Please help , how do i get my Mix "fat "and "full' ???

W

WadeDEEP

New member
i have just recently started learning/trying mixdown and mastering on my tracks, one thing ive noticed is that when i have a look at my final track ,(exported to mp3 ). The wave of my track doesnt look as "full" and "fat" as other people sounds on soundcloud . why?? and how do i get my track like that ?, ive noticed that some of the tracks that are full/fat hav better sound quality then mine.

i know i still have allot to learn about this ,which i am trying to do, .
Thanking you in advance for any help you guys give me :)
 
Try to mix your song as better as possible before mastering. Compare your track mix with a commercial track of the same genre, and see how it goes. For example, I made one dubstep song, and compared to one song from Benga. I used a spectrum analyzer, and noticed that the sub-bass of Benga's song always peaked at -8db (I use Fl Studio), so I raised the volume of my sub-bass to -8db as well. This made my song a lot more "fat" than it was.

About the clarity of your songs, you just need to cut out frequencies you are not using, on every instrument. For example: on that same song I said above, I made a cut on the sub-bass at around 90hz, so i'ts possible to hear some of it's harmonics, but it won't mess with the mid/high end.
 
WadeDEEP, from personal experience (which is very minimal at this stage) the volume level tends to be the lowest concern of mine. I aim for clarity and dynamic range. I make electronic music (Dance, Chill, etc). After I have more or less achieved all that, I look at the loudness. Here's a really good article about the whole "Loudness War" concept (Search Google for "Learn the Loudness War Secret"). In brief, it describes how some producers have managed to make their tracks sound loud even though they don't appear to be so on the levels.

To give you a quick answer though, put a compressor on the Master , lower the threshold and voila -> loud. But you are compromising dynamic range, quality and energy. So in my opinion, that is NOT the way to go.

Let me know if you want to find out more :)

Oh and as Ddream said, mix it to the best of your abilities and then attempt to master it. But trust me, mastering is not something you can achieve over night/week/month/year (maybe). It's an art form of it's own. I've been making my own music for a couple of years and have always tried to do a small "mastering job" on each one of my tracks. With each track, I've gained a tiny bit of knowledge. That's how progress comes around :)
 
That "fat" look you are seeing is most likely a result of brickwall limiting. That's something that's done during the mastering process for extra volume. However, you can kind of shortcut and do it yourself by putting a brick wall limiter as the very last insert on your master 2buss. Adjust the volume until it sounds about as loud as you need. The louder you go, the worse it tends to sound, so don't go crazy - you don't need to have the loudest song out there... there is virtually ZERO correlation between loudness and the Billboard hot 100. And bottom line, don't worry about what waveforms look like because nobody listens to music with their eyes.
 
What you're referencing to on soundcloud only shows volume in a given range. Agreed, limiting will give you commercial volumes at the expense of dynamics. However, I generally associate the terms full and fat with frequency response of the low mids and lows, 50-400Hz. Try giving your master bus a 2-3dB low shelving boost at 300Hz to start. If you find it just gets muddy, work on the EQ of individual tracks in this frequency range.
 
Thanx guys !!! im gona have to read up on some stuff you guys mentioned here ....more then enough to keep me busy for while , il let you know how it goes .

for now all i did on my tracks was some eqing and leveling on my tracks and it came out quite good (not too bad) but i obviously still need alot of practice on that which im doing .

im nt much concerned about loudness , but rather for clarity (quality) and im trying to find out hw to achieve this .
 
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You're on the right path then! There's plenty of material available about mixing and mastering. Read up on it, practice it and don't forget to actually make some tunes!

:)
 
"That "fat" look you are seeing is most likely a result of brickwall limiting. That's something that's done during the mastering process for extra volume. However, you can kind of shortcut and do it yourself by putting a brick wall limiter as the very last insert on your master 2buss. Adjust the volume until it sounds about as loud as you need. The louder you go, the worse it tends to sound, so don't go crazy - you don't need to have the loudest song out there... there is virtually ZERO correlation between loudness and the Billboard hot 100. And bottom line, don't worry about what waveforms look like because nobody listens to music with their eyes."

dont listen to this^

chris carters advice is misleading and completely inncorect, in order to make a song "fat", you will need to add mid and low range equalization to individual instruments and drums within the song, this will make the music sound fuller and make your wave form "fatter"
....as for the brick wall limiter, DO NOT DO THIS because if you decide to master this track professionally(ask any pro mastering engineer) , it will be ruined before you start the process! just trying to help!

-ymcmb mixing and mastering engineer
 
Bass lines, 808s and subs can give you a fat feel. Use low background pads too. Something wavy to keep the background constant. And with the wave form, make sure ur mix is as close to 0.0 dB without clipping (Going over 0 dB). Also, make sure you pan your instruments so they all arent mashed in the center together.
 
In terms of making a song fat in my opinion its about balance - so unless you are fixing problems in a particular sound try to do as much of the fx and eq in reference to other tracks as opposed to being solod. Ideally you would want to play all tracks but initially this can be quite difficult so for some songs i might start with the bass and kick and bring things in 1 at a time. Look at the overall curves in a spectrometer for commercial music - and referencing this info with your ears will hopefully help you identify how you are lacking fatness. Be aware that mp3's will look different in the lower most and higher most areas due to their nature.

Im not opposed for spectrometers for a couple reasons - my monitoring environment is not acoustically sound and spectros allow me to fix issues that I cant hear accurately. It also helps give me an idea of tonal balance - because many commercial songs have similar curves, i think a spectrometer could be a great introduction to tonal balance - if you know what you are looking for.

It has been said before however another mention cannot hurt - you have to throw away frequencies that do not add to the musicality of your tracks - this will free up room for the more important frequencies.

Best of luck!
 
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