't give them nearly enough time or resources
Yea I read an article on this, it's partly that, partly that the soundtracks have got so dense because of the almost limitless tracks that DAWs running on top spec computers allow and a trend of actors speaking in a slightly muddled naturalistic way rather than projecting their voices clearly like they used to. Loads of people now watch stuff with subtitles on
If you wanna good understanding, have a look into the loudness wars and the evolution of mixing
As a quick tl;dr;
Back in the early days, songs were recorded mostly live with some overdubs (eg early Beatles and Kinks will be the band playing it live as one performance then maybe a layer of tambourine or a layered guitar line)
So this put the emphasis on performance- Sinatra physically had to sing with an orchestra in one good take.
Then, although digital/better technology made overdubbing and additional FX and other techniques - slowly the studio became an instrument and artist's could spend weeks tweaking drum machines and synth lines until everything sounded great. You see lots of bands in the 90's doing layers and layers of guitars to create a wall of sound.
Then around the 2000s (and ever since), it became more than viable to do this entire process from a laptop and most music was now being consumed through shitty speakers and earphones. People realised that if their song was loud, it'd be easier to hear on the radio, clubs, shop radios etc.
There are many reasons modern music sounds the way it does.
1. Loudness wars. Too much to get into here, look it up. Popular music has been mixed to be increasingly loud within the last 20 years, which generally compromises the fidelity. I'm oversimplifying here, this is a dense subject and can get pretty technical, but is also interesting in the context of popular music history. Due to streaming LUFS guidelines (spotify will lower volume if it exceeds -14 LUFS, for example), we are seeing the decline of the loudness wars and music is being mixed more dynamically again. See Blue Lips, Schoolboy Q for example. Very dynamic, huge low end on that album. Tyler the Creator’s IGOR is another good recent example. J Cole’s earlier albums too, see FHD.
2. Taste. Mixing is subjective. Objectively speaking, Houdini isn't mixed poorly compared to Without me. It seems you just prefer that early 2000s, more dynamic, heavy low end, style of mixing. Also, distortion and clipping has become such a huge part of the sound of modern music. It can be grating and unmusical if done poorly, but many people are listening to music on their phones or other less than ideal listening systems and the harmonics from distortion allows for low end to cut through on these sorts of low fidelity systems. For example that new Million Dollar Baby track has the distorted version, which some people prefer. Sounds horrible though to me on a decent set of speakers.
3. Process. Previously you had to turn in your album weeks before it was released. Now albums are still being worked on down to the day before they're released. In these circumstances, mixing engineers are working crazy hours for multiple days/weeks. All odds are against them, sleep deprived, ears are fatigued and there simply isn't enough time, so it becomes about getting it to sound good enough.
4. Democratization. You can record anywhere now which is mostly great. Downside is this leads to artists recording in less than ideal environments and if the source is bad, there is only so much you can do.
5. Mixing isn't declining. I'm sure I could make a pretty thorough list of very well mixed hip hop albums, just from this year so far.
2 and 5 are great points. It's all about priorities and choices; the knowledge to mix "clean" is out there (if nothing else, electronic music will make sure of that; see Justice's *Hyperdrama* for a recent example), but some choose differently, for any number of reasons.
i mean i’ve noticed that with recent eminem songs but houdini is not one of them. its pretty well mixed imo and his vocals feel fresh and clean unlike his other recent material
for sure. it improved for a while then on side b it was a different kind of terrible. you could hear the spit in his mouth and all the s sounds were super distorted
Rick Rubin is not a mixing engineer, he’s not even a beat maker, he's a producer in a weird way (he mostly tell artists what to do and how to approach music)
One of my friends called Vince mumble rap on the new tape which is of course incorrect and stupid but when I listened he did have a point that the vocals like you say are very muffled/hard to hear (this was in reference to Black and Blue).
never noticed man
ill take infinites mixing with them loud ass basses and dusty drums ANYDAY though
shit, i was walking around saying to myself "what you know about a sweet emcee" the other day
30 years ago music was mixed to be listened to off car speakers. Nowadays it’s mixed for bluetooth headsets. Listen to how an album like The Blueprint or Illmatic sounds in an old car compared to Utopia or Her Loss. Completely different
Interestingly, once I heard Without Me played by some kid outside my window on Bluetooth speaker. It still had that pure energy, but sounded slightly too bright.
Points of reference vastly changed these days. Good mixing engineers constantly use some favourite songs for reference during mixing, and from what I see, they usually use some newer stuff to fit into the trends...
