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

[DinDoes]

Music is my passion and I hope one day I could make a living from it thats what I have been working on all these years but I am starting to begin to doubt myself.

Your problem is 100% psychological. Your mixes are good and people like your music. It sounds like you need to get over your self-confidence issue and promote the shit out of your music.

You are right I think, my GF tells me the same thing.. I'm just a really critical person. More so about myself than anyone else.

Thanks for the reply!

[FilipeAlves]

you should send your tracks to labels

[Aiynzahev]

Music is my passion and I hope one day I could make a living from it thats what I have been working on all these years but I am starting to begin to doubt myself.

Your problem is 100% psychological. Your mixes are good and people like your music. It sounds like you need to get over your self-confidence issue and promote the shit out of your music.

+1

Great mixing from what I've listened to.

[DinDoes]

you should send your tracks to labels

How do I go about doing that?

[thescribbler]

Hey Din,

First off, I think your tracks are produced quite well - you've clearly learned alot in the thirteen years that you've been producing. I particularly like the track that you sampled The Lost Boys soundtrack on (Cry Little Sister). I've got a real soft spot for that film and I like what you did with the vocal! Whilst you've gotten some great advice from some amazing producers/musicians/sound designers in this thread, I can't help but feel that there has been too much focus on the technical aspects of your tracks, rather than on the musicality.

In recent years there seems to be a pervasive belief amongst budding EDM producers that good technical skills=good music, which for me is an equation that doesn't quite add up. Take dubstep for instance (but the point holds true for all genres): there's a handful of producers that produce really great music that is also technically amazing from a sound design/production aspect. There's also an inordinate amount of producers who focus entirely on the sound design aspect and, whilst managing to produce technically impressive sounds, produce dull, soulless music.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying your tracks are bad - some of them I like alot. But...none of them really (I mean REALLY!) grabs me. Good, yes...but great? For me, no...but I take it this is what you're striving for? Obviously, this is purely subjective and one man's opinion means little when evaluating your music. But sometimes it's helpful to listen again to music that really moves you and focus on the music itself rather than the compression/limiting/spectral content/analog synth blah blah blah.

So much early 90s electronic music sounds weak technically when mixed with more modern tracks, but the good music from that era still sounds great and transcends its limitations (limitations, that is, from a modern point-of-view). Good music is about good ideas and emotion and groove and feeling. Yes, execution is important, especially with electronic music which so often foregrounds texture and timbre, but ultimately electronic music is no different from other types of music - it should excite and please you. The musical ideas are what do this...not the engineering.

[Vcdipasqua]

I 100% agree with thescribbler above. So many producers these days (esp in EDM) are so obsessed about the technical parts that the musicality gets lost, or takes a back seat. The obsession should be on the musicality itself first, then arrangement. Without those, the technical means nothing IMO.

I see this thread has been going on for a while and I only had enough time to really listen to the first track on Soundcloud "Bits and Pieces" and can offer this as my two cents on that track.

The sounds and mixing is very solid. I personally think for this particular track, the arrangement is very hard for me to get around and holding this track back. You have good sounds and it is filled with some really good vocals, but there is no cohesion to the arrangement to me. I think you need to simplify it down and create more of an effective verse/chorus feel.

Maybe start with the hook? Maybe make the verses a little more obvious and even simpler instrumentation. It takes over a minute to get to the first "verse" which then builds to a nice little hook section, but then the song drops back off and gets kind of lost into kind of a verse/break/musical jam...which never gets back to the main "chorus" musically speaking. I would tighten that all up and work on the arrangement.

I know one of the best parts of electronic music is that you can get away with very different arrangements well beyond a traditional verse/chorus feel, but in this particular case, I feel it is sort of "stuck" and would be better served with more of a traditional POP arrangement that was a little more predictable, with some great little "electronic" music moments sprinkled in.

Although I didn't have time to listen to a lot more, I did notice that a lot of the songs up on your SC are like 1:30? This gives me the impression that they are kind of "starter" ideas? If you are looking to step up your game, I would suggest focusing on building up a catalog of finished songs with complete arrangements. After all, that is our biggest "asset" for us in the business...a complete musical idea. While I totally understand that process of having the 'starter' ideas, it is still a long way from a great finished record.

And lastly, I again agree with the scribbler that ultimately EDM music, like any other music, adhere's to the same "rules" and it's all about a great musical idea (melody/chords/bass etc.) told in an interesting way that makes sense to the average everyday listener (arrangement) are the two most important parts of a great record.

~Vincent
www.faderpro.com
www.vdpmusic.com

[dalor]

I don't think there's anything wrong with your music. Making a living of it is another story and relies on one thing only: Networking.

