How loud should your final mix be for selling beats?

MrWetface

New member
I am not quite ready to sell my beats yet, improvements definitely need to be made, but I plan on starting sometime around March or April. I'm getting better in all aspects of mixing and mastering, but I still have to learn and improve. So obviously, my question is, how loud should your mix be in order to sell it to someone, providing it's a dope beat and mixed right?
 
Instrumental beats should not be loud at all when selling. you're gonna want to have room for the vocal on top which needs to stick out. I guess you're gonna have to mix it in later if the rapper lets you do that and really works with you. If the rapper has a mix engineer he/she works with then you want to make sure the dynamic range (not volume) is low enough that he can work with it. This means that you should not be clipping even without a limiter. aim at -6db headroom so the vocals can sit in between very nice. If you think you might sell your beat try adding a rap to it if you have one and mix it for that rap then take it of before selling.

I hope this helped! I'm not really into mixing beats as I do EDM myself but I would love tho hear your feedback if it worked or not!

BRHSM
 
I was thinking the same thing. I am surprised after trying to find the answer there aren't any Web pages that have a definitive answer. I just want to put out quality beats and I want anyone that purchases them to be completely satisfied with them.
 
Loud? Not very. Leave some space in the mix for vocals. If you're hands off after selling the beat, the vocalist can mess with loudness on their own. If the track is mixed well, all they'll need to do is some light work on the master.
 
I was thinking the same thing. I am surprised after trying to find the answer there aren't any Web pages that have a definitive answer. I just want to put out quality beats and I want anyone that purchases them to be completely satisfied with them.

yeah it's one of the most undocumented things out there! I might make a vid about it but I need more info myself too.
 
Thanks makrsamples and BRHSM. I'm thinking I'll have them mixed at about -6dbs. I want to improve my beats a bit more before I even entertain the idea of selling them so I am trying to gain that knowledge so I can get practice in. I've bought beats for the Don't Funk up Our beats contest a few times and they all seem to be the same decibel level.

I don't want to send them off to an engineer to get mixed right, I want to do it all myself. I enjoy it a lot.
 
Thanks makrsamples and BRHSM. I'm thinking I'll have them mixed at about -6dbs. I want to improve my beats a bit more before I even entertain the idea of selling them so I am trying to gain that knowledge so I can get practice in. I've bought beats for the Don't Funk up Our beats contest a few times and they all seem to be the same decibel level.

I don't want to send them off to an engineer to get mixed right, I want to do it all myself. I enjoy it a lot.

This is what music is about! i would like to hear it sometimes!
 
I will definitely keep you posted. I should have a music video out early next week. I sampled a song and me and my friend rapped over it and shot a video. I just have to tweak a few things on the mixing/mastering end and then edit the video.
 
Instrumental beats should not be loud at all when selling. you're gonna want to have room for the vocal on top which needs to stick out. I guess you're gonna have to mix it in later if the rapper lets you do that and really works with you. If the rapper has a mix engineer he/she works with then you want to make sure the dynamic range (not volume) is low enough that he can work with it. This means that you should not be clipping even without a limiter. aim at -6db headroom so the vocals can sit in between very nice. If you think you might sell your beat try adding a rap to it if you have one and mix it for that rap then take it of before selling.

I hope this helped! I'm not really into mixing beats as I do EDM myself but I would love tho hear your feedback if it worked or not!

BRHSM

If it will be played for the public I limit it to radio level loudness. If it's going to a specific person who will use it I give them a completely limited mix to hear how it will sound once worked on, stems upon request, and a mix at -6db.
 
Thanks makrsamples and BRHSM. I'm thinking I'll have them mixed at about -6dbs. I want to improve my beats a bit more before I even entertain the idea of selling them so I am trying to gain that knowledge so I can get practice in. I've bought beats for the Don't Funk up Our beats contest a few times and they all seem to be the same decibel level.

I don't want to send them off to an engineer to get mixed right, I want to do it all myself. I enjoy it a lot.


Cardinal rule (1) . If you are serious about 'selling' your beats... it is the general rule, if you have the resources to do it.. send it to a professional.... If you can, get it mixed and mastered by a professional, with the right gear to get your beat to the level that is required for commercial distribution... the more ears on your mix, the better... You may even use one to mix it, one to master it...

Reason being.. They have the right equipment... I have seen a second hand analogue mixing desk, that was over two hundred thousand dollars... They have analogue EQ's, Compressors, tape. You get out the end of it.. something you simply cannot achieve 'in the box'. It's Loud, but it is warm, full, and dynamic.. just like the shit you hear on the radio, if of course your mix is sound....