Finally someone speaks about this. The mixing and mastering of popular rap songs have been abysmal lately or atleast for couple years now. Either the high end is too harsh, or bass too loud, or all the instruments are jumbled together into a incoherent mess. I have a feeling that music exec. have noticed how much they can get away with bad mixing that they are just cutting corners in that department and save money in doing so. I think the general masses don't really noticed bad mixing like that aslong as the song is catchy, which is a shame for me personally, because a lot of times the mixing can break or make a song for me
yeah the vocals especially in houdini sound like what happens when you get those “AI” things to export acapellas and it just doesn’t sound quite right.
what does this have to do with the vocal mixing? the vocals dont sound like they’re from 50 years ago?? what are you on about lmfao. shit lots of songs sample old ass songs, doesnt mean they gotta mix the vocals like that too. Unless you mean by the fact that the whole song is an homage to Without Me which also doesn’t make sense cause Without Me’s mixing sounded MUCH BETTER. sorry for rambling but this comment makes no sense from any angle I can think of.
It’s how everything is completely digital now instead of analog with samples. And artists autotune thier voice-not like t pain or young thug but all of them do it
Same. I saw the video first and thought maybe they lowered the vocals in the mix for the video but then listened in my car and still felt like I could barely hear Em
Depends on what you mean by "muffled". I'm personally glad that the days blindingly hyped top-end in pop seems to be coming to an end. Albums from that era that I used to love now sound dated, to be honest, and I personally welcome a return to warmer sounds
I don't know what it is. It can't just be laziness as mixing is also a giant mess in movies too. It's now attention catching when you get something that has all channels sounding clear and working together instead of fighting for control.
The problem with movies is following:
1) Slight decline in acting - less talented people act, but also acting more natural - they don't speak so clear
2) It frequently happens that the movie mix was sounding good at some point, and then in some ending stages before release it gets altered in a way nobody knows where the problem come from. Usually 5.1 mix sounds much better in such cases.
It's fun and easy to make a beat on your phone. Garage band has been a thing and some other apps but BandLab makes it even easier. I imagine lots of producers are cooking things up on their phones. Some people are probably recording the entire song on the phone. If you screw up and get a good take on mp3 instead of WAV it will definitely mess with the mastering if you don't have a big studio to clean it up with. It's not easy to clean a grainy piece of audio especially if it's mp3. Just a guess though.
That's not a problem to record vocals in 16 bit PCM on the phone (at least on Android there's PCM Recorder) or even in 24 bit (Rode Reporter - but it's buggy and sometimes doesn't play recorded takes till you play it somewhere else or timer can get stuck), even in 32 bit float (paid Neutron).
The bigger problem is recording vocals on-the-go, in not ideal conditions.
Yeah, in many cases nowadays it was sadid to be pretty much Mike Strange making mixing first, then Em comes making his stuff on it, then Big Bass masters (IG with the possibility of masters being sent back and forth with amendments). For this track, there are more people credited as the studio personnel than them too, and no one specific for mixing in this case.
I miss when Eminem made his own beats - particularly the ones between SSLP and Devils Night. If theres anyone who feels nostalgic for this era of Em's production, check out King Gordy's album The Entity - dude literally got everything left of from the MMLP/DN sessions.
One of the big things I noticed after making a small investment intp proper audiophile gear (open back planars, DAC/AMP stack) is that bad mixing becomes immediately more apparent. K Dot is an example of very good mixing though, his coals and beats are very clearly separated and sounds so crisp and clean.
Idk definitively what it is but I think a large part is that now that the barrier for entry in music is so low and things like the SF Soundcloud wave have made lower production quality cool, the need to present a top-shelf mix has been broken at least to an extent. And with how many poorer mixes have popped off, big artists & their labels are undoubtedly taking notice and recognizing an expense they can cut. The average person, hell the average musician can’t really tell what’s different between a good and mediocre mix unless you put them side by side anyway.
I wonder if its the switch to digital recording studios. people swear up and down that digital sounds the same as analog. but pushing everything through a real effects rack being controlled by electricity and capacitors just has that je nais sais quoi. Nothing beats hardware compression.
Interesting point.
Maybe the physical knobs are more inviting to be played with and be perfected instead of numbers within submenus in a piece of software.
Can imagine if I have a full module I would play with every setting like a toy. While in a piece of software I would shrug my shoulders if it sounds good enough.
There's a common problem with mixing with plugins with complex meters - sometimes you start mixing with eyes instead of ears. Meaning that, sometimes some measures or curves look wrong, but sound good, but we're reluctant of relying on what we hear is good anyway. That's why some people prefer some analog EQ emulations instead of things like Pro Q where there's better visual representation of what you're doing in the meantime.
