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-- Why the f**k are all my mixes low/weak sounding?
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quote:

Originally posted by Eldritch Your track is loud enough. Your problem is sound design and mixing. Your sounds are very thin. And it's not about digital vs. analog. That isn't an issue for a skilled producer.

If you get bored at anytime feel free to be more specific.

If digital naturally produces a thinner sound by default (osc for osc). What I'm starting to think is to get a good digital sounds I basically need more oscillators than I usually work with.

If I'm making a patch in z3ta that has 4 osc going, and it still sounds thin, than I should open another, add 4 more, vary it a bit, and strive for a thicker sound.

As far as my mixing the only thing I've got is too much lowend going on, but I think I have a bigger problem going on than my mixing personally.

quote:

Originally posted by MaxC In addition to what others have offered, I noticed that your low end has a high degree of stereo content (especially in the beginning), some of which you may be losing due to phase cancellation. Also, you appear to have an immense amount of sub-bass, and bass frequencies are never going to achieve the level of perceived loudness compared to if you had dedicated that headroom to mid to high frequencies. For example, two of the highest peaking frequencies in your song are at 37 Hz and 29 Hz, which is, in my opinion, totally unnecessary. It's not uncommon to roll off the low end even before that point, and some sound systems just aren't going to be able to properly reproduce those frequencies. The bottom line is you have a healthy portion of your track dedicated to frequencies that the end user may never hear, depending on their sound system. I can't tell you what is definitely right or wrong, because only you know the type of sound you are trying to achieve, but if it were me, I would mono everything below 150-300 Hz and roll off some of that low end (around 40-50 Hz ought to do it). At the very least that will focus the low end and give you some extra headroom with which to boost your levels. Edit: Ok, I went ahead and made the changes described above (and used that extra 1 dB of headroom you had laying around). Give it a listen and see if it's a step in the right direction. Others feel free to chime in as well (the broader array of monitoring conditions, the better). [[ LINK REMOVED ]]

Awesome, I'll be on my home computer in like another hour. This was great feedback because you used some straight out numbers rather than theory to make me grasp a point which is always easier.

I have 2 traxs on here I can't wait to hear!

-Roxx

Its true that analogue synths sound great .. but I wonder with some softsynths that the digital ones are sounding just as good now. You see i personally think Zeta is a well fat sounding synth, one I wouldnt tend to have to layer up so much. Individual oscs on zeta sound pretty fat quality IMO. Whereas Albino sounds decidedly puss.. i layer that a plenty.

quote:

Originally posted by davidbuhau sounds like an experience problem just spend some time with it... you may want to learn to use multiband compression... but don't overdo it! so many people overdo it! just keep at it yo! making your stuff sound "fat" is hard david

I think it's an experience problem also.

What honestly pisses me off more than anything is that in the 4 years I've been producing (on avg 2 hours a day, sometimes 8 hours straight than a day off or w/e).

I see guys younger than me making tracks that piss me off, because they are understanding something I'm investing so much time into and am still not getting.

I've always been artistic/creative/smart etc, and what makes it worse that as much as I can care less about getting signed or selling a record ALL I WANT is to make a track like the one I hear in my head, its the making it real part that I keep fumbling shit up lol.

the rolloff is very important, i usually roll off my frequencies in the individual mixer channels, and for good measure i do a rolloff from 20hz down in my master channel before my multi band compressor

do you have a spectrum analyzer running on your master? a good free one is called span by voxengo(spelling?)

david

Yeh I do but I barely use them.

I have one with an equal and another by itself. I really do appreciate the feedback I'm getting here. Things I almost never use in my track are multi band compressors and spectrum analyzers.

I figure whats the point of multi band if I'm using seperate equalizers and compressors on each channel? Its virtually the same thing.. no?

But yeh I definetely see my error in neglecting the analyzers. I like to think my ear can "see" the problems but thats obviously not the truth here.

A great thing to do is get soundforge or similar and open your finished track up and then open a couple or pro tracks of a similar style beside it and you can just play them and flick straight between yours and the pro ones and compare levals etc. You will be able to notice where you could improve levals etc. I did this when i upped the volume on your sample track, and compared the final thing to a couple of really well mastered tracks. Just to make sure the levals were relativley good.
You may find just turnung up a couple of mid range synths can increase overal sound a fair bit for instance.

any tool you can use to analyze your sound is useful...

of course your ears are the most important, but you cant really hear that sub bass very well on most monitors or headphones... and it's a tricky thing, cuz if you can hear it, it never sounds loud enough anyways... but it will sure beat the crap out of the rest of your mix if you have it too hot...

compression is important, fl comes with a multi band comp, i'm sure there's tutorials on you tube or on Image Line's site. but if you're kinda new to this, don't worry about the dynamics and mastering too much right now, just get the structure of your songs down and you'll figure stuff out as you go.

david

quote:

Originally posted by theartfulducker A great thing to do is get soundforge or similar and open your finished track up and then open a couple or pro tracks of a similar style beside it and you can just play them and flick straight between yours and the pro ones and compare levals etc. You will be able to notice where you could improve levals etc. I did this when i upped the volume on your sample track, and compared the final thing to a couple of really well mastered tracks. Just to make sure the levals were relativley good. You may find just turnung up a couple of mid range synths can increase overal sound a fair bit for instance.

