Tips needed to make my tracks sound more proffesional

[BaseBass]

Hey there,

I was scavenging through the Production bible, and though it does give quite a lot of tips on how to mix the individual elemts in a dubstep track, I'm still having trouble making my track sound more proffesional. Somehow, tracks I listen to online (wether they are minimalistic or have a very large amount of instruments), they just seem to have that certain sound that my tracks lack. It's hard to explain exactly what I mean, but I think it has something to do with the width of the audio field (the 3D sound aspect). Even though I use delay with offset, Stereo Enhancers, and panning positions, somehow my track still had that certain degree of "flatness".

This is esspecially the case with the drums. I like my drums to be pretty dry (so almost no reverb involved, esspecially not on the kick and snare). Does anyone one have some extra tips and tricks to make a track sound less amateuristic? I feel like there is just a lack of space in my track.

[Electric_Head]

reverb and eqing all your elements to fit

2 sounds taking up the same frequency range will muddy things
no mud means more pro sounding imo

[BaseBass]

Well that is kind of the problem here. I don't know how far to go when it comes to EQing. Cutting of too much frequency means it will lose it's power, or makes it sound hollow. Cutting of too few has me fighting for headroom. The balance in between is kinda hard to find.

When it comes to reverb....Is reverb always used as a parallel effect? By using send's for instance.

Man it sucks when you try to type down your problem... It's frustrating to be working on your track, listening to it over and over while you work on it. Then putting on a track from a diffrent artist, and finding out your track just does not sound like the real thing. But not knowing why. I EQ everything, use reverb, compression, autopanning, offset delay's etc etc. Andd it still does'nt cut it....

Also I still have trouble with understanding muddiness. I don't really know in which frequenty range to look. I often read that mussiness lies around the 350 >500hz range. But clearly it's not as simple as just cutting away that range on all your instruments.

[stinjee]

I think i share your problem, i find i get loads of fatness over compressing stuff. Tried a new way of doing it in my last tune and it definatly sounds fatter,
with regards to sounding like the pros. Its quite difficult to compare your work against thiers if yours has not been professionaly mastered. Sure we can try and do our own master but the pro's will have paid someone who has been mastering for years and lets be honest mastering is its own art.

[BaseBass]

So mastering does make a difference when it comes to sounding proffesional? 'Cause I always thought that mastering is just bringing up the level, and getting rid of potentially disturbing and/or harmfull frequenties. But I am not that familiar with the exact details.

[stinjee]

true with the levels and stuff but still that trained ear taking out thos nasty frequencys is bound to help. Have you got a piece of your work i caa
n download and listen to on my production pc?
that way i'll know what to suggest, if i can suggest anything, not like i'm a pro !!

[Dublicious]

In essence, the 'professional' sound your looking for comes from the mixdown, too many people nowadays mix there drums too heavy becuase they made these ridiculously loud bass sounds, honestly using HQ samples, and having a tight mixdown is essential for a track to sound professional, people will harp on about mastering, but mastering doesn't alter a song... boosting sounds is everyones way of acting pro nowadays, but less is sometimes more!, a common professional technique is making the lows mono, and the high stereo and wide

[Sparxy]

Muddiness is simply when you have different elements of your tune taking up the same EQ space. You can get around that by making sure they are EQ'd seperately.

Your issue isn't specific so its hard to give you any real tips on how to overcome a problem. I would say its often a mixdown thing though. Make sure you are happy with the sound levels of each track and give it a fresh mix

One thing I would suggest though is by going through each element of your track and "troubleshooting" it. Start with your kick, listen to how it sounds or A/B compare it with a kick you like the sound of. Doesn't sound right? Good... now why doesn't it sound right? Whats it lacking? You might decide the kick sounds weak and is lacking bottom end - and that is a problem you can then research and address. Do the same with your snare. Get your mid bass sound and analyze it on its own - sounding narrow? Then widen it with some stereo effects. You could even double it and hard pan it either side.

It's like trying to make a cake with shit ingredients. It will always be crap. If you go through and ensure each ingredient is as good as it can be making the cake will be much easier

[Sharmaji]

Well that is kind of the problem here. I don't know how far to go when it comes to EQing. Cutting of too much frequency means it will lose it's power, or makes it sound hollow. Cutting of too few has me fighting for headroom. The balance in between is kinda hard to find.

easiest answer? don't EQ. try to build a mix with no EQ. balance of levels is far more important than EQ. I rarely use more than 2-3 bands of EQ-- a low cut, a hi cut, and then maybe a boost or cut around the harmonics or fundamental(s) of a tone. most importantly, don't over-use the solo button; how something sounds, especially EQ-wise, is more important in context.

When it comes to reverb....Is reverb always used as a parallel effect? By using send's for instance.

nope. if you've got the CPU power, use verbs as inserts, absolutely. One of the keys of getting depth is having things sit in difference spaces-- some up close and bone dry, some far in the back and washed out. but again, relative volume is far more important than verb.