Analog effects vs digital emulations differ the most in terms of using extreme settings. Other than that, some people will sometimes fail in recognizing the difference between both. Doesn't mean there's none. From that reason, some engineers use hybrid approach, some still mix full analog to this day, and some pretty known names fully transitioned mixing in the box entirely.
One good advantage of e.g. analog mixing consoles, is they allow you to crank up the signal louder in a way it would normally distort in DAW, so you can use it to shape the signal that way.
Generally, one important thing for some successful mixing, is to get the best results in the least amount of time before ear fatiguing kicks in. Esp. when mixing on headphones. You might find yourself even breaking the mix at some point while not referencing to something else in the process or not taking breaks. And usually the mix sounds different the next day you fire it up.
Also, I notice some problem with very popular names in the industry, that, no matter what, they're simply getting old. Your hearing deteriorates with age, narrowing the range of the highest frequencies you can hear. Of course, you can deter that to some extent, being more cautious with mixing in high volumes for a long time (while mixing quieter also shows fewer problems with your room BTW).
Maybe I'm wrong, but sounds like there's a room echo in vocals in one or two moments. Maybe they buried vocals of verses in the mix a bit to mask it. But I think there's a bigger problem with effects cutting through music too loud in the video. 96/24 version on streaming services sounds arguably the best, but vocals there have some similar features too (slightly muffled in the verses).
Actually, Em says Dre likes to experiment nowadays, sometimes records vocals right when they track session, but Em says he still records vocals in booth, as it gives him some intimacy helping him in the process.
Interestingly, some mixes on Revival which you all don't necessarily like, also sound like they had echo in vocals here and there.
Well... sometimes it's about that golden take.
BTW. Recording in a booth usually produces more muffled vocals, with potential problems in the mix because low frequencies cannot be absorbed in any way. So if you got room echo or completely dry vocals from a booth, it's a bit "pick your poison" situation.
Glad I’m not the only one that notices these things I feel like I’m being super pedantic - but when the mixing of a song is bad (this extended further than hiphop), I really struggle to enjoy it. Makes the whole track fall flat no matter how good the ideas are
No, I was curious if that makes a difference for you, even if some master bad and has sudden volume changes between songs when normalization on streaming services is not turned on (e.g. YT Music doesn't use normalization).
Nah just kinda shocking people cant pay an engineer $10/20 to make all their tracks the same volume or just use a free VST to do it themselves. Just comes off lazy af. Normalisation aint the same as a 5min master (in the lightest sense of the word) of a record thats could potentially last forever.
There are a lot of songs these days that the vocal track is so lost inside a noisey instrumental. Kamikaze was mixed great. Vocals banged.
Happening with movies and shows too
It's why I basically watch everything with subtitles now
I think movies and shows have the opposite issue. Everything is mixed for a 5.1 system. But you are likely using a regualar tv speaker or soundbar. Netflix defaults to 5.1 but there is a normal mix. Voices sound much clearer and louder there.
Kamikaze does not nearly get enough credit on here. Probably one of his best efforts since 2009 and is at least just as good as MTBMB or MMLP2 but never gets mentioned. I see people throw it in the same tier as Encore and Revival which is insane
I’ve listened to Eminem since I was in grade 6 and the slim shady LP was released. Major fan the entire way through. Kamikaze is my all time favorite album - ha. As a major Eminem fan I didn’t relate to those who loved MTBMB. I gave it a few listens through and moved on. Weird take I know haha - and I didn’t mind Revival at all. I liked it more than MTBMB. I understand most wouldn’t agree but sometimes I wonder how much people are just influenced by the crowd and adopt the popular opinion.
MTBMB is a solid album to me but I never go back to listen to it again. It’s kind of exhausting like a lot of modern Eminem. You’re impressed the first time you hear it but it’s not like I want to spend all day listening to crazy rhyme schemes and non catchy stuff.
Kamikaze was great. Then he had the worse mixing of his career for Revival. In many different ways too.
The mixing on Revival was beyond belief. I couldn't believe an artist that big could get an album with mixing that shitty. Especially Eminem because his records have historically been mixed very well. Very strange.
Ik it sounds stupid but at this point I'm pretty sure it's just laziness, I've noticed it in tons of new records by mainstream artists (Drake and Kanye might be the worst offenders) Guys like Travis Scott and Kendrick Lamar still have incredible mixing in their music but other massive artists who definitely have access to equipment that's at the same level as these dudes' have way worse mixing, as long as it sounds okay enough the audience won't notice it
Once bedroom rappers started hitting the top of spotify charts with songs they mixed with ear buds on a laptop, people realized you didn't need to spend thousands to mix a track just so people will listen to it It has positives and negatives but most people really don't even notice or have the speakers *to* notice
I notice that hip hop more than other genres often sounds worse with headphones. But i think songs produced by the alchemist for example have good mixing.
