quality of mixed down tracks

fugetive · Post by **fugetive** » Thu May 18, 2006 3:56 pm

When i create a track and compare it to professional tracks, my beats always seem to sound much more "muggy". As if it is played under water, there arent enough high end sounds.. how can i improve this? and can it be inproved by mastering. What is stereo widening??

batfink · Post by **batfink** » Thu May 18, 2006 4:05 pm

Don't mess with stereo widening, total arse and won't make your tracks sound any crisper/brighter at all.

Sounds like you need to apply some EQ. Either to the individual sounds in your tunes or just the mixdowns. Best thing is to get a good EQ plugin and try boosting gently from around 8-16khz i'd guess.

forensix (mcr) · Post by **forensix (mcr)** » Thu May 18, 2006 4:10 pm

fugetive wrote:When i create a track and compare it to professional tracks, my beats always seem to sound much more "muggy". As if it is played under water, there arent enough high end sounds.. how can i improve this? and can it be inproved by mastering. What is stereo widening??

the muggy (muddy) sound comes from having too many sounds in the same frequency range

you need choose sounds carefully so that they have there own space in the mix

deepsix · Post by **deepsix** » Thu May 18, 2006 5:36 pm

spatial separation isn't a bad thing. in fact, it's good.

Each sound needs to sit in it's own space - tonally, frequency wise, and in the stereo field. This means each sound needs

With stereo separation, the general rule of thumb is the higher the sound, the futher out you can pan it.

So, kick and bass = dead center ALWAYS
Leads / Pads = can be panned out a slight degree
Hi hats can be panned quite wide.

Avoid panning hard right/left though, as it really messes up things on a big system/in a big room.

deepsix · Post by **deepsix** » Thu May 18, 2006 5:40 pm

Also, professional tracks are properly mastered and might have some finalization processors run over them...

like an "Aural Exciter", Multiband EQ/Compressor/Limiter, etc.

Won't change the muddiness - but will add some "sparkle and shine" as well as make things as loud as possible without clipping, while retaining some dynamic variation.

bleep · Post by **bleep** » Thu May 18, 2006 8:08 pm

Maybe try playing material you like, that you know sounds good, and compare it to your own tunes. Use that as a starting point for balancing the mix.

You're not mixing on headphones are you?

bruno belluomini · Post by **bruno belluomini** » Fri May 19, 2006 12:49 pm

forensix wrote:
fugetive wrote:When i create a track and compare it to professional tracks, my beats always seem to sound much more "muggy". As if it is played under water, there arent enough high end sounds.. how can i improve this? and can it be inproved by mastering. What is stereo widening??
the muggy (muddy) sound comes from having too many sounds in the same frequency range

you need choose sounds carefully so that they have there own space in the mix

You said all...

fugetive · Post by **fugetive** » Fri May 19, 2006 1:18 pm

cheers lads, ur comments r well appreciated. What are the best plug ins or eq's can i use to achieve this and where can i get them from?shud i eq the mix as a whole or do u think each seperate sound. I am using some samples too, which have been eq'd to take out unwanted sounds from the original track. once this is done, can i then eq to bring back some of the high end sound.. I have a few trax up on my myspace, tryin 2 upload the track im talkin about now, its the instrumental 4. dont know if its up yet, but shud b by tomoorow.

www.myspace.com/fugetive

thanks for your help, really appreciating it...

by the way, anyonelse got myspaces, wud b interested in hearin some or your tracks..

forensix (mcr) · Post by **forensix (mcr)** » Fri May 19, 2006 2:11 pm

fugetive wrote:cheers lads, ur comments r well appreciated. What are the best plug ins or eq's can i use to achieve this and where can i get them from?shud i eq the mix as a whole or do u think each seperate sound. I am using some samples too, which have been eq'd to take out unwanted sounds from the original track. once this is done, can i then eq to bring back some of the high end sound.. I have a few trax up on my myspace, tryin 2 upload the track im talkin about now, its the instrumental 4. dont know if its up yet, but shud b by tomoorow.

www.myspace.com/fugetive

thanks for your help, really appreciating it...

by the way, anyonelse got myspaces, wud b interested in hearin some or your tracks..

right mate eq each sound individually use a frequency analyser to see what frequency range it takes up -theres one called paz which is free i think- and make sure no two sounds take up the same space in the mix if they do eq the sounds so they dont

also use the paz frequency analyser to look at released tracks to see their frequency ranges it may help you

also if two sounds wont fit dont try and force them to fit its easier to try and find another sound that will

oh and

http://www.myspace.com/forensixmcr

fugetive · Post by **fugetive** » Fri May 19, 2006 4:33 pm

LOVLEY!

ramadanman · Post by **ramadanman** » Fri May 19, 2006 10:09 pm

http://www.myspace.com/ramadanman

as a rough guide

make sure hats dont contain dodgy low frequencies

make sure the kick doesn't clash with the sub

make sure the snare doesn't sink too low freq wise

and subtract frequencies rather than boost ideally

grime · Post by **grime** » Sat May 20, 2006 2:39 am

this article might help attached in the zip
the original page is defunkt

hipnotics eq

when using samples
crap in usually means crap out

gravious · Post by **gravious** » Sun May 21, 2006 4:51 pm

grime wrote: when using samples
crap in usually means crap out

This is often what it comes down to.

Getting to be able to tell what samples will sound good and bad is really useful.

Also, filtering and eq-ing is important, as samples especially often have "hidden" noise in them, which isn't obvious when you're listening to the track, but muddies-up other sounds. The most obvious example being hi-hat samples with a bit of bass left in them, or the tail of another drum or something.

Compressing and/or eq-ing the different elements to your song can help you to separate them, as can pan and different depths of reverb.

gravious · Post by **gravious** » Sun May 21, 2006 4:53 pm

Oh, also, I would just try and get your tracks sounding as good as you can a bit a time before you start slapping compression or eq over the whole mixdown.

Bo!

forensix (mcr) · Post by **forensix (mcr)** » Sun May 21, 2006 8:07 pm

gravious wrote:Oh, also, I would just try and get your tracks sounding as good as you can a bit a time before you start slapping compression or eq over the whole mixdown.

Bo!

x 2

komonazmuk · Post by **komonazmuk** » Mon May 22, 2006 10:17 pm

cut cut cut cut cut... get rid of all your unwanted freqs, dont eq just for the sake of it. you should be able get a level mix using shelfs and low/high cuts. Then compression and limiting are the next step. NEVER try and fix a mix with eq or multibands etc they just fuck up the next freq band...listen to your track quietly when mixing. If posible switch off the right speaker this way you wont hear any freq cancelations.

jera · Post by **jera** » Tue May 23, 2006 10:07 am

where could one get this Paz frequency analyser???

komonazmuk · Post by **komonazmuk** » Tue May 23, 2006 12:36 pm

Paz analyser is part of Waves bundle...and is not cheap!! there are a few free pc and mac spectrum analysers around. they all do the same job.

jera · Post by **jera** » Tue May 23, 2006 12:41 pm

well where can i get a free 1

fugetive · Post by **fugetive** » Tue May 23, 2006 1:23 pm

i managed to find a cracked version of waves.. never really appreciated how good waves was until now!

quality of mixed down tracks

quality of mixed down tracks

Re: quality of mixed down tracks

Re: quality of mixed down tracks

Who is online