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Acid House -- I need some suggestions

I've been into production for a bit. I have an M-Audio Axiom keyboard that I use to record riffs and stuff with FL Studio. Any how, I wrote a simple acid house track using FL Studio, but I need some constructive suggestions and criticism. Here's the rundown on how I produced it:

I just laid down a squelchy acid bass synthesizer rhythm and played around with resonance and cut off settings using the knobs on my keyboard. Then I added some soft, warm pad chords in the background (I don't know much about chord structure or scales in trance so I just played what sounded good ).

I threw in some basic percussion with snares, toms, rim shots, etc. with some fills and breaks. To top things off, I found a voice sample and tweaked the delay effect and pitch a bit for the "It's All In Your Mind" robotic sample. To add some (still ) missing depth to the track, I recorded myself doing a simple scale improv with an FM Rhodes patch.

The video itself was a Fraps recording of the Milkdrop music visualization plugin for Winamp. Rough, but works for now -- I'm here for music not videos. So here's the link to take a listen:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=IKsgbvhR78I

First off, I need help with mastering. How does one get that bouncy, punchy, loud, full sound to their mixes? I added some reverb and compression to the mix, but I notice my kick drum dropping off in intensity during the more busy parts of the song.

Second, how can I improve the musical/dance elements of it? There's lots of stuff going on at once with professional acid house tracks, so I tried layering things up a bit. There just seems to be a "soul" in those tracks that makes you want to bob your head and get up and dance that isn't present in mine. I blame the mastering for burying the kick drum... Grr. Any tips for improvement? I throw on an Armin Van Buuren track, and even though it's not house music, it makes my track sound very flat. I'm a hypocrite -- more into trance production anyways.

I'd gladly appreciate criticism, because I'm very new to this still. I admit I'm just in it for the fun of things. I have a good time playing around with this stuff.

I can barely hear the percussion in this song, the sample sounds horrible. I'd try upping somewhere other than youtube, I don't know how good their compression schemes are for sound...

Good deal. http://thechuckster.homelinux.com/~chuck/acid.mp3 It's probably the bad mastering that's causing the drums to be inaudible.

Your single biggest problem is thinking that the problem has anything to do with mastering, and blaming the mastering for things like the drums being inaudible.

This is all part of the mix, not the master. All mastering does is bring the volume up a bit and - generally - make the track a bit more flat, not less. The mix is where you lay out the musical spaces for each sample/instrument, using EQ and sometimes a bit of compression. You can make the individual spaces wider through some panning, stereo expansion, stereo imaging, and reverb.

Only when your mix sounds every bit as crisp and clean as you want it to, but just needs a little more volume or brightness, do you think about mastering. I'm not trying to be harsh, but this track is nowhere near that stage yet. You need to put a lot more work into getting the individual elements of the track in balance, first - the drums are not loud enough and probably aren't EQed or compressed at all, the acid riff is way too loud and has too much low end, the keyboardish instrument is also too loud and sounds quite out of place at times, the pad is mostly low-midrange when it should be upper-midrange and treble, and the vocal needs a bit of EQ.

Bottom line is that you've basically crammed everything into the lower frequencies of the track and compensated by making some of the upper-ranged instruments far too loud, when you should be using other methods (as specified above) to make them more distinct.

Also, never, ever add reverb to the master of a dance track. That's something you add to individual elements or groups of elements in the mix. Adding reverb to your kick will kill it, guaranteed. Same goes for basslines most of the time. Putting it on the master obviously adds reverb to both of those.

I hope that helps, sorry again if that's a bit harsh but I think it's important to dispel the myth that one can fix all these problems with mastering.

Actually, that's exactly the kind of response I was looking for. Very helpful! I've been playing around with it and things sound a lot more punchier and crisp. I'm going to need better headphones. These $8 KOSS ear plugs don't really have a flat frequency response.

quote:

Originally posted by TheChuckster Actually, that's exactly the kind of response I was looking for. Very helpful! I've been playing around with it and things sound a lot more punchier and crisp. I'm going to need better headphones. These $8 KOSS ear plugs don't really have a flat frequency response.

same problem here.

im debating spending what little money i have on speakers, and my neighbors can go to hell.

headphones just dont do it IMO. i like to know what it sounds like as you move through the sound when walking about, rather than being 'wrapped' inside of it.

i dunno, i had a pair of $150 AKG's for a few weeks, and wasnt that impressed.

It's best to have both monitors and speakers. Each have their uses:

Headphones - Allow you to produce in the middle of the night, can be extremely clear and are very "upfront". Help one focus on individual sounds with extreme precision.

