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Software final mixdown tips....?

Alright, I finally completed a little jingle in FL Studio, I'm pretty happy with the way it sounds, thing is, I'm using alot of bass frequencies in the song (it's more of a drum and bass type diddle than full on trance).
Right now nothing is clipping but I'm afraid everything is going to turn to sound mud when I convert it and go to burn it to disc.

Now, I'm fairly familiar with eq'ing and compression from working with my hardware daw, so my question is this, I want to get as close to a 'professional' type sound as I can possibly get, so even though it sounds good right now in the sequencer, should I compress and eq anyway?
And where should I begin?

When I would do the final mixdown on my hardware I would compress the kicks, basslines and percussive instruments and than I would compress the whole mix just slightly, should I do the same here?

How does everyone here approach their final mixdowns with their software?

...oh, and before it's said, I've read the master tutorial, unfortunately, I'm still a little confused about this.

Thanks ahead of time for any advice you can shoot my way.

Why don't you do a mixdown to hear how it sounds? I don't believe it would sound much different. Don't compress or eq if it doesn't need it.

I was thinking about doing that...mixing down without compression etc, I mean the track sounds good as it is now, of course I've played with the levels so everything isn't one level and overriding eachother.
I just read so many articles and posts about compression and eq'ing and figured doing so was essential from the way everyone makes it sound.

I guess the real question should be how do I know when I need to compress and eq?

I'm totally new to software music composing, with hardware it was easy, you could tell the difference between a compressed sound and one that isn't, it's more defined, not as raw so to speak.

Usually what I do is do a final mixdown from my sequencer to wav (usually 24-bit 96khz, but only because I'm a stickler), then open it up in an editing program such as Adobe Audition or Sound Forge. Then I run it through a couple of plugins to just sweeten it up a tad - I use both iZotope Ozone and stuff the Waves Mastering suite - but everyone has their favorites. O-zone is fantastic for beginners.

If you're really brand brand new to this stuff, check out this guide:

http://www.computermusic.co.uk/tuto.../mastering1.asp

It lends some good know-how to any beginner, and gives you reasons as to why you would need to master (a biggie if you're a newbie) and some ways to go about how.

Some good rules of thumb to follow are:

1) EVERYTHING in moderation. This includes compression. Never ever ever ever ever ever ever overdo compression on a final mix. It will simply sound squashed and lifeless.

2) Take frequent breaks! You need this so your ears can take a break and get a fresh start when you begin again. Don't expect to finish a master in 10 minutes. It's one thing if it's your first production and you're just feeling things out, but my masters always take a couple of days.

3) Listen to some source material. It's always good to have a few frames of reference. When you're mastering, take a couple of CDs with songs that have the sound you're going for on them and pop them in every once in a while (before and after). It'll give you something to shoot for.

if you have any other questions about specifics, just PM me and I'd be more than happy to help you out. cheers!

Tip: play with it endlessly until the sounds pop into place. Good luck.

Great advice, and thanks for the link too! (I'm always combing the net looking for more tutorials, tips and tricks)

One of my concerns is that I'm running two basslines in between eachother, kind of intertwining and I was worried about one overriding the other, I started playing with the panning a bit, one a little to the left, the other a tad to the right, basically one bassline compliments the other with a slight delay thrown in there to give it a little bounce and make it move better, so far I think I'm heading in the right direction, everything sounds well defined and it hasn't gotten muddy yet.
There's not alot of melody to this song, I havn't used much mid range.

Does the sound change much when you go from the sequencer to wav.?
That was a big problem for me with my hardware daw, everything would sound good, levels were good etc but when I went to master it to a set of stereo tracks I basically had to have it clipping or it would come out kind of quiet, but if I set the level too high I'd get too much background noise, anything I should be aware of with the software?

I want to post this tune here when I finish it so you guys can critique it and tell me what I need to improve on, I'm sure there'll be lots of room for improvement but ya gotta start somewhere right?

Thanks again

I prefer to master inside my sequencer. There's nothing worse than realizing that you've rendered one measure of percs wrong and having to go back and re-master after another render. I feel like mastering inside of Cubase gives more control.

But yes, that tutorial is right. I hadn't read it before, but I use Wave Hammer for compression/volume maximizing/soft clipping. It is fantastic at squashing the peaks without sapping the energy.

quote:

Originally posted by armanivespucci I prefer to master inside my sequencer. There's nothing worse than realizing that you've rendered one measure of percs wrong and having to go back and re-master after another render. I feel like mastering inside of Cubase gives more control. But yes, that tutorial is right. I hadn't read it before, but I use Wave Hammer for compression/volume maximizing/soft clipping. It is fantastic at squashing the peaks without sapping the energy.

Wave hammer is terrible; I suggest you stop using it asap.

Same goes for anything that calls itself an "echo" or a "normalizer". Keywords for newbs.

quote:

Originally posted by retrobyte Usually what I do is do a final mixdown from my sequencer to wav (usually 24-bit 96khz, but only because I'm a stickler), then open it up in an editing program such as Adobe Audition or Sound Forge. Then I run it through a couple of plugins to just sweeten it up a tad - I use both iZotope Ozone and stuff the Waves Mastering suite - but everyone has their favorites. O-zone is fantastic for beginners.

You can save yourself infinite amounts of time and aggravation by mastering in your sequencer.. you need to be able to hear how every subtle change affects one track and all tracks in relation, and that's difficult to do with things like sound forge.

Don't get me wrong, sound forge is great for editting effects and vocals and things of that nature.

The article may be a few years old to be honest, it called Audition Cool Edit but Adobe bought it a while back.

R.

quote:

Wave hammer is terrible

I know several mastering engineers who use it.

Why do you say it's bad, and what do you use?

quote:

Originally posted by armanivespucci I know several mastering engineers who use it. Why do you say it's bad, and what do you use?

Waves Mastering Bundle or bust.

One thing I always do is cut out all frequencies below 40 HZ in a logarithmic curve. You might not hear the difference on speakers but in a car of on high volume speakers like in a club anything below about 20 HZ makes the speakers dance around drowning out more important frequency ranges.

Also, if you have decent monitors than actualy watching the bass cones is an important thing to learn besides listening to them. It's often not audible that their are too many low freq.'sl, but it is visible.

Kind regards,

CD

quote:

Originally posted by nhibberd One thing I always do is cut out all frequencies below 40 HZ in a logarithmic curve. You might not hear the difference on speakers but in a car of on high volume speakers like in a club anything below about 20 HZ makes the speakers dance around drowning out more important frequency ranges. Also, if you have decent monitors than actualy watching the bass cones is an important thing to learn besides listening to them. It's often not audible that their are too many low freq.'sl, but it is visible. Kind regards, CD

Very good hint!

I noticed this the first time I took my track into the car and wondered why my subs were going mental but no music, just muddy noise.

I cheated with my mastering, I opened up an MP3 (high quality) of a tune that was similar I liked and watched it on a spectrum analyser plugin. Then I used the para EQ in FLStudio with the compressor to mimmick the peaks and troughs in my own tune.

Im happy to say it worked and sounds good although obviously not perfect.

R.

quote:

Originally posted by Rikki Very good hint! I noticed this the first time I took my track into the car and wondered why my subs were going mental but no music, just muddy noise. I cheated with my mastering, I opened up an MP3 (high quality) of a tune that was similar I liked and watched it on a spectrum analyser plugin. Then I used the para EQ in FLStudio with the compressor to mimmick the peaks and troughs in my own tune. Im happy to say it worked and sounds good although obviously not perfect. R.

That's not cheating.

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