My mixes suck. I need serious help.

Electronic Music Production // Dark Arts
User avatar
Lost to the Void
subsekt
subsekt
Posts: 13518
Joined: Sat Feb 18, 2012 1:31 pm
Re: My mixes suck. I need serious help.

Post by Lost to the Void »

Of course, we aren't talking about total separation here. That would literally be impossible by instrument choice alone. Overlapping however can cause masking, where the human ear rejects the quieter sound. Or cancellation, or a myriad of other problems. If it is intentional then cool. But in general practice your mixes will be far more effective if you think about the mix and how it stands, and choose sounds at each stage that fit, rather than just wildly bashing shit out and then trying to crow bar it in to the mix.
Mastering Engineer @ Black Monolith Studio
New Shit
Techno is dead. Long live Techno.

User avatar
jordanneke
subsekt
subsekt
Posts: 4166
Joined: Sat Nov 03, 2012 2:16 pm
Re: My mixes suck. I need serious help.

Post by jordanneke »

Ok, question about mixing and club experience.

If you're in a club and a track is completely in mono, vs one in stereo, how much difference will the listener be able to hear?

I hear a lot of 'club music' ie house and techno these days over headphones. I just don't go to clubs anymore. I mean over headphones I hear lots of stereo flourishes and stuff done, that I'm pretty sure I've never heard in a club.

User avatar
Plyphon
endless
Posts: 652
Joined: Sat Nov 02, 2013 10:06 pm
Re: My mixes suck. I need serious help.

Post by Plyphon »

Very little in my experience. I can't remember the last time I went "oo that panning on that _____ is really nice"

Might be because I'm too fucked to realise, but if thats the case that everyones too fucked to notice, then again you have to question what the point would be, I guess

dubdub
Asphyxiwank
Posts: 2454
Joined: Wed Nov 18, 2015 1:49 pm
Re: My mixes suck. I need serious help.

Post by dubdub »

I don't think the difference is that drastic. Berghain is stereo but you don't really notice it unless there is some really wild L-R panning going on.

A lot of the small stuff that tends to be stereo will get lost on a big soundsystem anyways.

User avatar
Lost to the Void
subsekt
subsekt
Posts: 13518
Joined: Sat Feb 18, 2012 1:31 pm
Re: My mixes suck. I need serious help.

Post by Lost to the Void »

Plyphon wrote:, then again you have to question what the point would be, I guess
Because it creates space in the mix and makes it easier to fit sounds together.
Panning is one of the most basic production tools in the toolset.
Mastering Engineer @ Black Monolith Studio
New Shit
Techno is dead. Long live Techno.

User avatar
Lost to the Void
subsekt
subsekt
Posts: 13518
Joined: Sat Feb 18, 2012 1:31 pm
Re: My mixes suck. I need serious help.

Post by Lost to the Void »

jordanneke wrote:Ok, question about mixing and club experience.

If you're in a club and a track is completely in mono, vs one in stereo, how much difference will the listener be able to hear?

I hear a lot of 'club music' ie house and techno these days over headphones. I just don't go to clubs anymore. I mean over headphones I hear lots of stereo flourishes and stuff done, that I'm pretty sure I've never heard in a club.
the answer to that can only ever be, it depends.
However, if a club does run in stereo, and the stereo field has been used as a mixing tool to help sounds fit together, then it will work on a stereo system, especially if it has been mastered well.

It is incredibly unfortunate however, that we are still having this conversation in 2017, and it shows the state of audio fidelity in clubland.
Mastering Engineer @ Black Monolith Studio
New Shit
Techno is dead. Long live Techno.

User avatar
Plyphon
endless
Posts: 652
Joined: Sat Nov 02, 2013 10:06 pm
Re: My mixes suck. I need serious help.

Post by Plyphon »

Cool so as an update, the track I posted earlier in the thread is sounding like this:

https://soundcloud.com/futrohouz/octobe ... 14/s-8TXUl

The kick is too loud I think and still needs further EQ work to trim it down a bit in places, but it's getting much better.

