Mastering

W

Wolf Re

New member
I've recently started to focus on improving the quality of sound in my tracks. The main challenge I'm trying to overcome is that my beats sound a bit further away, or inside the speaker more than a professionally mastered production piece, and what really bothers me is that my sounds aren't carrying out of the speakers as well. I think it has to do with compression, and or eq-ing ( my tracks are all panned, so I don't think that's it and I only have a lowpass filter, which I'm not getting much use out of ), both of which I have started working on, but only have basic software with which to use. I know some people might say to give it time, which I am, and will continue to do, but I really want to understand sound well, and will appreciate detailed info, anyway I just want to get my sound so it's as if it's right in the front of the speaker. Thank You

Peace
 
A couple of things....

Sounds that sound "distant" etc may be caused by them having too much reverb on them and not enough dry punch.

Excessive panning can be very tiring on the ears and often sounds "wrong". Generally, keep kicks dead centre, snares roughly central and only extreme pan effect type cymbal noises. This is just what the vast majority of producers do for the majority of tracks, it's not an absolute rule.

If you have a problem with sounds that seem to vanish at certain points then you may need to pay more attention to the compression applied to that intstrument.

Just keep making tracks and you'll get better. READ as much as you can to aid your understanding of the theory behind producing and engineering.

MM
 
great post's, i have been producing beats on Fruity Loops sense the 1st version came out.

it is a very underestimated program.
Fruity Loops 4.1 has unlimited possibilities.
making beats with fruity loops just takes more time because you really have to get down and dirty to get what you want to hear exactly.
but you can still make professional just as good if not better beats as commercial does.

my tips on beats are to ....

1.make sure any sound you use is the best quality of its categorie(cheep hi hats that sound more like a click will ruin a beat)

2.you have to make room for diffrent frequencies, like bass and kick drum, you dont want them running into eachother, that goes for every noise.

3.pan your hi hats, not a rule, but sounds nice and clean,no certain way just move the pan controls untill you find what you like.maybe add some reverb not to much though

4.dont put to many noises in at one time, and if you do make sure they all have there own space to fit in and you can hear them clean.

5.some beats are just loops mainly and sometimes those endup being the hardest ,headbobbin beats you'v ever heard, and was the element that made the song what it was.and on the other hand iv heard alot of instrumentals to actuall songs and i dont know how the artist had confidence that it could be a good song, a beat is a diffrent song before you put lyrics to it.

6.compare your beats to commercial beats over and over again to match the sounds.

7.to get a professional sounding structure of a beat you can use a basic 16 bar verse and 4(8) bar hook.
every 4th bar in the verse use a sound to bring in the next loop of 4 bars, and add a new sound or melody behind the next set if you want, make it get harder, softer whatever, there are so many ways to structure a beat ,wich in my opinion is the main thing in getting a great professional sounding beat(besides sound quality)

8.i could go on forever and other people will disagree with me, some will agree, some will give you other tips just to make me look unexperienced, everybody makes beats there own ways, if you have somethign to sequence ,and high quality sound samples and good plugins to modify the sounds, and the ability to stretch short sounds , and ways to slide the sounds and controll when they cutt off and have the capability to add reverb ,compression ect.. you can pretty much make any beat as good if not better then anythign you hear on the radio.

many people bad talk fruity loops and problly will after this post, but a sequencer is a sequencer its the tools that matter, theres ways to get around any problem you have with computer sequencers, alot of beats sound like a computer composed beats, if thats were they were created by i have found ways to cover that up, theres so many tips and tricks to make up for the loss of producing a beat in real time.fading volumes, delaying the attack,panning,compressing, its endless

ps. sorry for the bad grammer and spelling , im limited in skills.lol

i eliminated my problem with beats sounding , small, tiny, in the background, behind everything,little you name it i had the same problems, the best way is to look at your beat like puzzle peices fit them in the right spots (frequencies) and (left and right pans)and it will sound alot fuller and in controll.the goal on a computer sequencer is to make it so it dont sound like its just buttons that are being pushed wich is usually what happens.


i hope i helped you in anyway, if you didnt understand anything ask me to re-explain.if you want to know more ask me, i am willing to give any of my knowledge to anybody regardless because i know how crazy it can drive someone inside to want to know the next step and to always find another step they need to take once they have finished the last step, theres so much useful knowledge out there that people have and should share with everyone oever and over again, because producing and music is not a competition when it comes to the knowledge of sound, but it is when it comes to melody and structure and lyricism.


wicked rob



1 more thing GET A SET OF GOOD FLAT NEAR FIELD MONITER MIXING SPEAKERS AND A GOOD SOUNDCARD FIRST!
 
I wondered when you say pan do you copy the track you are panning and pan to both sides or how do you do panning?
 
when i pan (in beats)
i sometimes will copy the same track(hi hats) and yes pan them not all teh way left and right just a little off center on both,when i pan on a lyric track i record one straight track of the main verse then 2 tracks (not copied) of the overdubs to emmphasize the words and i pan them almost all teh way left and right.
does that help?
 
yes that helps alot thanks. I always did that with my vocals by doubling up 2x times and then panning and then have the main track in middle but I never did it on my beats thanks
 
I think you will have to look into a quality soundcard and decent monitors if you want to hear your sound correctly. I went thru the same problems as you, my music wasn't sounding "proffesional" and when i would burn it to a cd and listen to it in the car it would sound toatlllly different. After you have good monitoring, its all about quality of samples and instruments you use, and then mixing and effects. There are a lot of usefull books around on mixing/mastering. (Home recording for dummies helped me a lot, hehe). Hope this helps, good luck.
 
home recording for musicians for dummies is a great book, i defanitly reccomend before you continue actually, it will teach you everything from parametric,shelf,graphic e.q. to compression ,gates,limiters,expanders,structure, its really amazing, hes right to, once you have your moniters and soundcard its all on your quality of samples, one thing i left out, sometimes when you pan right and left on 2 of the same tracks, it dosnt make much of a diffrence if there exazctly the same, sometimes i put rever on just one of them not to much though.
 
when i make beats, i just build sound upon sound. if i start with a drumline i made, i put whatever comes next; whatever the beat is calling for. bass lines usually set the groove, drums set the pace, and melodies seem to tell the theme like the voice of a singer, but this is all general. The main point is to build however the asks you to. if you pan everything scientifically and it doesnt capture your emotion, then you transformed some mathmatical problem into a smooth solution, but you also failed. Just pad and build beats however you feel them, the most....well, this is my advice, take it how you will. If I have any questions about the subject, it would be....if i make my beats on reason, should i export them into ableton live or use rewire for automatic input? will this lessen the audio quality or have no effect? And, how do i keep the audio quality from reason to burning it onto cd. theres always a difference in the cleanliness of the beat...Maybe it can be avoided.
 
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