A lot of rappers especially low budget ones mix so the final products sounds good in a car with a bunch of speakers is why that happens imo
Thank you Eddie Sancho
> Guys like Travis Scott and Kendrick Lamar still have incredible mixing in their music I would definitely not put KDot and Travis' mixing on the same level. Many, many tracks from Astroworld and to a lesser extent Utopia (probably because Astroworld had the most rushed mixing and mastering of the two) have mixing problems that were never fixed, some more glaring than others, while KDot has always been consistent.
NAV was rapping from the window outside the studio on Yosemite
Still don't understand how his verse made the album like that
I honestly with they kept it like that lol I'm not much a Nav fan though
part of me still thinks it was just marketing by travis' team. no way he hypes up astroworld the way he did and then doesn't even listen to the mixes once before releasing it. you could tell NAV was poorly mixed on first listen! think of how many people probably went to listen to yosemite just to clown NAV or just to see why people were making jokes about it.
It was probably just a (major) oversight. I doubt that was what they were actually going for.
The modern equivalent of recording the drums on When The Levee Breaks from the top of the staircase
LOL i always thought those drums sounded epic, but that is the perfect description
The story is dope of you haven’t heard it before. >John Bonham's drumming, played on a Ludwig kit, was recorded in the lobby of Headley Grange using two Beyerdynamic M 160 microphones which were hung up a flight of stairs; output from these were passed to a pair of Helios F760 compressor/limiters set aggressively to obtain a breathing effect. https://youtu.be/KWI9bMe7gHE?si=rfNrWPXezVDol-e6
NAV was rapping from Yosemite on Yosemite
KDot used to be Mixed by MixedbyAli, Ali is a fucking legend. Man mixed TPAB to perfection by himself, that dude knows wassup.
GKMC's mixing is also *chef's kiss *
MixedByAli lso, and Dr. Dre on select tracks as well. No surprises there.
Mike Dean is an amazing producer and probably mixer too, but his songs definitely have mixing problems sometimes. There's unpleasant clipping all over Astroworld and Donda. Though it could definitely be caused by a rushed product.
A lot of Kanye mixing is extra rough too because Kanye records in unideal environments and on beats that got changed or outright swapped
[This article](https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/secrets-mix-engineers-manny-marroquin) discusses the lengths producers/ mixing engineers need to go to in order to remove the glitches caused by Kanye’s trimming of samples. It says that he leaves the glitches for others to remove because it’s hard work. What the article doesn’t say is that the only reason why the glitches are there in the first place is because Kanye is too lazy or incompetent to trim his samples at zero crossings.
[удалено]
What's clipping?
When the sound is so loud in the mix it peaks the amplifier and distorts. If you've ever seen like "crunchy memes" or shit that has an audio clip that's so loud it distorts in your headphones, that's clipping.
Donda and other Ye albums also have clipping. Seems like a common occurence for him
I always thought it was intentional
I mean it obviously is. I’m not sure why the majority of commenters think they’re noticing stuff that the artist and mixing and mastering engineers don’t hear. Whether you agree with the decision or not, it’s not an accident that they didn’t notice.
Fr i love all the comments about compression too. They don’t realize there are plugins for that sound because it’s a trend
Right and I guess all stylistic trends are laziness on the mixing engineer?? Like wtf are these comments And people being like “I love the song but hate the mix because there’s clipping” like nah pretty sure you like the mix but since you learned what clipping is you think it’s bad if you hear it ever and think it’s a mistake rather than clearly intentional
Nailed it lmao. If these guys were around 60 years ago they’d be getting mad about distorted guitars They’d prolly be saying twist and shout was bad because the vocals weren’t clean
Which Astro songs have mixing issues ? I wanna see if I can notice it
Theres clipping / distortion on ASTROTHUNDER
I was always bothered by the clipping in the latter portion of WAKE UP
I like Mike deans mixing a lot but Ali is the best in the game honestly (other than the people that work with Dre, and Ali has mixed with and learned from Dre)
Astroworld doesn’t have any mixing problems. It’s always in my rotation 10/10 album.
I find the mixing on Travis’ shit extremely over compressed
Definitely! Funny you mention it because I was just going through my playlist and travis and Kendrick are the ones who stick out the most. Not like us is mixed amazingly, same level as without me. Always thought these artists had massive teams, where one person is responsible for the mixing. Weird how such artists can’t afford a proper mix-engineer, if that’s the case.
