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This past August I purchased Cubasis VST 3.0 and have since completed two thoroughly mediocre tracks. It's now painfully apparent that I suck when it comes to final mixing and mastering.

The two tunes in question are here: http://mp3.com/andronova Do any *experienced* scene musicians have useful advice that could instantly turn me into an engineering genius?

I know that my EQing blows. What am I missing?

And I also (now) know that using reverb on bass drums, or other low sounds, is mostly a no-no. (On a side note, I've just found two quality freeware plug-ings to replace the pack-in freebee.) Any hints on good reverb?

Plus, I'm not exactly hot shit when it comes to synth patches. Advice?

(There's also tonnes of voice-leading errors in both compositions, but that's not related to recording...)

Anyway, I'm just fishing for help. My intention is to re-record the above two atrocities after completing a third.

...

trust your ears not the software. try with different audio setups (w/ headphones, good stereo speakers etc.) to hear how it sounds in different environments.

dynamics is important but there is no rule with compression either - often in electronic music more is better but then again your ears know it best, just try different ratios and compression methods to find the optimal one.

eqing is a bitch but it might get a bit easier if you do it separately for each instrument before adjusting the whole picture.

all in all - be creative and try different mixing methods. eventually you'll find something that is quite near the wanted result.

I felt ashamed to admit that I listened to my songs in the car or on different soundcards/players or from the bathroom, early in the morning or late at night in order to find the best (in my opinion) balance in equilizing/volumes etc. Later on, I found out that other musicians do exactly the same things for exactly the same reasons. Have you ever tried something like that?

It is true that some minor faults can only be detected when you hear through the loudspeakers or the headphones. In general, I think you should listen to your songs by any means available just to be certain. It's something like testing your code in all possible hardware configurations :-)

texas faggot

http://trance.nu/v3/forum_viewforum.php?forum=14&3900

I don't make a lot of trance, but they have some useful tips there on mastering.

better use logic audio .. even the support for pc will not continue :(

Yeah, I already listen with a variety of output devices. (Headphones, mid-size speakers, big-ass speakers, and PC speakers.) But obviously to no avail. Perhaps next time I will try it when sitting on the toilet. Or maybe just take a break instead of finalizing in one 10 hour sitting.

Thanks for the forum link. I'll see what advice I can drum up.

here's a tip:
put yer main output volume to 0
play the track
start upping the volume slightly.
if a part jumps up at you and clearly is too loud, lower its volume.
the main key is to get a good mix going where nothing (really) kills anything else, and it is possible to hear the whole track at a low volume.

general advice:
use parametric EQ to boost stuff that sounds too flat
and just generally aim for a balanced sound.
also, if in any way possible, purchase _good_ headphones and a _great_ set of monitors.

the net is full of eq & mastering & compression & limiting advice and how-to's and manuals and everything. supposedly they'll be of use.

my number one tip would be to make sure that you don't have too much "frequency overlay", in other words; that you don't use a deep bass at the same time and in the same frequency-range as f.ex. a bassdrum or another low-range sample. the same goes for other tings like strings (example: try to remove some of the lower end if you use a string in a "cluttered" part of your song), leads and other drum sounds.. "make room" for the sounds, don't just pile them up over another.

also; pay attention to your panning and effects; if you're a beginner it's easy to be "lured" by the many effects available to you, but don't. less is more. (this all differs to what kind of stuff you're into of course, but it's basicly the same).

individual compression of the drumtrack(s)/vocals before mixing them with the rest is also advisable. when it comes to compression just use melwyns approach, it works. also; no-one has a very good approach to mixing right over my text here.. see..? :)

good advice on mixing fra no-one, and listening to ones own tracks when not actually working on them (for example in the car, on the bus and so on) is good, because it helps you getting a good overview of a track, which you (I :) rarely gets when you're (I am) working on it.
playing your track for different people is also good, especially if you have someone who are good at giving feedback (not necesseraly on the soundmix, but rather on the track itself), People who don't like the style you are making are usually the best for this, they are often better at pointing out bad parts and elements in your track.

my 2 cents :)

..oh and yeah. *don't* pan your instruments so much, and especially not the basslines and bassdrums.

also, check out "commercial well mixed music" and then play your track.

as gloom said, isolating the frequencies is a very worthy idea, you can use lowpass/highpass-filters for that. also, f.ex. reverbs/echoes can be messed with (isolated), it doesnt have to be an unprocessed stream.

it's very easy to get lost when moving from trackers to sequencers feat. vstplugins, and suddenly end up with a mashed sound consisting of as much echo/reverb as possible.. i.e. mess. now, granted, there's a lot of music out there that _is_ basically reverb, but don't (necessarily) get carried away. there _is_ strength in the "pure&dry" sound..

so, sometimes its just "cleaner" to think 'sprinkle' instead of 'wash' when it comes to efx.

however, some of this starts to enter the area of how people want to sound, not necessarily mastering/mixing.

also, resources:

guide to mastering with ozone:
http://www.instrumenty.pl/download/ozonemasteringguide.pdf
(supposedly this is a _very_ worthy resource even if you dont use ozone to master)

http://www.globalserve.net/~mugwump/cjfaudio/Guide%20to%20Mixing%20Mastering%20and%20Loops.htm

http://homerecording.about.com/cs/mixingmastering/

http://www.getsigned.com/jvest9.html

http://www.computermusic.co.uk/tutorial/eq/4.asp

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there are also dozens of books about eq&mastering, as it really is an infinite area.

also, if you have the time and money, perhaps checking out magazines such as 'sound on sound' and 'keyboard'(uk/us, not french) (and possibly 'eq', 'computermusic' 'futuremusic' .. the list goes on and on and on)..

it is practically endless.