Steps I took:

- Took off all buss processing (saturation, mainly)
- Removed a lot of the tape saturation from individual channels, used subtler distortion if required instead
- Made the main hi-hat with some really subtle drive, and bit reduction/filters through decimort and then resampled it. Gave it a grittyier/moodier texture.
- Went through and checked all my gainstaging. Made it so there was not gain increase between inserts
- Panned a few bits subtly here and there to make some space
- Checked levels (though I need to revisit this)

It's a lot better. Big thanks to everyone here.

From now on I'll use the tune feedback thread as suggested here rather than update this thread, but thought a single update would be cool.

Cheers

User avatar
Lost to the Void
subsekt
subsekt
Posts: 13518
Joined: Sat Feb 18, 2012 1:31 pm
Re: My mixes suck. I need serious help.

Post by Lost to the Void »

Mix is a little dry, but this sounds alright, I wouldn`t say you need serious help.
Mastering Engineer @ Black Monolith Studio
New Shit
Techno is dead. Long live Techno.

User avatar
RWise
durchfall
Posts: 480
Joined: Mon Oct 31, 2016 8:04 pm
Re: My mixes suck. I need serious help.

Post by RWise »

Plyphon wrote:Cool so as an update, the track I posted earlier in the thread is sounding like this:

https://soundcloud.com/futrohouz/octobe ... 14/s-8TXUl

From now on I'll use the tune feedback thread as suggested here rather than update this thread, but thought a single update would be cool.

Cheers
No major problems happening. Everything is balanced and sits nicely. Overall mix is a bit mono and could use a bit of shine in the highs however.

But overall, good work. The thing thats going to make your tracks much better is good ol' TIME. ;)
Dont take life so seriously :mrgreen:

User avatar
Plyphon
endless
Posts: 652
Joined: Sat Nov 02, 2013 10:06 pm
Re: My mixes suck. I need serious help.

Post by Plyphon »

You guys say the nicest things at times

Yeah the clap needs work, sounds dry af - my next task is to finish the tune....

User avatar
Mattias
subsekt
subsekt
Posts: 3413
Joined: Sat Feb 18, 2012 4:19 pm
Location: Sweden
Contact:
Re: My mixes suck. I need serious help.

Post by Mattias »

I just miss some on the sound design side: smooth subtle movement from delays and or some springy verb.
Music Page: http://www.facebook.com/Mattias.Fridell.Music
Soundcloud: http://soundcloud.com/fridell
Sample packs: http://mfsamples.bandcamp.com

Contention / 005

User avatar
Plyphon
endless
Posts: 652
Joined: Sat Nov 02, 2013 10:06 pm
Re: My mixes suck. I need serious help.

Post by Plyphon »

Yeah my task for tonight/this weekend is to figure out how to use reverb and bit better to bring alive some elements. That snare sounds so weak and flimsy.

Andre_Crom
rescued
Posts: 73
Joined: Sun May 14, 2017 7:05 pm
Location: Barcelona
Contact:
Re: My mixes suck. I need serious help.

Post by Andre_Crom »

a few of my personal essential learnings:

1. low cut, but not too much. often sounds like hi hats (or anything else) can contain loads of unwanted sub frequencies, which "muddy up" the bass. cut those. but only as much as needed, otherwise the sounds become too thin. i just use a 12 db soft curve low cut at anything between 100 and 400 hz for most sounds.

2. sidechain. i recently disovered the "kickstart" plugin which is a super fast and easy way to sidechain, easier actually than using a compressor.

3. find the right plugins/techniques. the right plug or technique can give you the sound you look for pretty mkuch instantly, while if you don't know it, you can search endlessly. that's what this forum here is for, or ask an experienced friend to show you what you can't figure for yourself. for example i was always searching how to create those massively distorted industrial kicks which e.g. slam use - with "izotope trash 2" you get them quite easily, still some tweaking involved, but i really feel discovering this plug got me lightyears ahead.

4. don't think you need 10.000 € of hardware gear! as nice as it is for many people to have machines they can touch with their hands, learning the necessary skills is 10 times more important than expensive gear. the only exception for me here is a good soundijng room. that really does help you to work faster and more efficiently, if you really can hear what's going on in your music. if your room sounds like shit: use headphones for the mixdown stage.