Monitors - You feel the mixdown much better, get a better impression of how it sounds in a space and generally a better bassy feeling. Also, you can use them to put on a small party in your kitchen.

quote:

Originally posted by DigiNut Your single biggest problem is thinking that the problem has anything to do with mastering, and blaming the mastering for things like the drums being inaudible. This is all part of the mix, not the master. All mastering does is bring the volume up a bit and - generally - make the track a bit more flat, not less. The mix is where you lay out the musical spaces for each sample/instrument, using EQ and sometimes a bit of compression. You can make the individual spaces wider through some panning, stereo expansion, stereo imaging, and reverb. Only when your mix sounds every bit as crisp and clean as you want it to, but just needs a little more volume or brightness, do you think about mastering. I'm not trying to be harsh, but this track is nowhere near that stage yet. You need to put a lot more work into getting the individual elements of the track in balance, first - the drums are not loud enough and probably aren't EQed or compressed at all, the acid riff is way too loud and has too much low end, the keyboardish instrument is also too loud and sounds quite out of place at times, the pad is mostly low-midrange when it should be upper-midrange and treble, and the vocal needs a bit of EQ. Bottom line is that you've basically crammed everything into the lower frequencies of the track and compensated by making some of the upper-ranged instruments far too loud, when you should be using other methods (as specified above) to make them more distinct. Also, never, ever add reverb to the master of a dance track. That's something you add to individual elements or groups of elements in the mix. Adding reverb to your kick will kill it, guaranteed. Same goes for basslines most of the time. Putting it on the master obviously adds reverb to both of those. I hope that helps, sorry again if that's a bit harsh but I think it's important to dispel the myth that one can fix all these problems with mastering.

Whilst everything you've said is spot on, I think that whenever beginners blame mastering for the sound quality, its important to remember that they often think that mixing is mastering.

I know that when i first started, I never knew what people meant when they said "work on the mixing" (to me mixing was what DJs did) and I always thought that mastering did what mixing did. Obviously now i know better but I think that we should make sure that beginners understand the definitions and differences of mixing and mastering before telling them "its not your mastering, its your mxing that needs work."

Great informative post though Diginut with lots of helpful reminders for all of us

its not your mastering, its your mxing that needs work.

quote:

Originally posted by jacheatamobits same problem here. im debating spending what little money i have on speakers, and my neighbors can go to hell. headphones just dont do it IMO. i like to know what it sounds like as you move through the sound when walking about, rather than being 'wrapped' inside of it. i dunno, i had a pair of $150 AKG's for a few weeks, and wasnt that impressed.

Well for the last 7 months I've been monitoring with those free headphones you get with the guild wars special edition. They are pretty rubbish, but I ended up using them because my Audio Technica ATH-A500s are in England and Digital Village weren't nice to me and repeatedly shipped me broken Dynaudio BM5as.

Ive had a working pair of Dynaudio BM5as for about a week now. Which is nice.

Weirdly enough, I have become so used to the way those guild wars headphones sound that I continue to mix on them. I use the BM5as a secondary reference. Mainly to fix some of the stuff that was way off when I was mixing on headphones that have like, no bass.

My pair of headphones is getting tatty though and I like them so much now that I will buy your pair if you have them. So anyone with the guild wars special edition - want to sell your headphones?

You just need time to let them set in and get used to how they sound. It helps to have loads of soundsystems around the house that you can test your mixes on and compare to see how your headphones behave. The only thing I really need the BM5as for is bass, as I can't hear any sub and bass sounds weird on the phones.

I can't monitor loud on the BM5as anyway because I live in a shared house. I like them though and I'll probably get more use out of them later.

I don't think having spectacular monitors will make your mixes better or even really make it easier for you to mix. This is kind of strange but these headphones are really quite crap. And yet despite that I can listen to that Origa/Jenson/Kanno song at the beginning of Ghost in the Shell SAC and it just sounds noticeably better than anything I have produced. This is whilst listening on guild wars headphones. As long as that difference is there then I'd say I can still use these little beasts.

I originally thought mastering was mixing as well.

Yes, that's true, the difference is a little hard to grasp and I didn't get it a couple of years ago either. I wish I'd had people to set me straight back then!

Part of the confusion is probably that a lot of the mastering techniques are the same as mixing techniques: EQ, compression, and so on. And it doesn't help that you have some of the professional "mastering engineers" out there offering to make your track sound super wicked awesome... for a price.

Mind you, I'm not by any means implying that mastering is BS, it's quite valuable. Just that its purpose isn't to fix a dull or messy mix, but rather to prep a track for release on a specific medium. It's purely the finishing touches, the cherry on top.

My rule of thumb would be this: if it sounds playable on the decks, it's ready for mastering, which would bring it up to the level of quality necessary for a CD or vinyl release. If it doesn't sound playable then you should go back to the mix.

Here is what I recommend, Apart for Mixing. First Get a guide track that is roughly what you want to create. Thill will help you in a number of ways. Mixing,arrangment,fx, ect. Now Im not trying to kick you in the artistic nutts or anything, but you need to know where you want your track to be played/heard. Because Acid house rarely goes that fast of BPM, Acid TRANCE however does. For me its important to charicterize what im trying to do in Gnres because it can help the way i organiz my remixes(when and if i do them) or Producing. Lets say you want to do a techno song but for it to have an acid-y housy feel to it. Acid-tech-house? It helps you break it down is my point. then you can look for a song that is vaguely similiar to what your trying to do And break it down. This is all stuff ive picked up, and unfortunatly we can't tell you how to make a Banging acid house track. What we can tell you is how to make it sound good, how to get the sounds your looking for, and theories behind mixing, mastering, and music.

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