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Making a sound stand out more without raising it's volume

Before I even begin, I need to mention that I haven't posted a question in here for many months, and I've spent quite a while trying to do this myself without real success so far. So now I'm resorting to other people's suggestions

So as the topic says, how can I make a sound stand out very clearly without really raising it's volume very much? I've tried boosting freqs, and it works to an extent, but obviously once you reach a certain limit, (normally around 6db), it generally starts to sound to processed or whatever the hell you wanna say goes wrong with it. Anyway, is there other things I should be doing, OR, is it perhaps just that I'm to used to my track that any change in volume makes it sound weird to me?? I hear other tracks and all the elements seem to loudly stand out, but I'm never very confident in that regard, I always end up masking them a little.

Here's the track I'm having the issue with at the moment:

**********EDIT: Go to Page 4 for the latest version**********

Well, if you feel like the sound needs to be extremely loud to have presence I think you're actually fighting against the mix. The sound is competing with something else.

Also, something I had to learn pretty fast that if you put reverb on everything nothing stands out. Use it to accent certain sounds.

Often times in more commercial dance tracks there aren't very many elements playing simultaneously so each one can be more powerful.

If you absolutely need two sounds that occupy the same place in the frequency spectrum you could probably duck the other sound.

quote:

Originally posted by Seandroid Well, if you feel like the sound needs to be extremely loud to have presence I think you're actually fighting against the mix. The sound is competing with something else. Also, something I had to learn pretty fast that if you put reverb on everything nothing stands out. Use it to accent certain sounds. Often times in more commercial dance tracks there aren't very many elements playing simultaneously so each one can be more powerful. If you absolutely need two sounds that occupy the same place in the frequency spectrum you could probably duck the other sound.

Hmmm, ok. So lets say I keep all the bass sounds as they are for the moment, (which is fairly reverbed I'll admit), and then I maybe cut the pad down with a low pass and adjust it's EQ to make it stand out more in that state, then that will give me a big bassline, which is what I want, and then a warm pad with a high-end lead pluck thing. Does this sound good?

quote:

Originally posted by MIKE333ACE Hmmm, ok. So lets say I keep all the bass sounds as they are for the moment, (which is fairly reverbed I'll admit), and then I maybe cut the pad down with a low pass and adjust it's EQ to make it stand out more in that state, then that will give me a big bassline, which is what I want, and then a warm pad with a high-end lead pluck thing. Does this sound good?

You tell us! Remix the track again and see, this is how you learn what works and what doesnt

Masking is a common problem, it takes discipline to not start adding extra stuff into the track that clashes with your main parts. But after a while you just know "well for that lead and bass i cant really have too much low mid percussion..." etc etc

If you really want to raise the perceived volume of something you can try clipping
But better to make it stand out by not hiding it

Turn the other stuff down or move it out the way.

The volume fader is THE most powerful mix tool, I'm not sure why you'd try and not use it.

quote:

Originally posted by evo8 You tell us! Remix the track again and see, this is how you learn what works and what doesnt Masking is a common problem, it takes discipline to not start adding extra stuff into the track that clashes with your main parts. But after a while you just know "well for that lead and bass i cant really have too much low mid percussion..." etc etc If you really want to raise the perceived volume of something you can try clipping But better to make it stand out by not hiding it

Yeah I worked on it straight after I replied. I think if I have the pluck-type sound by itself with the bassline I can get a fairly clean sound, but the pad adds a lot of extra feel to it. But then vise-versa, I could get the pad to sound neat by itself with the bassline, as well. I think that the plucks would be the problem. Maybe I need a leas 'lead' type pluck and more of a high freq stabby one. I'll keep working on it now and see where it gets me within the next 30mins or so

New idea:

I'm considering taking out the pluck pattern and just having the pad as sort of a frequency fill. It will stand out a little, but not too much, it will just be one of those sounds where you notice it heaps if its gone, but you don't notice it too much when it's actually in the mix.
All I'm simply planning to do is do my best to make the bassline as exciting as possible with only the bass sounds, drums, sound FX, and the pad. So..., to feel confident with these, I need some outside opinions as to wether or not the bassline sounds exciting enough at the moment, and if it still will when I take out the pluck.

start cutting, stop boosting EQ and volume is indeed your main mixing tool and WTF is a "frequency fill" you might need a brian refill though, as you ask too many non relevant questions ask yourself do you need one?