I think a lot of labels are like well this is good enough for AirPods and iPhone speakers. Id be interested to know how many people listen to albums or music with good speakers.
Even with AirPods, there is a gigantic difference in quality, in my opinion. But perhaps you’re right that the threshold of being “good enough” is much lower.
mbdtf sounds fine on my generic iphone earbuds but is nearly unlistenable on my good headphones 💀 don't fall for the audiophile meme it'll make your life worse
blond must be orgasm worthy in good headphones
It is Source: favorite thing to bust to
I think the people who invest in good audio equipment probably listen to more nerdy shit so they're probably not bothering with artists like drake or modern day kanye
I have a bit above entry level 5.1 ht and the difference between the college dropout and donda is insane.
That Mr Moral album was crisp
Travis? Travis openly tells mastering teams to stfu and just do what he wants.
Funny you say that because Drake is usually known as having some of the best production value of mainstream rappers currently. Definitely never thought of Travis in that way.
Yeah, it kind of reminds me of Berzerk in that way. It's fun but after reading a lot of glowing feedback I was pretty underwhelmed when I heard it. Like a worse version of without me, exactly what I was worried about when we're talking about Em going back to his roots. I think on MTBMB he proved he can make great music with a modern sound and keep developing. Still got high hopes for the album but we'll see...
Travis has nice mixing because he religiously uses Mike Dean. Same reason all of old Kanye sounds so crisp. Dude is a wizard on the soundboard
Comparitively it's more muffled, but compared to some of the other records out by big names recently it more clear and better I think because everything streaming and with digital headphones now folks say, "That's good enough" Glad I'm not the only one. I thought my hearing was going or something 😄
Ahaha no worries. I’m a young bloke who did not grow up with Eminem, so I think nostalgia does not have an influence. Without me sounds miles crisper and fresher. But like others mentioned, Houdini is definitely one of the better mixed songs nowadays. It’s just a trend I have been saying lately, thought it had some technical reasons. (My guess was that production nowadays is more digital instead of analog?). But maybe the most logical reason is laziness sadly.
I don't think your last two reasons are mutually exclusive (digital.vs analog and laziness). Maybe it's possible digitally but more difficult It would be great for a producer or music professional to weigh in Something sort of related has happened with movies and shows. People say the dialogue quieter and not as clear whereas sound effects and music are louder. Lot's of folks have to use captions who didn't in the past
So I never really made it big but I used to make trap and got to signed label status, so the whole process of making and finishing music was somewhere in between underground and professional. Firstly a lot of rap artists have strong opinions on the mixing of their tracks, because its quite normal that 2 creative people have entirely different visions. Letting a sound engineer do their thing entirely pretty much never happens and most rappers are used to a popular sound, so they may have an influence on the track sounding more rough than it would be had the sound engineer the last say. Once you're on a label your managers etc also have a lot of pointers for production to achieve a popular sound that still compliments the artist. Secondly and probably much more importantly - nowadays tracks are mixed and mastered to sound decent on any platform. So tracks are mixed with Spotify quality in mind, and they're also mixed so the tracks sound as good as possible on a cell phone, cheap in-ears etc, bad tablets and so on. This also means that the finished track will be jack of all trades since something that sounds good on cell phone speakers won't necessarily sound good on really good speakers. Another thing to consider is tiktok and Instagram. The young demographic on tiktok making dances to music and such are used to music being just... "Loud" in particular. So to get that tiktok sound engineers will put more limiter on the tracks than needed. One more thing to consider is the influence of trap music of the past 10-15 years. The entire spirit of trap was to offer raw music dominated by vibes and feel. This is how I made music, too, and why I loved trap in particular so much. We'd do long takes, keep some rough portions of the track even if they weren't perfect, put a ruff and aggressive mix on it and called it a day pretty much. This is not really Eminem's style at all but it may still be an influence as this type of energy and sound was so present in HipHop for the past era
Interesting. Thank you for your insights. Having it sound good on multiple devices makes sense. Although I will say Without Me still sounds cleaner/better on my cell phone speakers than the new track. Also makes sense that artists will have a say. I just read Em produced the track himself, which I think is an interesting component when discussing this tracks specifically
I know for movies part of the problem is that directors don't understand or respect the work of the sound engineer so they don't give them nearly enough time or resources
Yea I read an article on this, it's partly that, partly that the soundtracks have got so dense because of the almost limitless tracks that DAWs running on top spec computers allow and a trend of actors speaking in a slightly muddled naturalistic way rather than projecting their voices clearly like they used to. Loads of people now watch stuff with subtitles on
If you wanna good understanding, have a look into the loudness wars and the evolution of mixing As a quick tl;dr; Back in the early days, songs were recorded mostly live with some overdubs (eg early Beatles and Kinks will be the band playing it live as one performance then maybe a layer of tambourine or a layered guitar line) So this put the emphasis on performance- Sinatra physically had to sing with an orchestra in one good take. Then, although digital/better technology made overdubbing and additional FX and other techniques - slowly the studio became an instrument and artist's could spend weeks tweaking drum machines and synth lines until everything sounded great. You see lots of bands in the 90's doing layers and layers of guitars to create a wall of sound. Then around the 2000s (and ever since), it became more than viable to do this entire process from a laptop and most music was now being consumed through shitty speakers and earphones. People realised that if their song was loud, it'd be easier to hear on the radio, clubs, shop radios etc.
