Need help with crashes!!

T

TomAusProducer

New member
Ok, so since day one i've encountered this problem, occasionally it won't happen but most songs yes it does. Crashes (and most FX) simply don't work with the drop. They're either too loud which ruins the energy and completely stuffs it up, or i'll turn them down and they'll have no power, effectively ruining the drop also. I have no idea why on some tracks 99 percent of sound effects and crashes will work, emphasizing the drop making sound amazing (like you hear on most commercial songs). Most of mine you don't get that satisfying sound of the leads, bass, kick etc connecting with crash right on the drop. I've been struggling for ages to try and figure out why this happens but I have no vlue whatsoever. Thank you to anyone who can help!!! :)
 
Hello, there are several things that could be at play here.

I believe your solution lies in several small tweaks to your current crash that will help it to gel better with the accompanying sounds. Doing these things would allow you to turn your crash up louder without it having to muddy up the mix.

1. EQ
Many crash samples, and samples in general, have a lot of power in the low frequencies where it's not needed. If this isn't removed, it'll stop you from turning up the crash to where u want it because it will be competing with the kick drum/bass way before it reaches an aesthetically pleasing level.
Try loading up an eq and putting a high pass filter on it, raising it to about 100 hz (that's a pretty safe level, but will remove a lot of that bs)

2. Pitch
If you have a song in C Major but your crash is naturally played at C#, no matter how loud you turn it up it's always going to feel a little off. Lowering its pitch by 1 semitone in this particular case would work wonders to help you achieve your goal
Try finding out its pitch by throwing it into something that can detect pitch and then adjust it a semitone or two according to your key

3. Timing
Make sure everything is lined up as well as u can on your song's grid, including checking your crash sample's wave itself. I've seen so many drum samples that include up to 50 milliseconds of silence before the sample even starts and that timing discrepancy will be felt although it may not necessarily be heard.

4. Clear out the clutter
Many melodic tracks (synths, etc) and high frequency percussive elements (closed hats, etc) also carry a lot of bs in the low/low-mid area and clearing this out will help your crash to shine through in the area it's most needed
Try high pass filtering these tracks around 300 hz or so and see how much that improves your sound

To hear an example of what a crash sounds like when it's gone through these quick steps, check out the video in my signature starting at 3:40. That's right before the chorus hits.
 
Ok, so while all the advice given above is legit I can't really ignore the fact that before all this you really should make sure that your levels are as they should be.

Can't stress that fact enough, how much of a difference the proper levels can do. If you slam everything up against a brickwall limiter, typically the sounds that suffer the most from it are the sounds that add some variation in dynamics to your track. For example the snare/clap and transition effects such as crashes which when packed with a lot of other sounds at the same time cross the threshold and get diminished in return.

Rocking the mix around the 0dbfs line is a great way to cause newly introduced sounds to sound like they don't add as much energy as you'd like to a track.

So before resorting to the techniques above take a good look at the overall balance of the mix.
 
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TomAusProducer said:
Ok, so since day one i've encountered this problem, occasionally it won't happen but most songs yes it does. Crashes (and most FX) simply don't work with the drop. They're either too loud which ruins the energy and completely stuffs it up, or i'll turn them down and they'll have no power, effectively ruining the drop also. I have no idea why on some tracks 99 percent of sound effects and crashes will work, emphasizing the drop making sound amazing (like you hear on most commercial songs). Most of mine you don't get that satisfying sound of the leads, bass, kick etc connecting with crash right on the drop. I've been struggling for ages to try and figure out why this happens but I have no vlue whatsoever. Thank you to anyone who can help!!! :)
Click to expand...

I am not going to offer an opinion until I can hear something that illustrates your problem: I do not like shooting in the dark so to speak, as I am likely to miss more than I hit what I am trying to help you with

so, audio, please, Tom!
 
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problems with crashes bruh? that's a first ... you're overthinking it.. just put it loud enough in the mix so that it makes you happy
 
You and me both, brother. I hate it when people can't even tell their problem in an understandable sense. Being a computer repair technician, I say, "Bring your PC and I'll fix it!"
LOL
 
Your crashes probably aren't cutting through the mix due to spectral masking. This occurs when multiple sounds in the same frequency range occur at the same time and compete for your attention. Technically speaking they are just canceling each other out, sort of like phase cancellation. This can cause a huge headache when mixing because you'll turn up the crash, then you won't hear something else as well, then turn that up but can't hear the crash...you can see how this can become a cyclical nightmare. The solution to this is to cut certain frequencies in the sound masking the crash, then boost the same frequencies of the crash.

Another reason this might be an issue is because of stereo placement issues. Perhaps you have too much going on in the center of your mix and certain sounds could be widened up to space out the stereo image leaving room in the middle for the crash or vice versa.

It's really hard to tell what's going on because you haven't provided an audio example. If you post an example I'm sure everyone here can help you much more :D

Hope this helps!
 
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bandcoach said:
cut one or boost the other but not both
Click to expand...

Technically the best method would be to just cut one with a narrow Q to incur the least phase shift. But depending on the sounds you are EQing, sometimes doing both doesn't hurt. For example, you want the ring of a snare to be more present and cut through some droning mids, boost 2-3dB at 200Hz and cut the drone at the same frequency 2-3dB.

Another obvious technique would be to side chain that specific frequency. For example if a dubsteppy basses highs are interfering with the highs of the crash, put a compressor on the bass and enable the side chain EQ with a high pass filter and make the crash the side chain input.
 
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