Cut
no boost
volume

that's all you need to know.

last but not least: go fix your monitoring/room, you can't manage what you can't hear

quote:

Originally posted by tehlord Turn the other stuff down or move it out the way. The volume fader is THE most powerful mix tool, I'm not sure why you'd try and not use it.

quoted for truth

as well as the volume fader, 2 other good ways to seperate sounds

1. play them in different octaves to each other, no substitute for frequency seperation

2. dont play them at the same time, keep patterns simpler

listening to your track there on my laptop speakers i can even hear that theres a lot of low-mid content, be careful not to have too much of this as it can be make your track sound muddy - and fatiguing to the listener

One big mistake i used to make (probably still do to some extent) is having too many things going on in a track
Now you might think whats the problem with that if i separate them by frequency, volume, panning etc..

Its just the brain cant bloody concentrate on everything, even if it is all seperated

As everybody else has already mentioned - volume, EQ, and panning. A couple other thoughts:

- put the sound in a different space; i.e., if you're using a reverb on your sounds to put them all in the same sonic space, use little/no reverb on the sound that you want to stand out, or use a different reverb, but use very little of it. Reverb pushes a sound back in the mix, so use none/very little to bring your sound forward, and use more on other elements to push them back.

- widen the sound to occupy more of the stereo spectrum. There are many ways to do this, but some of the most common ones are doubling/panning the sound, or adding a very short (e.g., 15-30 ms) slap-back stereo delay with slightly different times for the left and right delays.

YOu have to choose between loud or with dynamics.

Things that can help you:

-Compression
-Reverb and delay(i've a preset for this, stereo delay it adds some warmth and panning)
-Equalization, it is very important to cut everything that is not present in the final mix, why would you want to have 3 patterns of hats filling the 50-500hz band when they are only audible around 1khz onwards?
-Saturation plugins to color the sound
-Adding more release in the amp, this is a tricky tool because you are making the sound stand out from the rest but it takes a lot of space in the mix.
-Frequency masking (i've seen this mentioned in a glimpse) some times you are using the wrong sound, raising an octave works wonders in some cases.

EDM works like this, from 20 to 200hz you only should have kick + basslines if you are producing psytrance or something that doesn't like you sidechain your bass don't add too much low end to your kick, short tail kicks are easier to mix unless you are looking for an effect like Sandro Silva & Quintino - Epic track were the kick is an important element of the drop. If you add something here, don't colapse it with the kick, offbeat bongos etc...

Mid band is were usually there is most stuff going on, try to have your primary elements on this band and most likely a maximum of 2 synths because everything will have some unwanted frequencies going here so it's easy to muddy it.

High band, here you can add everything you wanted to have on the mid band but can't it will sound high pitched and it's fatigating for the ear if you use this frequencies too much (i mean playing synths on the C7 note onwards not synths that have some wandering frequencies playing this high but whose core is lower) you can use a lot of shakers hats and percussions as this is generally empty compared to the rest of the mix so if you feel you have to add something extra to make the track more appealing it's better to have things here than in the mid or bass band.

The best way to achieve a good mix is making a mix without touching any volume fader or even the eq, it's possible and all you have to do is this, place things in the appropiate frequency band and have a balance within them, as i've said the bass band is already filled but high band has more room for experimenting.

When you achieve this is when you can start using faders , eqs filters to polish it and be more creative.

IMO your kick is taking too much room and the type your using is of that classic type that came to prominence a few years back, but just swamps the track. The kick here is for me a little too loud also.

I'd suggest a different less 'euphoric / unicorn' kick in addition to the changes other people mention.

Thanks for this so far guys, keep posting if you have anymore suggestions anyone!

quote:

Originally posted by Rodri Santos The best way to achieve a good mix is making a mix without touching any volume fader or even the eq

I can agree with eq, but trying to mix without the primary mixing tool is a step too far - when I'm recording synths I record them just short of clipping (to preserve their full dynamic range). There's no way that all these sounds which peak close to 0dBFS can be left at equal volume.

quote:

Originally posted by Richard Butler IMO your kick is taking too much room and the type your using is of that classic type that came to prominence a few years back, but just swamps the track. The kick here is for me a little too loud also. I'd suggest a different less 'euphoric / unicorn' kick in addition to the changes other people mention.

