How do you process your cymbals/rides?

[nowaysj]

Haha, not me, I don't do shit! That's why my songs sound like marf.

[fragments]

Yea...but sometimes I like a marf-y mix man...like I dunno...I've just been listening to too much 90s shit lately...lol...I just want to track everything to a Mackie mixer and only use two compressors...

I'm so off this whole "commercial"/"pro" mixing style where everything is EQd to within an inch of its life and everything is side chained to everything...

[nowaysj]

Yeah, I'm with you on that. I can't stand that sort of sound. I'd rather hear like three of four full spectrum elements existing together, mixing, vibing. Anyway, to each his own. There is a very broad spectrum there. Honestly, if you just get your volumes right, and cut some of the rumble and mud, it's good enough for me.

[fragments]

Yeah, I'm with you on that. I can't stand that sort of sound. I'd rather hear like three of four full spectrum elements existing together, mixing, vibing. Anyway, to each his own. There is a very broad spectrum there. Honestly, if you just get your volumes right, and cut some of the rumble and mud, it's good enough for me.

Yea. I'm not getting on anybody's case. I'm just personally over it, lol. I just see so many people getting upset over the fact that they don't have these super technically awesome mixes...and I kinda feel like no one cares about writing tunes anymore...I'm just like...I dunno...

/off topic

[DrGatineau]

I'm so off this whole "commercial"/"pro" mixing style where everything is EQd to within an inch of its life and everything is side chained to everything...

i admit to EQ'ing (filtering) most of my sounds, but sidechaining everything to the kick and snare or to each other is overly-clinical imo it's ridiculous.

[Huts]

Every time I read a thread like this on DSF I feel like everyone over processes the shit out of everything...

My thoughts exactly, but I was doing the same thing at one time so I get it. At some point though you realize that the tiny changes you are agonizing over don't actually have any effect on the sound (that you or anyone else can realistically tell) and you're doing things because you read somewhere that this is how it's supposed to be done. I'm at the point where I don't even put EQs on my channels until I hear a problem, then I go back and fix it, and my mixdowns have actually improved. Not to say that my shit sounds the best, but my workflow increased, I'm having more fun, and I'm able to focus more on making music. Isn't that what we're all here to do anyway?

[AxeD]

'Pro' mixing is all about MS processing. Unless we are talking about computer produced music,
where half the mixing is done for you.

[nowaysj]

AxeD, tell us about your MS processing.

*very obliquely referencing Dune, by Frank Herbert*

[fragments]

Every time I read a thread like this on DSF I feel like everyone over processes the shit out of everything...

My thoughts exactly, but I was doing the same thing at one time so I get it. At some point though you realize that the tiny changes you are agonizing over don't actually have any effect on the sound (that you or anyone else can realistically tell) and you're doing things because you read somewhere that this is how it's supposed to be done. I'm at the point where I don't even put EQs on my channels until I hear a problem, then I go back and fix it, and my mixdowns have actually improved. Not to say that my shit sounds the best, but my workflow increased, I'm having more fun, and I'm able to focus more on making music. Isn't that what we're all here to do anyway?

Yes. Absolutely. Funny, I could have told this exact story.


@jags: I always look for low frequency content to cut, but other than that...not much EQing for me. I rather try to write the song and create the sounds so I don't need to...EQ is corrective...so I try to make sounds that are correct in the first place.

I've tried fooling around with M/S processing before...no matter what I do it always sounds ass-tastic, lol.

[Simulant]

No one ever seems to take this kind of advice to heart when a nobody like myself offers it, so here it is from someone credible.

Great advice - keep it simple. It's easy to get caught up in processing sounds, running your cymbals into a bus, compressing, eqing, saturating, more eq, etc etc. Whereas the best thing is usually to just work on your arrangement and volume levels and get everything sounding as good as possible.

That being said, sometimes I like to do weird stuff with my cymbals. I've compressed and limited them so they're flat before, then sidechained them to other drums, so you get a kind of sucking in effect from them. And reversing cymbals into other cymbals is good too.

[rockonin]

Every time I read a thread like this on DSF I feel like everyone over processes the shit out of everything...

Apart from the eq all my effects are implemented using sends not inserts.

[fragments]

Every time I read a thread like this on DSF I feel like everyone over processes the shit out of everything...

Apart from the eq all my effects are implemented using sends not inserts.

Its cool man. It was pure coincidence my post followed yours. I'd been following this thread from post one and it was 100% a general statement. I'm not getting on anyone's case really. I just go about things differently myself.