Gigabaros - Density (Drumstep/Liquid funk)

[Gigabaros]

Hi guys! First post, but I've been lurking for a while and I must say that this place has so much good information and resources! I've been producing and mixing since the end of july but I've been playing the guitar for many years. I found a new love for electro and dubstep right before the summer and decided that it was time for me to try doing this!

Anyway, I thought I'd post my first song. Emotional harmonies and a heavy drop going over to full tempo liquid funk. It's pretty much done minus some details but there will be vocals added to it as soon as it's clear what they'll be. I'd love to hear any critique, especially about the mix.

Soundcloud

[Triphosphate]

Loving your style man, it's very fresh. The loop in your intro... Actually all of the track sounds slightly uncomfortably high-endy. And your drop is absolutely bonkers, great fast moving bassline! Fantastic and very interesting chord progressions too.

If you get a chance to feedback my latest it'd be greatly appreciated
http://dubstepforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=220033

[Gigabaros]

Yeah, there is something about the treble right? Could be something about the noobish mastering process. Haven't really developed my ears for mastering at all yet. I'll look into it, might've been a bit to trigger happy when adding sparkle to the tracks.

This is going to be a beat for a swedish hip hop crew that I know. So I'm working on the details and I was hoping to get any comments about the mixing in particular.

[Triphosphate]

If you're using any high passes you might just need to turn down the Q on them. Mastering in and of itself is an art, don't be too hard on yourself. Also, mastering is typically something you want someone else to do, in theory anything you would do to the track in mastering (as the producer) you should have done in mixdown. When you're mastering your own work, less is more. If you find yourself in the mastering process saying things like "damn, this track needs more sparkle." then open the track up again and edit it in mixdown. Remember to leave at least -3db of headroom and do as little as possible to it. When I master my own tracks I rarely use anything more than a l3 ultramaximizer. Here's a trick I use to mixdown: drop a limiter in your master track, then lower your volume (on your monitors, not your DAW) as much as you possibly can, we're talking about like 'lean into your monitors it's so quiet'. If your volume is way way low and you can still hear all the elements of your song clearly, then you will have a more successful master.

Edit: almost forgot my other mix/master rule, if it takes you more than 30 minutes your ears are useless and all you'll be doing is pumping things to make up for your tired ears. So if your mix master takes longer than 30 minutes scrap it, go make a sandwich, smoke a cigarette, take a crap, whatever... And come back an start over.

Edit again: treble/high end fall more squarely into the natural human hearing range, it's the reason we can make out formants in vowels and plosives and fricatives in constanants. Therefore the ears don't need things in that frequency range to be as loud, psychoaccoustic principles tell us so. If you don't believe me take your hats in any mix and drop them to -14 db, bet you can still hear them, now try it with your bass... Bet you can't hear it .

Will you take another listen at my gamma wave track? I should have fixed up all those recommendations. Thanks.

[Gigabaros]

Yeah, I was using a multiband compressor and liked the results I was getting but I might have boosted the highs a bit much. Luckily I won't master this myself but I just threw some stuff on to make it sound a bit fatter than with nothing on! And I totally hear you about the 30 minute rule! I always find my ears feeling REALLY exhausting after a couple of hours producing, doesn't help you at all. But thanks man, I'll try bringing the highs down a bit without taking away to much clarity. I also found the sub was ridiculously loud when I played this on my Surround system. Not only was it to loud, you could also totally feel how different some notes felt compared to others in volume and in the floor. Any way to make the sub sit better in a mix?

[Triphosphate]

Iirc you want your sub to lie approximately 2db below your drums, which should lie at -6db. Half of your headroom. This is all in mixdown not mastering, mind you.

This should help you a lot:
http://www.dubstepforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=74832