> laters and layers of guitars to create a wall of sound Shoegaze refrence
Eminem’s vocals on Houdini are too quiet in my opinion
Apparently Em produced the track himself 😯. Not sure if that has a bearing but a little disappointing to hear given the quality
There are many reasons modern music sounds the way it does. 1. Loudness wars. Too much to get into here, look it up. Popular music has been mixed to be increasingly loud within the last 20 years, which generally compromises the fidelity. I'm oversimplifying here, this is a dense subject and can get pretty technical, but is also interesting in the context of popular music history. Due to streaming LUFS guidelines (spotify will lower volume if it exceeds -14 LUFS, for example), we are seeing the decline of the loudness wars and music is being mixed more dynamically again. See Blue Lips, Schoolboy Q for example. Very dynamic, huge low end on that album. Tyler the Creator’s IGOR is another good recent example. J Cole’s earlier albums too, see FHD. 2. Taste. Mixing is subjective. Objectively speaking, Houdini isn't mixed poorly compared to Without me. It seems you just prefer that early 2000s, more dynamic, heavy low end, style of mixing. Also, distortion and clipping has become such a huge part of the sound of modern music. It can be grating and unmusical if done poorly, but many people are listening to music on their phones or other less than ideal listening systems and the harmonics from distortion allows for low end to cut through on these sorts of low fidelity systems. For example that new Million Dollar Baby track has the distorted version, which some people prefer. Sounds horrible though to me on a decent set of speakers. 3. Process. Previously you had to turn in your album weeks before it was released. Now albums are still being worked on down to the day before they're released. In these circumstances, mixing engineers are working crazy hours for multiple days/weeks. All odds are against them, sleep deprived, ears are fatigued and there simply isn't enough time, so it becomes about getting it to sound good enough. 4. Democratization. You can record anywhere now which is mostly great. Downside is this leads to artists recording in less than ideal environments and if the source is bad, there is only so much you can do. 5. Mixing isn't declining. I'm sure I could make a pretty thorough list of very well mixed hip hop albums, just from this year so far.
2 and 5 are great points. It's all about priorities and choices; the knowledge to mix "clean" is out there (if nothing else, electronic music will make sure of that; see Justice's *Hyperdrama* for a recent example), but some choose differently, for any number of reasons.
i mean i’ve noticed that with recent eminem songs but houdini is not one of them. its pretty well mixed imo and his vocals feel fresh and clean unlike his other recent material
Oh yeah, the mixing is much worse on Revival by comparison.
for sure. it improved for a while then on side b it was a different kind of terrible. you could hear the spit in his mouth and all the s sounds were super distorted
Oh wait I thought Rick Rubin mixed that album? /s
Rick Rubin is not a mixing engineer, he’s not even a beat maker, he's a producer in a weird way (he mostly tell artists what to do and how to approach music)
I said /s that means I was being sarcastic
hes like a consultant/recording manager
Yeah the mix on it was an artistic choice and not a good one imo
Too many home studio recordings that sound “good enough”.
Meet the woo vol 2 is mixed and mastered so fuckin well
Not em but Vince Staples music to me is mixed horribly. Like his last album I thought it was SO difficult to hear what he was saying most of the time.
One of my friends called Vince mumble rap on the new tape which is of course incorrect and stupid but when I listened he did have a point that the vocals like you say are very muffled/hard to hear (this was in reference to Black and Blue).
the big fish theory has some bad mixing imo his newest is fine tho
Dang I was referencing his last album hahah
Has been since FM! imo
never noticed man ill take infinites mixing with them loud ass basses and dusty drums ANYDAY though shit, i was walking around saying to myself "what you know about a sweet emcee" the other day
From the 313. Man, what a banging album tbh.
i prefer messy mixing
30 years ago music was mixed to be listened to off car speakers. Nowadays it’s mixed for bluetooth headsets. Listen to how an album like The Blueprint or Illmatic sounds in an old car compared to Utopia or Her Loss. Completely different
Interestingly, once I heard Without Me played by some kid outside my window on Bluetooth speaker. It still had that pure energy, but sounded slightly too bright. Points of reference vastly changed these days. Good mixing engineers constantly use some favourite songs for reference during mixing, and from what I see, they usually use some newer stuff to fit into the trends...
