What am I doing wrong ! Finial mixes/productions are not up to par.( electronic Music )

[PanzerD]

@jam92189

Toally agree with you on most part, but turning your speakers all the way up isn't really the same thing. Limiting is process that affects dynamics and and waveform of a track and you cant affect one thing without affecting the other, that is frequency balance. (Even with most transparent limiter).

If you get any of your tracks released trough some commercial label then its gonna be mastered by their standard, and most of the time there's unfortunately nothing you can do but to hope that mastering engineer will take his job seriously and doesn't have hangover at that time. If you get it to radio then more limiting expected. Those thing might just be out of your hand's so at least you can try and predict them.

Yes loudness war is horrible, but would you decline to get your next big hit commercially released because it was too much limited during mastering?

[jam92189]

@jam92189

Toally agree with you on most part, but turning your speakers all the way up isn't really the same thing. Limiting is process that affects dynamics and and waveform of a track and you cant affect one thing without affecting the other, that is frequency balance. (Even with most transparent limiter).

If you get any of your tracks released trough some commercial label then its gonna be mastered by their standard, and most of the time there's unfortunately nothing you can do but to hope that mastering engineer will take his job seriously and doesn't have hangover at that time. If you get it to radio then more limiting expected. Those thing might just be out of your hand's so at least you can try and predict them.

Yes loudness war is horrible, but would you decline to get your next big hit commercially released because it was too much limited during mastering?

ha you are right I was just saying if someone wants to make sure there mix is sounding good and wants to check they can turn up the speakers. But I agree with you a limiter on the master bus and just switch it on every so often to check is pretty much the way a lot of us have to do now if we are going to be sending anything to a label. lucky for us thought the major labels are dying out. more and more pro and indie artist are doing things themselves or deciding how things are going to be done.
but a good mastering engineer will take the time to find a way to keep the balance but bring the levels up. sadly though most major labels don't seem to want to go to them haha

I do mostly mixing but sometimes some local artist or band has tracks mix and wants it mastered and I always make two versions one with dynamics and balance kept in mind and one just like they wanted it. most of the time they prefer the one that sounds better the dynamic one. sometimes though they want the one that sounds louder than the damn radio. makes me wanna and then
ha. actually more and more often it seems that "mastering" is fixing a crappy mix

[PanzerD]

ha. actually more and more often it seems that "mastering" is fixing a crappy mix

... and I constantly hear worries aboud a crappy masters. That's why it's called brickwall limiting.

[HanafiH]

Levels aren so important these days unless one is mixing on analog desk. Most daw's have either 32 or 64 bit float point audio engine what means that you have infinite headroom (until signal hits your converter). Same thing with compression, dynamic range of a track isn't the same thing as rhytm, drive or any other "feel".

That's an urban legend, and is irrelevant. Take 32 bit float. You have 24 bits of mantissa and 8 bits of exponent. If you exceed the mantissa by going over, the exponent rolls 1 bit up, and the mantissa 1 bit down. That's fine, until you need to convert back down to the normal range during summing, when you roll the exponent off against the mantissa. The culmulative effect is similar to low level bit decimation as you lose the extra exponent bits off the lowest order bit resolution of the signal. The louder you go over, the more decimation you get. Bit decimation, at however low a level it occurs will generate inharmonic intermodulation distortion. Seems a bit silly but hey it's your soundz.

The issue I'm addressing is that by mixing at full belt all the time, you have no room to make cumulative judgements properly as you inevitably end up having to mix one instrument louder by mixing all the other intruments quieter, you end up driving your compressors into their inharmonic (rather harmonic) distorion patterns earlier and you run the risk of generating HF phase distortion in your EQs if you're tracking with a low frequency nyquist. But hey, it's your soundz.

A better guide might be to go Google and do a search on 'mastering before after' and find a pro mastering engineer who has examples of the kinds of mix levels you actually find generated in pro practice, even with all those floating point bits. To save you some time here's the first one I found...

http://www.fcbmastering.com/samples.html

It's the "before" tracks you need to study. The after tracks are what you're trying to do at the same time in your mix desk and wondering why it don't sound so good. But hey, it's your soundz.

[PanzerD]

That's an urban legend, and is irrelevant. Take 32 bit float. You have 24 bits of mantissa and 8 bits of exponent. If you exceed the mantissa by going over, the exponent rolls 1 bit up, and the mantissa 1 bit down. That's fine, until you need to convert back down to the normal range during summing, when you roll the exponent off against the mantissa. The culmulative effect is similar to low level bit decimation as you lose the extra exponent bits off the lowest order bit resolution of the signal. The louder you go over, the more decimation you get. Bit decimation, at however low a level it occurs will generate inharmonic intermodulation distortion. Seems a bit silly but hey it's your soundz.

Yes that 3db difference is exactly what separates pro's from amateurs. The big secret revealed.

The issue I'm addressing is that by mixing at full belt all the time, you have no room to make cumulative judgements properly as you inevitably end up having to mix one instrument louder by mixing all the other intruments quieter, you end up driving your compressors into their inharmonic (rather harmonic) distorion patterns earlier and you run the risk of generating HF phase distortion in your EQs if you're tracking with a low frequency nyquist. But hey, it's your soundz.

So true, but that's just bad mixing practice, nothing more.

It's the "before" tracks you need to study. The after tracks are what you're trying to do at the same time in your mix desk and wondering why it don't sound so good. But hey, it's your soundz.

Have to check that one later, but it seem they have some nice studio quality mp3's

[DinDoes]

Thanks for all the feedback guys I really really appreciate it , just so yo know some of the songs on the first page of soundcloud are like 2-3 years old, the top 4 are all in the last 3 months with my most advanced methods of mixing an production.. Ill relabel tonight songs ong sound cloud of all my recent work in the past 6 months [new]. I have been taking peoples advice about gain staging and trying different levels of compression on the master including none at all .

thanks again all!