If you want to do it on your own, because it can be quite expensive to get a good engineer to polish your beat, then use reference tracks, that are i your genre.. and try to get them as close as you can to the balance they have.. it's a headfuck treating rooms, getting the right monitors etc... though if your serious... send it to the big boys and get it done right...
 
Theres a few things in play here. 1, i understand your concern for loudness because if your beats are going to be auditioned on a beat site and a client has been listening to one producers beats who are a db or 2 louder than yours, then they play yours, it may be perceived as not as good, but, you can always bounce a version that is louder but make the actual download at a reasonable level.

2. its really not about where the track is peaking, but more about how much master bus limiting youre doing. if youre not doing any limiting, then you can bounce your mix just under 0dbfs, because a mixing engineer can just lower your beat however many db they want to give them proper headroom to mix the vocals in. This wasnt a good idea back in the tape days because doing that wouls raise the noise floor, but there is no noise in the box so you can do that. but if you limit the master bus, that cannot be undone. even if you set the limiter output to -3db, if youre doing 3db of limiting gain reduction then thats peaks you will never get back.

my suggestion would be to not use a limiter on the master bus for your beats unless its very tasteful, and absolutely necessary to achieve the sound you are going for. if you dont use a limiter then you can export the beat as loud as you can make it without clipping 0dbfs.
 
If it will be played for the public I limit it to radio level loudness. If it's going to a specific person who will use it I give them a completely limited mix to hear how it will sound once worked on, stems upon request, and a mix at -6db.

If you give away stems you're gonna loos to much control IMO. they will be able to change to much for example its just a matter of 2 minutes to take all stems without the melody throw another melody under it and sell it as their own beat! you should be careful doing that!
 
Everyone seems to be saying the same thing so I will also confirm lol.

Keep it quiet so the vocals can sit in there nicely.

Don't compress the shit out of them and add a lot of gain!!!

Focus on GOOD BALANCE (good mix) not on loudness.
 
totally depends on the platform in which you're selling them + genre.

for example places like spotify, itunes, etc have alogrithyms that during the conversion, attempt to make your music either louder or quieter depending on how loud it is compared to other songs in the genre. I believe it is called loudness normalization. basically it is so that when one song plays the next doesn't blow out your ear drums. so making a song really loud for those platforms could actually be a hindrance, hurting the dynamics or even losing signal. for those platforms you may want to make the mix less loud.

other places like soundcloud and bandcamp do not have normalization as far as I know. in that case you'd want to probably make those mixes / masters louder to make up for it.

if you're selling directly to people on CD's i would go loud but not louder than anything else in said genre.

hope this helps in some way :)
 
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keep your mix at 6 PPM (-10 Db) this is a broadcast standard but also it allows headroom for a vocal when others want to mix your stems in.
 
Just to play devils advocate - a lot of people are saying to not mix it very loud, but you could also make the argument that if you mix it loud it will grab the attention of a potential customer more than other beats that the guy is listening to. That being said, obviously don't overkill it. Also, like what others were saying - keep room in the mix for vocals. That 1000-4000 frequency range is vital to keep a little bit more open for vocals.

Final consensus from me: mix it well, loud, and keep room in the 1000-4000 frequency range for vocals.
 
between -12 and -9 DB always seems to be what I am told from fellow producers, though there are always exceptions to the rule!
 
Most people that buy or lift beats will put vocals on it and then want to mix and remaster that to sit nice when played before or after current industry tunes.

One thing to keep in mind is that the sine wave bass/kick or 808 can break-up and distort easily when limited once, let alone twice, so if you're concerned with the final sound quality, in the end, it's mostly best to supply 2 versions to the client (maybe 3).
One version of the beat that is quasi-mastered for the client to listen to through the site's that are selling them.
Another version of the mix with no limiting and a bit of headroom for them to cut vocals to,
and one with the instruments broken out for them to mix from the ground up
(you'd probably want to charge more for this and have different pricing) You can also do stems..

Besides having the consolidated, broken out tracks, the next best thing is supplying a stereo 24 bit .wav with no limiting, conversion, or dithering ...and leaving some head room for the client to cut vocals to and then mix and have mastered.

Many of the sites that stream/post the initial beats, will convert what you send them (.wav) to low quality lossy Mp3.
I think you still have to be concerned with water marking or protecting the
materiel that you're posting/selling, because grabbing anything that you can hear off the internet is not too difficult. gl
 
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