I actually like that idea lol.
Run them both through an analyzer and compare where my weaknesses are. I don't have internet on my studio comp but I'm going to transfer the song you tweaked and the one I made and run them through an analyzer to compare.
Great idea, thanks!

quote:

Originally posted by davidbuhau any tool you can use to analyze your sound is useful... of course your ears are the most important, but you cant really hear that sub bass very well on most monitors or headphones... and it's a tricky thing, cuz if you can hear it, it never sounds loud enough anyways... but it will sure beat the crap out of the rest of your mix if you have it too hot... compression is important, fl comes with a multi band comp, i'm sure there's tutorials on you tube or on Image Line's site. but if you're kinda new to this, don't worry about the dynamics and mastering too much right now, just get the structure of your songs down and you'll figure stuff out as you go. david

That brings up a good point which is the fact the I couldn't even hear the sub bass and had no idea how it was affecting the rest of the track like it was.
Your prob right though, I'm focusing wayy too much on fx than the fundamental elements of my song. I'm gonna go try some new things out, listen to the tracks in here and get back tommorow. Great feedback guys I really appreciate it.

http://www.voxengo.com/product/SPAN/

get this!

I personally dont bother to use a spectrum ananlyzer just my ears and good refernce tracks.
Another thing is i don't know what your monitors are like but its VERY hard to do a pro sounding mixdown without studio refernce monitors with a sub. My lowend production was allways bad untill i got a sub. Its just realy tricky to control stuff you cant hear.
I du a cut at 30htz these days btw.

quote:

Originally posted by DJ Robby Rox For some reason I'm in denial about the use of layering for professional synth sounds. When I hear a synth like 4 Strings - Take Me Away, that doesn't sound layered, its sounds analog, simple, and has a lot of character.

You're right, it's not layered. It consists of a sawtooth oscillator, pitch modulated by an LFO and a filter that is modulated by an envelope.
I'm pretty sure it's made with a Roland JP-80X0, which is very much digital. But it can be made with almost any synth.

jp8000 supersaw has a unique sound tho, something about a combiation of its chorus, thejp8000 eq.. and the soft roland filter.

quote:

Originally posted by mysticalninja jp8000 supersaw has a unique sound tho, something about a combiation of its chorus, thejp8000 eq.. and the soft roland filter.

I said sawtooth, not supersaw.

True. I've been up all night

quote:

Originally posted by Eldritch You're right, it's not layered. It consists of a sawtooth oscillator, pitch modulated by an LFO and a filter that is modulated by an envelope. I'm pretty sure it's made with a Roland JP-80X0, which is very much digital. But it can be made with almost any synth.

Forgive me if I'm more than skeptical about this comment.

I doubt there is one person out there who can come even remotely close to that sound with a software synth.
That CAN'T be software. I just severely doubt it.

quote:

I doubt there is one person out there who can come even remotely close to that sound with a software synth.

Of course you can! What are you talking about? Its not that amazing... lol

quote:

Originally posted by DJ Robby Rox I doubt there is one person out there who can come even remotely close to that sound with a software synth.

*facepalm*

software has come a long way guys

stuff by native instruments and arturia rivals anything out there (software or hardware) that isn't true analog...

david

quote:

Originally posted by pwnage1 *facepalm*

Agreed.

quote:

Originally posted by theartfulducker Of course you can! What are you talking about? Its not that amazing... lol

Everytime I've heard that song in the past I've said to myself "see this is why I need to get myself some hardware".

Its not amazing for hardware, because thats what I was always sure it was (from an access) but if you're saying its software, than thats beyond amazing imo.

quote:

Originally posted by DJ Robby Rox Everytime I've heard that song in the past I've said to myself "see this is why I need to get myself some hardware". Its not amazing for hardware, because thats what I was always sure it was (from an access) but if you're saying its software, than thats beyond amazing imo.

do you know how 90% of the synths out there work?

digital synths (nords, virus, most other modern synths) have a little cpu in them, called a dsp. this dsp runs code and generates sound. the only difference is that this code is running on a little box and not your pc.

i'd go as far as to say that hardware is now a minority - most songs released are made entirely in software.

quote:

Originally posted by echosystm do you know how 90% of the synths out there work? digital synths (nords, virus, most other modern synths) have a little cpu in them, called a dsp. this dsp runs code and generates sound. the only difference is that this code is running on a little box and not your pc. i'd go as far as to say that hardware is now a minority - most songs released are made entirely in software.

Oh, for some reason I thought hardware used the analog diaphragms with electric current.
Went back and did some reading and now I'm even more confused.

If the virus is using a dsp that runs code like a computer. Why can't they just copy that exact code and replicate that exact sound on a computer?
I'm guessing its difference between the computers processor and an actual dsp.

I also can't understand why they're so expensive. Is it the dsp? It can't be the actual hardware/wires etc?

When I hear a virus with even a terrible preset on youtube compared to the best softsynths with the best presets, the virus always sounds much better and cleaner. What is all this $ going into when people get a nice piece of hardware? Nothing?

Dude if you can tell the difference between a virtual synth and a hardware one from listening to them then you have some pretty damned good hearing! lol

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