a young artist I'm working with, what y'all think of his skills?

He sounds good, he is in the lane with what about 20 million other teenage rappers are doing right now. So, he's got some competition, but he sounds good. Need to fix that mix tho. I'd like to see a rapper do something new, because I feel like we are not progressing. Like if you heard Kirko Bangz about 15 years ago, sound just like this. I wonder why so many people are still making this? Is it because it's easy? I want to say when Lil Wayne, and Future started rapping with autotune, that's when everyone got on it. T-Pain started it with the R&B stuff. But I feel like all the rappers today try to do Future's type of flow. But I mean Future came on the scene in like 2011? And in 2026 we still doing the same shit? The beats today are mostly still what was being made in 2015. 11 years later, and we still on this? Are people running out of ideas? Maybe AI music came at right time after all. Your beat is fine, the mix needs a lot of work, and the rapper is in the pocket, but on a tired played out sound. But people still F with it for now, so why not?

@vigilantestylez yeah I feel you on that, I guess it’s what the kids like, but now they do have music like Playboi Carti, which to me is like goth trap or super trap, they got hyper trap, and to me bruh kinda sounds like gunna and got that type of flow, you just gotta go to festivals like Rolling Loud and observe what the kids be fckn with the most and there’s multiple mixes, you want to give it a try? 😆 that mix sounds decent to me in headphones and the car but I know it’s not perfect yet, the God Particle was used on the master, I guess it ain’t all that good after all 😅 what studio monitors you have?

Yamaha HS5, and Sennheiser HS560S open back cans. God particle is cool. You know that is actually based on Jaycen Joshua's Ozone 4 presets? They took that, built a nice GUI, and sold it. The only issue I have with it, is the aliasing artifacts. You could try using it on a higher sample rate, or if you are in FL Studio, work in your preferred sample rate to keep CPU overhead low, and then when you are going to render, crank it to 96khz or 192khz, (make sure to save the project first) then print the mix. You might have to go do something for a bit while it cooks, and it will make your PC hot for little bit, but it's worth it. When you have to make an mp3, take your high quality WAV into a new session, you can then bounce it at 48 or 44.1 because the aliasing is already out of the music, and you are just doing a lower sample rate bounce. It'll sound cleaner that way. Also, use dither when you do that in my opinion as well. Quantization errors happen when bouncing down from high sample rates at times.

@uncledavebeats Tell me about it lol. Right now the wave is this rapper named YEET. 🙄 Kids be like, YO HE'S GOOD HUH? That is when I realized I am officially old. lol.

@uncledavebeats I'm down to try it. Send the stems / tracks. Upload them to wetransfer, and DM the link to me. I'll see what I can do. No charge, I am just happy to have something to do lol.

@vigilantestylez okay nice, I’m on JBL 3 Series MkII and Sony MDRs & Sennheiser HD, yeah there’s a mix with GP and another with Master Plan so far, I felt the GP one sounded better with the vocals over the loud sub bass, but yeah I know all that, I do that for the final mix, I just wanted an opinion on the young man’s skills not on the mix yet but I do enjoy mixing but us as producers and engineers care most about that, the regular listeners do not care really, there are mainstream songs that go viral and make it on the charts with terrible mixes 😆 but yeah GP takes up hella CPU, thanks for your input bro, you’re very knowledgeable but yeah I can hear the difference a lot of mainstream hip hop working in 192 right now which most of the time that was for artists like Adele, to be honest it makes it sound like watered down hip hop, too commercial, you trynna make the mix sound like water 😆 that’s cool tho and yeah YEAT is what the kids like right now but Travis Scott feels like he bit his whole wave, that’s why they beefing

got you when I get to the crib 💯

@uncledavebeats Right. I feel like its intentional. Like Playboi Carti's mixes sound like his buddy who has no idea what he's doing mixed his stuff. But it fits the genre, and the vibe. Travis Scott on the other hand, has world class engineering, and Mike Deans' mixes blow everyone away, and the kids love the sound of Travis Scott's stuff too. Idk if anyone asks these kids if they feel Travis Scott's sound quality hits better, or is better listening experience to Playboi Carti. But I think its like how I used to consider 2Pac's stuff to 3 6 Mafia. I always felt like 3 6 mafia's stuff sounded like it was made in a garage, and 2Pac was in million dollar studios. I loved both, and 3 6's bad sound quality actually fit their lofi horrorcore vibe. So the mix should fit the context of the music as well. Like for me I will try not to change the intention of the producer, and I would encourage the producer to bake anything he wants into the tracks if it is for the vibe. I would however ask for the vocals to be clean and not distorted. So like if the producer wants a slammed distorted 808, then do that, and I will try to make sure it fits right with the main kick drum. If that is the also the kick drum, I am hoping the attack of the kick is not lost in the process. Snares are intended to sound metallic, I'll try to keep that, while still making sure it is balanced well volume wise in the beat. Etc.

@vigilantestylez yeah Mike Dean’s mixes are A1, he mixed that whole mixtape that Trav got with Quavo, I feel that was an underrated mixtape, it had heat on there, but same as YEAT, he’s just started to get cleaner mixes but everything to me sounds too compressed and I feel like the regular listeners just enjoy the vibes of the song, yeah 3 6 mafia had that evil grimey sounding music, almost like the artist Skrilla but his sound is much cleaner, yeah I believe the mix should match the artists style, I’ll just keep the Autotune on and I’ll take all the eq and compression off the vocals, no reverb or delay, it’ll be dry vocals

@uncledavebeats Good stuff. Do you want reverb and delay on those vocals? Or was it a creative decision to remove them? Yeah leave the autotune on.

@vigilantestylez agreed

@vigilantestylez I was saying how you would get the vocals when I send, yeah put your own reverb and delay for sure

@uncledavebeats All good, send anytime! I'm ready to work!