about mix and master

mutoit · 2023-01-27T14:41:42+00:00

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https://soundcloud.com/stonemass/pink-ladies?si=b8d463d099bc4b21a979639e68bd1ddc&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing

Hello, I ask for help to finish having a standard sound, I know that many people think that it should be your way, but the industry, blogs, discos, etc. don't think the same way, so after a long time learning, I don't get to have a sound standard at least in mix master quality.

Could someone advise me, what am I missing?

I will tell you my process:

for the kick I compress, if I want the punch, without attack, if I also want the tail, I leave about 50 ms of attack. Sometimes I saturate with driver or add raum.

For my synths, EQ , raum and panning, but I think this is where all the trouble lies.

I'm not a professional, even when I take references, I'm not, I think that the melodic zone always leaves it below what is expected.

I try to clean up the low zones, 200 and below, leaving the synths in their mid/high mid tones.

but even with this I notice a mixture with little power.

In this song that you are listening to, it is the first time that I use 2 layers of melodics, as if it had 2 times the melodic channel, since in the original it sounded with little outside. On that second channel boost the high mids

Should I do more things like this? put 2 or 3 layers of the same group to give more power?

Should I always saturate my melodics?

Anyway, any advice is welcome.

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Uwe303

Hello,

that are many questions and some are not technical, like the last question only you can know what you want. If i understand you correct you use the comp the other way around, if you need punch, you use a higher attack so the first few ms can go through, if you need a longer tail you use a short release time even lowest. Means if the kick gets quieter at the end the compressor starts to rise the gain back to sero, then a gate can maybe be necessary, to cut it off and not have a long release. Do you use raum as send FX and do you use an EQ after raum, i woukd use a high pass for reverb, cause reverbs can smear and mask the lows and low mids. And a thing i also often forget is automation, for example if you introduce a new element, make it a bit louder (1dB) then back to normal level. Level automation is key, also filter and lots of other stuff to get movement and excitement into a song - i will listen a bit later to your song if i have headphones or on my big system.

D-One

IMHO, a different attack on the compressor, saturation settings etc makes marginal changes and won't turn a weak-sounding mix/track into a major slap-in-your-face track, the right mix makes things a lot better but It really all starts with the sound selection, sound design, and composition; so if you are not happy with your results I'd invest more time there in terms of practicing while you read/watch as much as you can about mixing.

I'd say for someone without advanced mixing skills it's better to be conservative, do less and focus on composition rather than trying too hard to mix as it's easy to ruin the track. My favorite engineers contradict each other all the time, at the end of the day it's all subjective. Dave Pensado has a great quote about hiring a mixing engineer: "You're paying for our taste, not our technical skill".

Should I do more things like this? put 2 or 3 layers of the same group to give more power?

Up to you really but layering is a pretty standard technique in music production, especially if you're looking for power. Generally, this is more common in music that is supposed to be aggressive but nowadays it's common even in Pop music.

Should I always saturate my melodics?

There's never a right answer to that sort of question but...

No, you should do it when you think it makes it sound better. Personally, I think some saturation fits your music very well but too much harmonics can sound amateur and make sounds fill too much space in the overall freq range... making it hard to fit in the rest of the instruments. One small tip I can give is to not apply saturation to soloed instruments, do it with everything playing to see how the mix reacts.

In some genres, say Lo-Fi for example then the answer would lean more towards "Yes" since its whole concept is emulating old stuff when the source is not.

Each genre has it's nuances, and these often take years to learn, I am not an expert in yours to give proper technical advice, but to me, it sounds like experimental/alternative electronic music and this tends to be a very open genre without many hard rules...

Uwe303

i listened to your mix, i think the drums are too quiet, there is too much reverb.

mutoit

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/50774#Comment_50774

hi, yep in this case i was looking for this kind of kick but yes, in fact that's one of my problems, in this case I wanted that particular sound, but boosted to its maximum, and that's what I don't know how to do.

I made another track, could you listen to it? here is the track is different, I must say that I had problems mixing the voices, I never use voices and I didn't know where they should take ......... What do you think

https://soundcloud.com/stonemass/screaming-woman?si=820ef9d5c19d438180931322395630f9&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing

Uwe303

this mix is way better - you can also learn from some yt guys, there are so many. But one channel to start might be pensados place (81) Pensado's Place - YouTube

mutoit

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/50764#Comment_50764

Thanks, I take note of your advice.

coarsy

Hi,

I only use Maschine for my production and on the masterchannel the Ozone 10 Advanced Suite. For all tracks within my songs I always use the Neutron 4 equalizer to cut off extreme hights and the unwanted frequencies to free the lowend. I'm really excited about the results. They're getting better and better. It's just the point of hearing and practising and this tooks a lot of time. But I think, you're on the right way.

Here is a complete one hour mix with lot's of tracks I produced within Maschine for example:

https://soundcloud.com/chris-bernhard/winter-mix-2

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