Productions lack "sparkle"

**Gcraz** · 03-14-2011

Hey i'm listening to my beats, they sound great. then i listen to something on a blog and it has similar technique and musical composition, not worried about that as much as like lacking that "ready for public polish." I hope its not the instruments that i use. Could be because some of them sound better which you can notice if you really analyze it critically. But are there any ways i can "polish" my tracks. I don't mean mastering. I eq the sides seperately from my mids and it sounds good until i listen to something else that just clicks better. Any tips? Comments?

www.soundcloud.com/heffay

**leopoldolopes** · 03-14-2011

I'll follow you and leave some comments!

**JimWonda** · 03-14-2011

Me too. I'll follow you and leave some comments!

**philosofi** · 03-23-2011

Maybe your monitors are to blame, I had a 2.1 setup 2 my pc that I used to make "AMAZING" sonic works... then when I heard them on normal monitors (outside my pc) I found a bunch of low-end confusion (overamped, muddy, overlapping freqs [beats], etc.)

Listened to the 1st track, nice experimental sound... if you had the speakers I have it would make your day, you can hear exactly where needs to be sweetened up on the eq spec to fill out your tracks. just so happens I have this pair (minty in retail box) for auction on ebay right

I'm moving cross-country and tryna downsize my luggage

**astroidmist** · 03-23-2011

I think the sparkle factor is the sum of everything that people can do to make their mixes sound better; from better instrument choice to better composition, to better mixing, to better effects and automation choices.

It takes years to get that good. And also some people work in teams and have access to the high end gear, so us home recordists are competing with people who have a lot of advantages over us in terms of both skill and gear and manpower. And treated rooms too...

Just keep researching good sound in general and keep trying to learn better mix and composition techniques. No one single thing is going to get you "sparkle".

**Styl** · 03-23-2011

Adding some air to your mix can really bring it to life.

**acetheface954** · 03-23-2011

Call me crazy but I thought mastering is what gives the mix that sparkle and openness.

**Over Dose** · 03-23-2011

Originally Posted by acetheface954

Call me crazy but I thought mastering is what gives the mix that sparkle and openness.

Using a limiter on the track will give you more cohesiveness.

**Gcraz** · 03-23-2011

yea...thats what i've been hearing. a professional studio, and professional speakers, and a professional at mastering

---------- Post added at 11:50 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:45 PM ----------

astroidmist - that makes perfect sense. i can tell now when a song doesn't sound as good, its because of the actual instruments i'm using and sample quality of my samples. when i sample older tracks, i use mp3 which worked until i heard the quality of using vinyl straight to my DAW. i need some more musically equiped friends

overdose - i have been using a limiter with pretty good results when i use a multiband dynamics effect chain before the limiter. Thats my "mastering"

philo - wish i had cash for new monitors. i'm using m-audio av-40's which i learned are more for entertainment then music production. once i get the cash, thats the next thing on the list