Also I still have trouble with understanding muddiness. I don't really know in which frequenty range to look. I often read that mussiness lies around the 350 >500hz range. But clearly it's not as simple as just cutting away that range on all your instruments.

better to deal w/ the arrangement to cut out mud, rather than a mix. take out elements-- maybe you don't need a pad in a section, etc. If all else fails, then yes-- cut things out of the least-important element, but try larger-scale deletions first.

[blinx]

^^Word

[eyeatus]

upload an example, so we can give you more precise answers...

also, what DAW are you using? if it's ableton, i can upload a beat project for you

[Khazm]

Remember, it doesn't come overnight. I'm at the point now where I can hear what's wrong with my track and fix it. You'll start to know how much low-end to cut off etc. It all comes with practice.

[synthlf]

Remember, it doesn't come overnight. I'm at the point now where I can hear what's wrong with my track and fix it. You'll start to know how much low-end to cut off etc. It all comes with practice.

this

[BaseBass]

Hey guys, sorry for my late response here (had no time to check out your replies yesterday evening). But thanks very much! Already read some usefull things here.

Some additional info here: I work with FL 8. My basses come mostly from massive or Albino3. Most of my leads and pads just Albino3. Most of my drums are from sample packs that I paid money for. I rarely use just one sample for my kick and snare. I usually take 2 or more samples, and mix them together by accenting(boosting) the frequenties I like, and getting rid of the unnecessary ones using the Parametric EQ2. I free my kick and snare from the other instruments by through sidechain compression. I still have no clue how to turn a signal into mono after I send it into the mixer. The mixer channels in FL 8 dont seem to have an option to make a channel mono. Maybe I'm missing something. I use reverb only very lightly on my drums, because I want them to sound up front. Ass well as the heavy mid-Basses. Leads, pads, and additional ambience I put more Reverb on, and usually some delay with an offset and a stereo enhancer, to make it sound more wide and 3D. That´s about it. Ofcourse I also use saturators, limiters and copression, but that speaks for itself.

So uhm, here is an audio clip. It's a song I'm working on last few days. Though it sounds better than my previous work, it still lacks that real clear, 3D pro sound.

Soundcloud

[legend4ry]

better to deal w/ the arrangement to cut out mud, rather than a mix. take out elements-- maybe you don't need a pad in a section, etc. If all else fails, then yes-- cut things out of the least-important element, but try larger-scale deletions first.

this this this this!


Composition can solve SO many problems... If when you over engineer music and put everything in a tiny little frequency band and squeeze in as much as possible it becomes lifeless - Sure you might have a stunning mix down which translates into a booming, punchy, hard hitting master but you'll be missing out on interesting structures and finding new ways to fit in more and more in your track via composition which essentially makes your track more interesting.

For instance...If you have a high in frequency band mid-range lead going and you can't fit in your slightly higher bell licks in without it sounding cramped and muddy, bring the cut off filter on the mid-range down a bit so it allows the bells to come through more without having to compress the flip out of them both or just take out of the mid range for 16 bars and have your drums/bass do something new...Theres so many things you can do without having to narrowly EQ everything and compress the life out of it.

[BaseBass]

Thanks for your info legend4ry. It's true that an arrangement should have clever placements of each instrument. I sometimes tend to put too much in one place. But I do always try to give everything it's own dominant position in the frequenty range.

Just a quick question though... (just throwing it out there)... what is the diffrence between, let's say, applying a Parametric EQ to cut of all frequenties below 1400hz (just a random example), or applying a high pass filter that high passes everything above 1400hz? Is there a diffrence in sound? Or a diffrence in CPU usage etc etc? It seems to be the exact same thing to me, only with a diffrent tool. but maybe I'm mistaken.

What's the diffrence?

[djbmc]

if your track is sounding flat, chances are you've over compressed it.

[BaseBass]

In this case, I don't think I've compressed very much of my track. Light compression on the drum bus, and the hard hitting elements like the Kick and Snare, but have no compression on the master yet.

[synthlf]

after listening to your tune, i checked it with spectrum analyzer, and noticed that for example intro chords/pad already have some very low frequencies, that it doesn't need...and you play them further in a drop with your basses and drums...so it might be that you just need to eq your tune elements properly(still you might have cutted those when chords/pads play in the drop)...the tune itself is nice, some minor mixdown problems with some wobbles, but if it was my tune i just eq every element, and see if there's any problems left, also don't reverb low frequencies, almost every reverb now has filters, so try to avoid reverbing low frequencies(this muffles mix alot imo).

[Point Blank Music]

Hey, if it's any help, we offer a free course in making dubstep in Ableton -

http://www.pointblankonline.net/sample-a-course/

You will have to register to do the free course but that only takes a minute to do. Have a go at it and get back to us if you need any more help.