Mastering ? How to Smooth out a track

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philosophygt

New member
Ok I am very new to Mixing Recording and Mastering. I think I am getting very good sound, I use exciters and compressers- hopefully the right way. But the problem is that the final mix sounds almost too clear and fresh, I listen to other hip hop=old school stuff and they have a smooth easy listening sound to there songs and mine is like almost too noisy or clean if this makes sense. I have no Idea if im even close but I was thinking tape saturation for some analog distortion would be my answer or if you have any other suggestions that would be good.
And If saturation is what I need then do I put it on each track or on final mixdown? This is my myspace page with all my music , well my first CD Im finishing if you would listen to it and maybe suggest what I need to do Id be one happy dude. Address is myspace.com/philosophygt
thanks guys. Philosophy.
 
maybe try a PSP Vintage Warmer or Waves L3 Multimaximizer,however if using the Waves L3 make sure to use it last,i believe you can try out the trial version of Waves L3 for 14 days,i hope this helps.
 
you are right sleepy,i overlooked that part mentioned about exciters,just be adding more to it,maybe to the point of clipping.
 
I would go as far as not using them at all. Especially because they're directly responsible for giving you the sound that you don't want. As far as getting some of that vintage sound, a lot of those guys used samples out of records. So if you're playing a part with a virtual instrument that typically came from a record samples, there's going to be a huge difference as far as the sound you're getting. I would play around with the eq, but first, I would use sounds that are more like whatever was used by the people you want to emulate.
 
Again, OP is referring to 'mastering' instead of mixing - mastering won't fix that...or it will to the certain degree

Old school hip-hop is made on older MPCs or SP1200, tracked to tape, mixed analog - which leads us to the fact there isn't too much top end involved. You're using digital technology that has wider/extended frequency response, so you end up having to much info up there, plus upper mids can sound strident sometimes resulting in harsher/spikier/more defined sound

I'd suggest not to rely too much on 'fix it in the mastering' thing and rather go back to mixing removing stuff you don't need, think lowpass, notching mids, etc..and as a must - remove those exciters

Also, when mixing, try to listen those tracks as a reference - just in case to check whether you're on the right path sonically or not
 
Exciters are more or less intended to over-hype and brighten a song, probably the exact opposite of 'smooth'. First thing to do is take those off IMO.
 
Tape emulation is good for 'smoothing' out a sound without deadening it. I've been using the AMPEX ATR-102 a lot (by had) and love it. Also look into things like the studer 800 emulations too :)
 
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