milky chance – down by the river ( song analysis )

Genre : Pop & house

instruments used :

1. electric guitar
2. bass
3. vocals
4. drums
5. acoustic guitar
6. shimmy shaker

the song follows a repetitive pattern of the chords, layered more as the song progresses, with a small sound of the shimmy shaker panned to the right to fill in the gap, when the 2nd chorus starts, the shimmy shaker starts from 100 panned to the left and quickly switches to the right every time it repeats, even though the melody formula is repeated hundreds of times in pop songs, but the theme it gives is different by giving you that autumn feeling by that warm voice guitar chord shifts and the lyrics, specially with the birds sound effect that starts at the beginning of the song, and the rhythm kicks in when the beat gets muted and drops again to get the listener in the groove.

the mixing is an important part of that song in particular, why ? because if the sound engineer had chosen not to push 2 main vocals to the left and right then the song probably would be just like any other vocals that you listen to, there are 2 main vocals backed by backup vocals and one down in the center lowered between 13-16 db, the vocals feel warm because their low frequencies are suppressed by a filter and the high frequencies are push so that it gives that whispering feeling.