How best to make a tight tune

[skimpi]

Hey,

So I'm a pretty big soundcloud fan these days, and I'm following a ton of UK producers who make tech/house/garage/dubstep etc.

One thing they all have in common is that everything in their songs is so well put together. The drums sound like your listening to them in the same room or something, even though it's upped on soundcloud which apparently degrades the quality.

Most of them use logic, is there something to this?
I just really want to know, is it really all about compression / eq etc? Or is alot of it about DAW/ soundcard / sample choice?

Cheers for any answers.

mate that tune on your soundcloud is pretty sick, I dont know why you think some of these dudes tunes sound better than yours, just keep doing what your doing and your production will get better.

Thanks mate. I don't know, I guess I just want to emulate them so bad. I am litteraly obsessed with tunes by Joy O, Boddika etc, I can't help but want to emulate them I guess, but then I have to remind myself alot of these guys use hardware or have just been doing it for years. I also keep jumping between Ableton, Cubase and FL because I can't seem to feel comfortable with any of them, though apparently the best stuff I've made has been in Cubase.. im just a bit confused I suppose.

Yeah, dont try and emulate, you will just get pissed off because the tune doesnt sound like them, if you do your own thing then it doesnt matter if the tune doesnt sound exactly like their cos its your tune. Plus, if you make tunes with your own sound, then providing its not absolutely shit, it will probably get noticed more than if it was top quality sounding but sounds like someone elses tunes. That tune though, I dunno I remember the percs sounding maybe a bit too dry, try adding a little bit (more) reverb, not too much though, and do you compress much? If you pick the right samples you may not need to, but a bit of compression can always help stuff punch a bit more, and parallel compression on the drums. Also the EQ thing, make sure you have a fairly equal level for the entire spectrum of the whole track, except the low end which will probably be a bit higher, and use EQs with spectrum analysers to separate the elements, say you have a few elements in a similar frequency band, then like slightly cut and boost at different points so they stand out from each other. Also pan things to separate them, two things at the same frequency panned slightly to either side will then become more clearer.