I'm having trouble getting my mixes to sound anywhere close to being as full of life as the pros. I know this is probably a super broad topic, but I'm currently trying to recreate Insane in the Brain by Cypress Hill. My mix sounds nowhere close yet. I'll post an attachment of where I currently am with the track. My bass sounds okay, but my drums seem to be lacking. I'm still missing the James Brown vocal and the horse sound. Any advice/help would be greatly appreciated.

You seem to know what is wrong with it, so start improving on your vocals, your drums recording and your bass recordings. Do not even start mixing until you get your recording sounds close to what you want them to sound like
.
You cannot make something sound like something else and crap in will equal crap out. So start with your recording techniques and hone those skills and record very close to the sounds you want to end up with.
Its easy, all you need to do it match everyone talent and skill levels that were involved in that project.

I want to paint like Michel Angelo, but i am no were near his skill level and talents. But i'm practicing daily (3 hours a day) and maybe in 10 years, i may be able to come close to it, maybe, but i do not know. Well see in 10 years.
The same goes for music production, if you want to sound like a professionally produced song made by professional artist/band, you need to match their skill levels and talent.
So keep practicing, just like i am doing and hopefully in 10 years i can paint like Michael Angelo and you can produce songs like the pro's do

The James Brown 'huh' sample is from the start of Say It Loud, I'm black and I'm Proud.

The 'horse' sample is actually a horn sample, possibly from The JB's The Grunt or something similar with the screaming horns.

Try "scooping" out a frequency range for instruments with EQ for each channel. Also maybe learn a little more about compression (this isn't an insult, literally everyone could learn a little more about compression). If you have a master channel, try adding a touch of drive. Turn it up til you can just barely distinguish it, and then turn it back down a touch.

I agree with the CICO principle from CJ. And a microphone is a mechanical ear. It's not aware of the instrument, it heard the room too.

thats normal. dont get uptight about it.

just keep learning and trying to improve.

professionals do it all day ,every day for years and years and years.

thats how long it takes.

Buddha

Sounds like you need to whack it with some filth. Some compression to make it struggle and breathe more, sounds very linear and 'nice', and some saturation to make it angrier and have some energy. The free Molot compressor is good for dusty, bouncing beats. And stuff like the Endeavour fx Colour thingy is good for saturating fatness into stuff. Just a couple of tools, loads of comps and saturators to chose from. Make things creak and struggle a bit or it won't sound exciting.

When you compress, set it to completely overcompress by turning down the threshold low and the ratio about 5-6, so it struggles bad. Then set the attack and release there so it goes with the groove. Then adjust threshold and ratio for the amount of the chosen grab, i.e. back it off to taste (not necessarily the ratio, but it's an endless story...lol).

Thanks for all the replies, guys. I'll take all these tips into consideration for sure. I'll keep trying to learn and improve my mixing skills even if it takes me several years lol.

Don't worry - it's taken us all several years

It's an artform, there's no specific destination to reach. Don't worry about how long it takes, just keep learning and having fun.

Hi,

doesn't sounds too bad at all there are some mistakes in the mixing, but even despite that after a little processing you can definitely bring the life out of it

Peace
-Doc

Nice!

Thanks for the comment, and that sounds great! Can I ask what you did with it?

Just a little touch of EQ and multiband compression. But still its not what it should sounds like.

If you want your drums be like these in the example that youve mentioned, I have a few tips for you:

- lower the bass line volume (should not hitting more than like half of the kick level)
- sidechain the bass to the kick with quite short release
- don't hipass the low end on the kick- if youre doing so, 27 Hz in this case is max with quite soft slope like 24 db/oct and make sure that you got some expansion going in just after the hipass, even a few db in quite wide range
- try to support the kick with some 808 bass tuned in key
- and last - dont be afraid to go into deep compression!

Best,
- Doc

Thanks for the tips! I appreciate all the help