Mixing/Bouncing to wav questions

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Nate19197

New member
I'm working on the first song I plan on posting to soundcloud and am having trouble finishing it. Its pretty close to being finished but is missing something to it and I can't seem to figure it out. 'My question is, do you guys mix your songs as you go along? Or wait until arrangement is pretty much done then bounce to wav to mix everything?

On other projects I mixed as I went along so It sounded good the whole time I worked on it, but I ran into cpu issues so I decided to bounce what's done to wav first in this project. I'm having trouble finishing this song and getting tired of it, and second guessing a lot of it and I feel like that's becuase nothing is really mixed. Idk I feel like the track is pretty good, just don't know how to pull it all together.
 
A great composition makes mixing easier. Composition and mixing go together.

You cannot expect to add 10 tracks playing the low-end role and expect to "fix it in the mix".
It's wrong both musically and in physical terms.

I used to bounce and mix, bounce and mix and repeat 'cause of my cpu issues and I totally understand how you feel.

Sorry to give you this kind of answer, but... Invest money and get a good pc. It's the only way.

You cannot focus on composing and stopping to bounce tracks.
It cuts the mood/train of thoughts and you will possibly lose your inspiration.

When you'll consider to buy a computer save some money by not getting a great graphics card.

Key components for your computer:

* CPU
* RAM
* SSD Drive

This is what you're looking for. An i7 with 8-16RAM and an SSD drive will make you feel awesome and ready to compose.

Good luck
 
Thank you for the reply, and you're right I do feel like my computer can't handle stuff like producing sometimes. And since most of my tracks are bounced to wave without effects Im losing faith that the sounds will sound better with reverb/delay etc. I think a lot of my problem is since I'm just starting out I don't really get that vision of the way the song should and it's more of guess and check still for me which is frustrating. Thanks again and I'll look into a new computer
 
Nate19197 said:
Thank you for the reply, and you're right I do feel like my computer can't handle stuff like producing sometimes. And since most of my tracks are bounced to wave without effects Im losing faith that the sounds will sound better with reverb/delay etc. I think a lot of my problem is since I'm just starting out I don't really get that vision of the way the song should and it's more of guess and check still for me which is frustrating. Thanks again and I'll look into a new computer
Click to expand...

Try using EQ and compression first. Maybe some really reallt GENTLE limiting in the end for the peaks that have nothing musical to offer.

THEN go reach for an delay/reverb.

If you send an un-mixed sound to a reverb the reverb will generate an even more sh**tier sound as a result.
Don't feed your effects with mediocre sounds, you'll only end up adding more junk frequencies from the effects themselves.

EQ/Comp -> Effects

Also if you want to add depth to a sound and not widen it, try adding a mono reverb/delay and not a stereo and pan it the same as the source track.

Mono -> Depth
Stereo -> Width

Good luck.
 
Thank you and I never knew the reverb/delay being set to mono to give it more depth. Depth is definitely something I need on a few of my synths. Still getting used to layering and putting sounds together as well. And using compression is something I haven't really done yet so I wanna be able to grasp the concept of it before I just blindly compress stuff lol
 
Try to set general levels as you go along, and do a serious mixing session at the end. As you get more practice, mixing decisions will become more natural. If CPU is really becoming an issue, consider upgrading your RAM. It's very cheap and goes a long way. I tend to stick to DAW native plugins for mixing during the initial stages of a composition, then slowly upgrade to higher quality plugins towards the mixing stage after I freeze and flatten tracks with heavy automation. Honestly, if you have a fairly decent 4+ core processor and 8+ gigs of ram, your computer shouldn't be having any issues unless you are using an insane amount of plugins with tons of automation.
 
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