quote:

Originally posted by Stu Cox ...whereby if you go over 0 dBFS it instantly squares off the waveform.

...and digital clipping does not sound good by most people's standards.

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0dbFS is a hard stop indeed

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Analogue Mastering
Esoteric sound for the discerning ear

All good advice in this thread but if you're going to take one thing from it:

Don't even think about mastering, your issue is simply the art and techniques of mixing, which unfortunately can take years to get good at.

Leave mastering to professionals - it takes even longer to learn than mixing correctly, and even then requires superb equipment and real talent on that one area.

I don't know any pro mastering engineers who also have other jobs (i.e. mixing engineers as well). Basically, don't even go there - you can find good mastering services if you really need them.

I'm going to give the obvious noob mixing advice here:
1, Work on sound selection first - it's more important than anything else. Find sounds that sound good on their own but also work well with other sounds.

2, If you're that new to this, just use subtractive eq (i.e taking away stuff you dont want). For instance, if it's bass make sure it doesn't have a ton of other frequency content (it will be hard to manage it in your mix when combined with other borad spectrum content sounds). Most vocals don't need true sub freqeuncies in there etc etc etc. I say this becuase Additive EQ will just get messy if you don't know what you're doing. Once you do, you can always start adding...

3, To learn how to balance sounds, get everything playing in a one or two bar loop and zero the faders. Then bring them up one by one, starting with the lower frequency sounds and kick. Listen how they interact as you bring them in - it will teach you how sounds play off each other and how the do or don't sit together (and this will then help with points 1 & 2 above).

4, Don't forget to pan properly. This isn't rocket science; for the beginner, just remmeber the lower the frequency, the less pan and more central the sound should be and for bass/sub it should be mono. The higher the frequency, the more you can try to pan those sounds.

5, Don't get bogged down in FX. Just use one reverb to start with and use it as a send. This will teach you how reverbs work on different sounds and it's good engineering practise to use sends as opposed to inserting a discrete reverb on every sound. Same goes for delays/chorus/whatever. You do not need a ton of FX to make it a good track.

6, Compare your track to someone's music that you like. Import the music on an audio track so you can easily A/B against yours. Listen to figure out what they do that you like.

7, Finally, be realistic. If you're listening on PC speakers thorugh an in built soundcard, your mixes are never going to sound like prydas lastest monster does in a club.

quote:

Originally posted by clay oh and try to aim for a smiling frequency curve (a little less midrange), it seems to be the trend these days (since the 70s, but not in the 90s somehow).

How about just going with what sounds good, rather than looking at a curve?

utdarsenal, I don't have a lot of advice to give other than: post an unmastered mixdown/track you've done! Us more experienced engineers can give you advice, point you in the right direction, where to EQ, etc. It will save you a lot of the frustration you're having.

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Put an end to the loudness war. Don't limit or compress your mixdown until mastering; leave the master channel alone.

Contact me for mastering.

Agreed, as mentioned before just post an "unmastered" track and we'll take it from there

quote:

Originally posted by Atlantis-AR How about just going with what sounds good, rather than looking at a curve? utdarsenal, I don't have a lot of advice to give other than: post an unmastered mixdown/track you've done! Us more experienced engineers can give you advice, point you in the right direction, where to EQ, etc. It will save you a lot of the frustration you're having.

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Analogue Mastering
Esoteric sound for the discerning ear

I suck at mixing too... as of late I think I'm getting better, and a lot of people tell me I am. I usually put my kick at around -10 dB, I was doing -8 but I couldn't get enough headroom, or at least it felt that way. I seem to mix quieter and quieter the more I work at it though, the other day I had to bring up all my faders because my master was peaking at -6 dB. I don't mess around with compressors on my master channel, I don't really know what I'm doing with them.

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Tranceport is the best album ever....

There is nothing wrong with being musically diverse.

My Soundcloud

From 1993, listen from 35 secs - this is immensely well mixed - the bass really thumps in the chest and yet everything is very clear, AND LOUD!

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quote:

Originally posted by Atlantis-AR How about just going with what sounds good, rather than looking at a curve?

no. smiling curve is whats popular today and has been almost half a decade.

quote:

Originally posted by clay no. smiling curve is whats popular today and has been almost half a decade.

Maybe on consumer equipment, but I certainly don't master to conform to a "smile" standard - my masters end up flat and neutral.

___________________
Put an end to the loudness war. Don't limit or compress your mixdown until mastering; leave the master channel alone.

Contact me for mastering.

quote:

Originally posted by Atlantis-AR Maybe on consumer equipment, but I certainly don't master to conform to a "smile" standard - my masters end up flat and neutral.

Exactly. Let the end listener set up the smile on their EQ if they want it. In terms of a loud, solid mix, midrange is vital.

the end listener doesnt always have bass and treble control anymore. the whole chain has been fucked so its more important now than ever that we make the source as good as possible.