i always forget to respond to PMs. its not because i hate you, just because i forgot!!!
Male
MD
Joined on 8/16/03
Agree so much with number 1 - its something I wish I was told when starting out :P
2. - i make dnb so never really had that problem ha was always trying to make my drums stand out
3. I don't widen nearly enough and maybe I should - although I've never liked the utility's widen as it usually sounded so dry
nice tips anyway and sick track
Thanks! I always forget about widening, but when I do remember to do it, it usually sounds pretty cool.
Thank you for taking the time to writing this and sharing a little on the process of how you produce.
Of course! I've always been pretty frustrated about how professional musicians rarely if ever give back to the community. It seems to me that most of them keep their skills as closely guarded secrets. I want to take the opposite approach: give back as much as I can. After all, the most important stuff - good composition - can't really be taught.
It's kinda funny how I had to learn that too. It's nice that you put all of this information here for other people to see since I had to figure out by either (1) having people say my music is muddy or would have preferred to have wider stereo, which didn't make sense at first. Or (2) noticing things that better artists did that I didn't and asking YouTube why (like how to make drums louder, funny enough).
I will say this. Light Up is definitely pumpin' with energy, and you still keep your signature airy atmosphere, which I like to call it that. Keep it up.
-Spadezer-
Thanks Spadezer! Glad you liked my track, too. :D
Ah, this is so helpful! Thank you very much, Johnfn. :D
Of course ^_^
Thank you for sharing this information! I wish I read something like this 4 years ago when I first started.
Yeah, tell me about it...
Hahha, you're 100% right about the drums not being loud enough XD I'm a super beginner when it comes to mixing, and everyone always tells me I need louder percussion :p
Thanks for the great adcive!
These are good tips, one thing to note is if you are panning two copies of the same sound, one left and one right they need to have slight differences in order to be perceived as wide. For example you could add a few ms of delay to one side or even just mess with the start time of one of them in the playlist.
Number 1 and 3 were something I wish I would've been told ages ago. Like imo #1 should be on the installer to all DAWs xD. Like "Welcome to installing your copy of Fruity loops. Remember Hipass everything".
With number 2 I actually had the opposite problem, my drums were always too loud. I didn't notice it at the time, but after I listened to a few of my old songs in a car, the drums where just the only thing you could hear. :D
"Remember Hipass everything" Hahaha yeah I know, seriously.
The drums are a funny one. *Most* people get them too quiet, but a rare few get them too loud too.
I should probably have responded to this sooner, but there's one major pitfall when it comes to 3: the fact that people are increasingly listening to music on mono speakers, particularly mono phone speakers. And shit, if it sounds good on that, you've done something very right.
But basically, convert your whole track to mono every once in awhile and play it out each ear if you're using headphones. See the differences. See what clashes. It shouldn't clash even in mono.
Ah yeah. Sadly, a lot of mixing advice falls apart in that case. (Bass? What's that?) :P
The convert-to-mono trick is a good idea, though.
You have my attention. I've started to take notice of the muddiness in my own songs, so I'm definitely going to be implementing some of the things you've discussed here, haha.
I was finally able to use this advice! In a new song I used stereo widening on the pad and it sounds amazing together with the leads. In addition, I was able to use 3 or 4 leads simultaneously while still being able to distinguish each one. This is a great guide.
ThatSaxyGuyMike
I feel as though my thread may have led you to do this, but thanks for the tips. If you wouldn't mind posting this on the tread so that I can go back to it and read it again, and maybe discuss it, I'd really appreciate it
johnfn
It definitely did! I'll do that.