Is this a legitimate mixdown problem though? I like to have it sounding sort of like this. So if it's just your own personal taste, then I might consider it a little, but if you think it's a serious mixdown problem, then I'll look into it more deeply.

quote:

Originally posted by Raphie start cutting, stop boosting EQ and volume is indeed your main mixing tool and WTF is a "frequency fill" you might need a brian refill though, as you ask too many non relevant questions ask yourself do you need one? Cut no boost volume that's all you need to know. last but not least: go fix your monitoring/room, you can't manage what you can't hear

What I mean by freq fill is that the sound isn't very noticeable when it's in the mix, but very noticeable when it's not. If I was to take it out, all I would have is my bass sounds and drums, but if I put it back in, it will fill in a the higher freq range a little, however it still doesn't stand out that much as an individual sound. Thus, due to the fact that it sort of blends in, but still adds to the frequency range, I called it a freq filler. I can't remember if I've heard the term before or if I just made it up one day, but its just what I call it.

And thanks for the other advice, I'll DEFINITELY do some serious cutting. I've done it before on a track, I have no idea which one, but I do remember doing it once and from memory I got a pretty solid mixdown.

quote:

Originally posted by MIKE333ACE Is this a legitimate mixdown problem though? I like to have it sounding sort of like this. So if it's just your own personal taste, then I might consider it a little, but if you think it's a serious mixdown problem, then I'll look into it more deeply.

Mike for me it is taking up a lot of range. I'd bet you could find a kick that would still be powerful but leave more space for the other sounds.

Of course it comes down to you and the end of the day tho.

The best trance producers imo use better kicks than this.

quote:

Originally posted by derail I can agree with eq, but trying to mix without the primary mixing tool is a step too far - when I'm recording synths I record them just short of clipping (to preserve their full dynamic range). There's no way that all these sounds which peak close to 0dBFS can be left at equal volume.

That's because you are recording them at 0 if you record them with a 6db headroom it's different. This is like a preparation when you have the mix done is when you can use the volume faders and level things. It's like a hard mode, try to do it as best as you can without using any tools and when the result is more or less right use everything you wish.

quote:

Originally posted by Rodri Santos That's because you are recording them at 0 if you record them with a 6db headroom it's different. This is like a preparation when you have the mix done is when you can use the volume faders and level things. It's like a hard mode, try to do it as best as you can without using any tools and when the result is more or less right use everything you wish.

?

Where did you learn about gain staging? Why are you recording instruments at -6dB?

Even then, I don't understand how that solves anything. Then every instrument peaks at -6dB, and they're still all out of balance with each other. How do you mix them without using the level faders? Do you do much recording of vocals, external instruments etc?

i have a couple of suggestions:

- lower all your channels by 15-20dB.
- delete all compression and eqs (on every fucking instrument as well as master).
- raise the volume on your monitors alot (keeps your from pushing your tracks).
- start mixing over again (fine tune for weeks for best result).


behold a fucking awesome sounding dynamic track compared to the compressed shit we have today. yes it will be low and doesnt work on mp3/ipad/tv but fuck me it sounds good on a big stereo. dynamics bro, that shit is awesome.

quote:

Originally posted by clay i have a couple of suggestions: - lower all your channels by 15dB - delete all compression and eqs. - raise the volume on your monitors. - start mixing over again (fine tune for weeks). behold a fucking awesome sounding dynamic track compared to the compressed shit we have today. yes it will be low and doesnt work on mp3/ipad/tv but fuck me it sounds good on a big stereo. dynamics bro, that shit is awesome.

+1... Dynamics are awesome!

quote:

Originally posted by clay i have a couple of suggestions: - lower all your channels by 15-20dB. - delete all compression and eqs (on every fucking instrument as well as master). - raise the volume on your monitors alot (keeps your from pushing your tracks). - start mixing over again (fine tune for weeks for best result). behold a fucking awesome sounding dynamic track compared to the compressed shit we have today. yes it will be low and doesnt work on mp3/ipad/tv but fuck me it sounds good on a big stereo. dynamics bro, that shit is awesome.

Does that really work?

quote:

Originally posted by clay i have a couple of suggestions: - lower all your channels by 15-20dB. - delete all compression and eqs (on every fucking instrument as well as master). - raise the volume on your monitors alot (keeps your from pushing your tracks). - start mixing over again (fine tune for weeks for best result). behold a fucking awesome sounding dynamic track compared to the compressed shit we have today. yes it will be low and doesnt work on mp3/ipad/tv but fuck me it sounds good on a big stereo. dynamics bro, that shit is awesome.

not sure if troll
or clueless

there are some interesting studies along the lines of masking but with rhythm in particular transients. How long, how many and how that affects perception ..... I used to have a slide for a class i thought at a school i apparently never went to , i will try to find it. It is rather new about 8- 10 years old.

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