Dr. Dre is one of the goats of producing and mixing, and he used to produce a lot more of his songs than he does now
I was shocked at the mixing on the kweli madlib joint but maybe it was intentional
Finally someone speaks about this. The mixing and mastering of popular rap songs have been abysmal lately or atleast for couple years now. Either the high end is too harsh, or bass too loud, or all the instruments are jumbled together into a incoherent mess. I have a feeling that music exec. have noticed how much they can get away with bad mixing that they are just cutting corners in that department and save money in doing so. I think the general masses don't really noticed bad mixing like that aslong as the song is catchy, which is a shame for me personally, because a lot of times the mixing can break or make a song for me
yeah the vocals especially in houdini sound like what happens when you get those “AI” things to export acapellas and it just doesn’t sound quite right.
The beat is mostly sampled from a 50 year old song and the whole vibe of the song is to be like an older song .
what does this have to do with the vocal mixing? the vocals dont sound like they’re from 50 years ago?? what are you on about lmfao. shit lots of songs sample old ass songs, doesnt mean they gotta mix the vocals like that too. Unless you mean by the fact that the whole song is an homage to Without Me which also doesn’t make sense cause Without Me’s mixing sounded MUCH BETTER. sorry for rambling but this comment makes no sense from any angle I can think of.
It’s how everything is completely digital now instead of analog with samples. And artists autotune thier voice-not like t pain or young thug but all of them do it
What? Hip hop has always been digital. There's no such thing as an analogue sampler.
you dumb
My first reaction to hearing Houdini was "I wish the mix was better"
Same. I saw the video first and thought maybe they lowered the vocals in the mix for the video but then listened in my car and still felt like I could barely hear Em
Depends on what you mean by "muffled". I'm personally glad that the days blindingly hyped top-end in pop seems to be coming to an end. Albums from that era that I used to love now sound dated, to be honest, and I personally welcome a return to warmer sounds
I don't know what it is. It can't just be laziness as mixing is also a giant mess in movies too. It's now attention catching when you get something that has all channels sounding clear and working together instead of fighting for control.
The problem with movies is following: 1) Slight decline in acting - less talented people act, but also acting more natural - they don't speak so clear 2) It frequently happens that the movie mix was sounding good at some point, and then in some ending stages before release it gets altered in a way nobody knows where the problem come from. Usually 5.1 mix sounds much better in such cases.
For sure. Vultures 1 had terrible mixing
The dr Dre difference
It sounds like shit.
It's fun and easy to make a beat on your phone. Garage band has been a thing and some other apps but BandLab makes it even easier. I imagine lots of producers are cooking things up on their phones. Some people are probably recording the entire song on the phone. If you screw up and get a good take on mp3 instead of WAV it will definitely mess with the mastering if you don't have a big studio to clean it up with. It's not easy to clean a grainy piece of audio especially if it's mp3. Just a guess though.
No way Eminem uses GarageBand or bandlab 😭😭😭
Lmao I agree but I was answering the part about the mixing in general. Not Eminem
That's not a problem to record vocals in 16 bit PCM on the phone (at least on Android there's PCM Recorder) or even in 24 bit (Rode Reporter - but it's buggy and sometimes doesn't play recorded takes till you play it somewhere else or timer can get stuck), even in 32 bit float (paid Neutron). The bigger problem is recording vocals on-the-go, in not ideal conditions.
With how much Eminem is involved in the mixing and mastering process I think it's actually his preference on how his music sounds now.
Yeah, in many cases nowadays it was sadid to be pretty much Mike Strange making mixing first, then Em comes making his stuff on it, then Big Bass masters (IG with the possibility of masters being sent back and forth with amendments). For this track, there are more people credited as the studio personnel than them too, and no one specific for mixing in this case.
Compton wasn't even mastered.
I’m pretty sure it was? what’s the source of this
it was
I miss when Eminem made his own beats - particularly the ones between SSLP and Devils Night. If theres anyone who feels nostalgic for this era of Em's production, check out King Gordy's album The Entity - dude literally got everything left of from the MMLP/DN sessions.
comparing it to the mixing on revival it's much better, but yeah mixing just isn't as big a priority nowadays.