Andre_Crom
rescued
Posts: 73
Joined: Sun May 14, 2017 7:05 pm
Location: Barcelona
Contact:
Re: My mixes suck. I need serious help.

Post by Andre_Crom »

oh and i forgot: bounce your track, hide your daw and take notes!

your eyes need a lot of "brain cpu time", so taking away visual distraction helps a lot to understand better what goes on in your music.

and it takes away the temptation of immediately starting to work again on little details, while it might be more helpful at times to take a look at the big picture and to write down all things that come to your mind, and then tackle one after the other afterwards

JonasVolkenborn
Interact. Don't Spam.
Posts: 10
Joined: Fri Dec 30, 2016 10:41 pm
Re: My mixes suck. I need serious help.

Post by JonasVolkenborn »

Lots of the heads round here might call this cheating but using the izotope neutron pushed my mixes far forward. Not only that it visualises where the frequencys are overlapping, it also gives you suggestions, where your elements have peaks and how to reduce those via dynamic eq, which is very helpfull for a nice master.
Above this I do most of my production and mixing on my headphones, as I know I can trust them more than my monitors. But the most important part of all in my opinion is the choice of samples. You cant go wrong if you choose a kick which is bumping the shit out of hell :). Try the Kicks from Waves alchemys techno sample pack.
When it comes to stereo placement - I only mix and produce in mono :) ... but thats just my personal taste

User avatar
Lag
athlete
Posts: 576
Joined: Mon Jan 14, 2013 10:28 pm
Re: My mixes suck. I need serious help.

Post by Lag »

Overlapping is not necessarily bad. Not enough of it can result in a pretty sterile mix (depending on the genre and the vibe of the tune).
You have to systematically create confusion, it sets creativity free. Everything that is contradictory creates life.

ggroove
brown envelope
Posts: 109
Joined: Sun Jun 29, 2014 2:41 am
Re: My mixes suck. I need serious help.

Post by ggroove »

rktic wrote:
Sure!

I've got my drum bus and all other tracks, maybe bussed, maybe individually. Depends on my decision wether they "belong together" or not. No science here, gut decision. Well, not 100% - sometimes there are midrange tracks that communicate together, sometimes there aren't.

Everything is already balanced, transients, dynamics and space is already there.

My idea with the parallel busses is adding energy and loudness without affecting the original punch. If I'd throw the entire mix into one singular bus pumping and all sorts of artefacts are likely to be introduced. Instead, I'm running the low end material like kick, low percussion, bassline through one bus. Same with the mid and high end material. Working that way allows me to bypass kick-based pumping and add only the amount of loudness I need in the particular frequency area.

Now, I don't have any rules about how to distort those busses individually. Except, quite a lot. Then I'm pushing up the busses until the effect becomes apparent and problems occur. There might be phase issues. Some transients interfering with the punch of the unprocssed material. I'll try to minimize these effects with EQs, compression or something like Cableguys volumeshaper. Then I bring the entire bus down to nil again and keep raising the fader until the additional loudness becomes apparent.

For the mids I might also give the 4khz a positive kick on the sidebands to increase the stereo depth.

What this gives me is much more control over the overall loudness and energy that's going on without fucking up the balance.

Been using that eg here:

That particular track didn't need much mastering, just a bit of glueing. I achieved the loudness beforehand already.
Thanks for this!

I just tried this and it makes a lot of sense, but I can also see that it could lead to other issues if not used carefully as you said.

Any tips on a best way to go about this in Ableton?
My "template" consists of 3 buses by grouping the tracks (bass, mid & high) and then using an Audio Effect rack with two chains (dry/wet). I guess another way would be to create return channels (for the bass, mid & high wet distortion) and 3 audio tracks for the buses. Routing the 3 return channels back to each bus. The difference, as far as I can tell, would be to have control over how much of each element is being sent to the wet channel (through the send-knobs on each track).

Any thoughts on this? More than happy to have any of you chime in..!


Post Reply