[timaeus222]

If you think there's something wrong with one of your songs, note what is wrong in your own words, then go to a music feedback area and ask why this occurs in this song at this moment. Then when they answer, they should hopefully answer in an understandable way, and you can interpret that to fix it up. Then it'll be habitual to know how to fix certain situations.

Always listen to one of your songs in the morning of a non-stressful day. Write down what sounds weird in your mix, then when you get the intuition in the future, fix it.

Go browsing for the VSTs that give you the resources for what music you like to create. Research the best ones and use those. If necessary, stick to free ones, and then proceed to find commercial VSTs, and eventually, sample libraries.

Listen to a song and determine what makes some aspect sound better than the same aspect in yours. Examples:
- If your dubstep wobble is muddy, dull, and narrow, lightly scoop the low-mids (but not too much so the presence is still there), increase the treble to brighten up the frequency spread, and enhance the stereo perception with some stereo spread.
- If your drums aren't quite right, think about what they should sound like. Punchy? Thwip-like? i.e. if your snare is just wimpy, layer snare sounds that have the characteristics of a punchy snare: the low-mid thwap and the high end decay (just a little). Then think about how loud you want each aspect of the snare. The high end decay should be softer by a small amount. And so on. Just do what sounds right to you, and figure out how you want to do it.

It could just be that your sounds don't gel nicely. Decide whether a sound fits in one of your songs, and if you need to replace it, do it. If you can't find what you want, it's about time you google it. If you can't find it free, find a commercial VST/sample library. Ask around, read reviews, save up money, buy it.

And of course read this: http://zirconmusic.com/tutorials/text/

[stevenleemusic]

Music is my passion and I hope one day I could make a living from it thats what I have been working on all these years but I am starting to begin to doubt myself.

Your problem is 100% psychological. Your mixes are good and people like your music. It sounds like you need to get over your self-confidence issue and promote the shit out of your music.

You are right I think, my GF tells me the same thing.. I'm just a really critical person. More so about myself than anyone else.

Thanks for the reply!

Honestly I couldn't agree more BUT I also think as an internationally traveling DJ & Producer if there is any advice I could tell people is that in this stage of the game, don't get into the music "business" with the intentions of making money. Don't quit the day job as when things get tight and you aren't playing that gig or getting that remix and someone else is, its going to make you resent every getting into the "business' and remember, you got into it because you love it, you love music and you want to showcase your talents. Frustration only causes more creative blocks so sit in the studio with solely the intentions of being creative and being original not to make a SMASH HIT RECORD! Respectfully! (Steven Lee (Lee Cabrera)

[timaeus222]

I don't want to backseat moderate, but can you put more meaning in your posts in the future? Also, you double-posted... there is an edit button, please use it. Those are your first two posts, and you basically said "Hey, thanks for this topic!". People would have filled out this topic regardless if you were thankful or not, so your post was essentially filler. I'm not trying to offend you, but don't make yourself seem like "one of those spammers".

Please don't reply to this directly, because it's just off-topic if you do. Just keep this in mind.

[timaeus222]

Hey, I suggest you put everything you want to say into one post, please. Posting like this is "cheating". I didn't do this, so you don't have to. Go to multiple topics and post meaningfully once on each, if you can post something meaningful that is also not necroposting or spam. Stop saying thanks to individuals who weren't talking to you. They say that stuff because they want to, not because they want the "thanks"...

[thescribbler]

Hey, I suggest you put everything you want to say into one post, please. Posting like this is "cheating". I didn't do this, so you don't have to. Go to multiple topics and post meaningfully once on each, if you can post something meaningful that is also not necroposting or spam. Stop saying thanks to individuals who weren't talking to you. They say that stuff because they want to, not because they want the "thanks"...

It might be because I've just watched a couple of episodes, but I can't seem to read this post without imagining the voice of Alan Partridge.




Weird, huh?!



(Apologies to anyone upset over the wanton frivolity of this post).

[Meffy]

Timaeus, backseat or not, you're spot on. I've deleted the most spammy of the posts.

[DinDoes]

Thank you very much everyone, I am listening and taking all of your advice as best I can!

[bwwd]

What hit me immediately after listening to your dubstep tracks is WHY THE HELL SNARE IS SO DRYYYYY??????
You need some reverb and send stuff to it, i can hear every snare end and when second snare ends in exactly the same way as first then i got that feeling of slapping identical blocks next to each other, you need more dynamics in sounds, maybe change levels or envelope a bit on snare but i would definitely send it to some reverb, its too dry, no space and air.