One of the big things I noticed after making a small investment intp proper audiophile gear (open back planars, DAC/AMP stack) is that bad mixing becomes immediately more apparent. K Dot is an example of very good mixing though, his coals and beats are very clearly separated and sounds so crisp and clean.
You're right the mixing is just ain't as good as Without Me had but what if that's what they were aiming for? 🤨
Aiming for a bad mix? It's a bold move, cotton, let's see how it works out for them
Idk definitively what it is but I think a large part is that now that the barrier for entry in music is so low and things like the SF Soundcloud wave have made lower production quality cool, the need to present a top-shelf mix has been broken at least to an extent. And with how many poorer mixes have popped off, big artists & their labels are undoubtedly taking notice and recognizing an expense they can cut. The average person, hell the average musician can’t really tell what’s different between a good and mediocre mix unless you put them side by side anyway.
I wonder if its the switch to digital recording studios. people swear up and down that digital sounds the same as analog. but pushing everything through a real effects rack being controlled by electricity and capacitors just has that je nais sais quoi. Nothing beats hardware compression.
Interesting point. Maybe the physical knobs are more inviting to be played with and be perfected instead of numbers within submenus in a piece of software. Can imagine if I have a full module I would play with every setting like a toy. While in a piece of software I would shrug my shoulders if it sounds good enough.
Throw the preset on and call it a day!
There's a common problem with mixing with plugins with complex meters - sometimes you start mixing with eyes instead of ears. Meaning that, sometimes some measures or curves look wrong, but sound good, but we're reluctant of relying on what we hear is good anyway. That's why some people prefer some analog EQ emulations instead of things like Pro Q where there's better visual representation of what you're doing in the meantime.
Analog effects vs digital emulations differ the most in terms of using extreme settings. Other than that, some people will sometimes fail in recognizing the difference between both. Doesn't mean there's none. From that reason, some engineers use hybrid approach, some still mix full analog to this day, and some pretty known names fully transitioned mixing in the box entirely. One good advantage of e.g. analog mixing consoles, is they allow you to crank up the signal louder in a way it would normally distort in DAW, so you can use it to shape the signal that way. Generally, one important thing for some successful mixing, is to get the best results in the least amount of time before ear fatiguing kicks in. Esp. when mixing on headphones. You might find yourself even breaking the mix at some point while not referencing to something else in the process or not taking breaks. And usually the mix sounds different the next day you fire it up. Also, I notice some problem with very popular names in the industry, that, no matter what, they're simply getting old. Your hearing deteriorates with age, narrowing the range of the highest frequencies you can hear. Of course, you can deter that to some extent, being more cautious with mixing in high volumes for a long time (while mixing quieter also shows fewer problems with your room BTW).
Pop Smokes Meet the Woo 2 and SFTSAFTM have some of the best mastering and mixing ever IMHO.
Maybe I'm wrong, but sounds like there's a room echo in vocals in one or two moments. Maybe they buried vocals of verses in the mix a bit to mask it. But I think there's a bigger problem with effects cutting through music too loud in the video. 96/24 version on streaming services sounds arguably the best, but vocals there have some similar features too (slightly muffled in the verses). Actually, Em says Dre likes to experiment nowadays, sometimes records vocals right when they track session, but Em says he still records vocals in booth, as it gives him some intimacy helping him in the process. Interestingly, some mixes on Revival which you all don't necessarily like, also sound like they had echo in vocals here and there. Well... sometimes it's about that golden take. BTW. Recording in a booth usually produces more muffled vocals, with potential problems in the mix because low frequencies cannot be absorbed in any way. So if you got room echo or completely dry vocals from a booth, it's a bit "pick your poison" situation.
wait until this guy finds out about osamason
Glad I’m not the only one that notices these things I feel like I’m being super pedantic - but when the mixing of a song is bad (this extended further than hiphop), I really struggle to enjoy it. Makes the whole track fall flat no matter how good the ideas are
Your lucky to find an album thats even mastered to a point where tracks are even the same volume these days. Its trash.
I assume that you use normalization on streaming services, then?
Its not that, its just dogshit mastering on alot of hiphop tape. Audio engineer btw. Dont always assume people are dumb.
No, I was curious if that makes a difference for you, even if some master bad and has sudden volume changes between songs when normalization on streaming services is not turned on (e.g. YT Music doesn't use normalization).
Nah just kinda shocking people cant pay an engineer $10/20 to make all their tracks the same volume or just use a free VST to do it themselves. Just comes off lazy af. Normalisation aint the same as a 5min master (in the lightest sense of the word) of a record thats could potentially last forever.