[Mike20]

How long do you actually spend producing music each day?

If you want to be successful, then 8-10 hours a day isn't eneough unfortunately, you need to be pushing atleast 13-14 hours 5-6 days a week as a minimum, the industry moves too fast, sounds change too much and without constantly pushing your barriers you will not keep up and always be stuck asking yourself 'why can't i do this' then you will become de motivated and enter the vicious circle

Also when you are at your computer, are you in your comfort zone or are you pushing the boundaries? i remember a while back i spent 2/3 months producing tracks but using the same layout, bass, everything, although it helped me in mixing it didnt help me in producing as i wasn't pushing any boundaries - you have to think to yourself, am i trying to become a professional artist or am i just a guy sitting behind a computer pressing some buttons - if your answer is the latter, then the chances are you will still be doing that in 10 years time from now,

I suggest you set yourself some targets - say in 1 year i need to have done 3,000 hours etc. this will help you have goals and be able to have a direction in to what you need to achieve, the best things i have ever done is set targets, it keeps you motivated and keeps you away from those days where you just sit at a computer for 12 hours and seem to do nothing

Mike

[4damind]

A constant output is more important than to count hours. Nobody can be creative 14 hours a day for 300 days. There must be always enough time for the rest of the life and some spare time to charge the own "creativity battery".
If a track is ready the next must follow! Many having dozens of unfinished tracks but only some finished in a year. They will never reach a level to have some very good tracks because they have not enough.

Anyway, this was not the question of the OP But I think he got some ideas.

[Mike20]

Yes definitely i do agree, however i didn't read all the posts from the topic, but from what i gathered the OP has been producing for 13 years and isn't happy where he is, i noticed he is clearly passionate about becoming a successful artist

what i wanted to point out is a lot of people talk about wanting it, but they don't want it more than they want to go out and go to a party, or even sleep. If he really wants to become an artist maybe set some 3/6 month goals to improve what he feels he is lacking or broadening his production genres, then once you have a 'blow out' so to speak of pure practicing etc. then take a few days out, smoke some weed and take your time on some proper creative output

Again just how i see it, i understand it wasn't the OPs original question but thought this may help a bit

Mike

[PanzerD]

I've critically listened to few of your tracks in somewhat sober state of mind and felt that I can give you some feedback.

Robot, raw version ( I actually liked this alot )
Firs during drop your bass seems to sit in same frequency as kick. That would be damn hard to mix and I personally would avoid this sort of collision in the first place. (Everything can't be fixed with sidechain)
Second your bass sound's like it's in stereo , check with some m/s tools how much lows is in your side channel. I would suggest that everything lower than 300hz would be strictly in the middle.
Third, way too much bass, really all the energy is sucked by low frequencies, add more mid and hi.

I Got that fire:
Firs thing I noticed that your drums are buried somewhere behind -> Bring the drums much further.
I think that there's still too much low frequencies in the side channel. Also try to dip 300-600hz range, that can give better separation between bass and Mid/Hi range.

Overall I don't think that your mixes sounded bad, room for improvements: Yes, Sounding bad: No.

[Tricky-Loops]

How long do you actually spend producing music each day? If you want to be successful, then 8-10 hours a day isn't eneough unfortunately, you need to be pushing atleast 13-14 hours 5-6 days a week as a minimum, the industry moves too fast, sounds change too much and without constantly pushing your barriers you will not keep up and always be stuck asking yourself 'why can't i do this' then you will become de motivated and enter the vicious circle
Mike

Producing since 13 years doesn't necessarily mean "producing every day". There are many people with a completely different day job who produce music only some hours a week! And OTOH, there are many people with family or/and children, and they don't have the time to produce music 13 - 14 hours a day.

There are just a few people who really have the time to produce every day more than 10 hours. I, for instance, don't have that amount of time. I don't know if the OP has that much time?

[Mike20]

I understand again what you have said, and i understand that many people do not have this luxury, however as i mentioned in my last post the OP said he wants to make music his full time work, he has also stated how passionate he is about music,

I know i haven't took a wage in over a year and not been able to do any of the things i used to enjoy, again, im just trying to say that if you have been producing 13 years and not happy with your mixing (which is what this topic is about) then maybe it is time to take a look at his routine and see what he needs to do and what he could sacrifice to put more time in to practicing mixing

i am still not happy where i am, but i have found that taking a big look at my routine and organizing dedicated time to have my head clear and be able to focus only on music i have developed a lot in the last 12 months

Mike

[jam92189]

ha. actually more and more often it seems that "mastering" is fixing a crappy mix

... and I constantly hear worries aboud a crappy masters. That's why it's called brickwall limiting.

ha so true

[PanzerD]

I remember seeing somewhere an interview with David Guetta where he said that it took him 10 years to learn to do his stuff.

So I'm guess that 13 years isn't that bad.

But then there's a bloke calling himself Avicii who "had only been producing a few months when his friends noticed that the productions were amazingly professional"
Go figure

[Tricky-Loops]

I remember seeing somewhere an interview with David Guetta where he said that it took him 10 years to learn to do his stuff.

So I'm guess that 13 years isn't that bad.

But then there's a bloke calling himself Avicii who "had only been producing a few months when his friends noticed that the productions were amazingly professional"
Go figure

It depends of the amount of effort put into something, not of the amount of time. I don't believe all these stories of youngsters that make professional songs suddenly after only a few month producing. They all have gained musical experience over many many years, no matter if they were in a rock band or have sung with mom or were in the church choir...