Buzz

Here i tried to get a phat sound similar to professional modern tracks, as i always find it difficult to make that noise like beefy supersaw right. It usually sounds too sharp and not as well integrated in the song.

All i really did differently this time was to compress the hell out of the bass and drums grouped together using OTT and most of the synths together also using OTT. Then compressed it further in master track including the fx and extras. I also used a LP filter on the drum/bass group and HP filter on the synth group to make the fade out, which i think sounded much better than automating filters on the master like i sometimes do.

What do you think, can you here some improvement? Maybe a bit too much compression? Too loud? How close would you say it comes to professional mixes? Any improvement tips?

I don’t really know what genre to put this in? Is it EDM or what would you call it?I don’t really feel like dancing, so i don’t know…

I think, it depends in which direction you want to sound like. Your song sounds kind of experimental. I personally don’t like the bass sound and the kick could be louder/snappier, maybe you have cut too much high frequencies from it. When the “multisaw bass” sound will be played (e.g. at 2:41), you cant hear the kick anymore.

One tip, use the spectrum analyzer and compare your song with others song which you want to sound like. Maybe you’ll see something, that you can change on your own song. OTT as master fx is sometimes great to get abit more high frequencies, but don’t overused it too much.

I think, it depends in which direction you want to sound like. Your song sounds kind of experimental. I personally don’t like the bass sound and the kick could be louder/snappier, maybe you have cut too much high frequencies from it. When the “multisaw bass” sound will be played (e.g. at 2:41), you cant hear the kick anymore.

One tip, use the spectrum analyzer and compare your song with others song which you want to sound like. Maybe you’ll see something, that you can change on your own song. OTT as master fx is sometimes great to get abit more high frequencies, but don’t overused it too much.

Thanks for the input! My problem is that i really have no idea what i want to sound like. I’m just trying to figure out different techniques to improve my mixes, but i kinda just fumble in the dark.

I kinda like that the kick doesn’t steal too much attention, but i’ll give your suggestions a go, maybe change the bass sound and beef up the kick a little.

Hi!

I always envy the pro EDM people for their immensely clear, intense, spatial but yet very synthetic appealing sound. I don’t have the know how yet, and know already there is a lot of science involved. And it takes a lot of know how and experience to get to the optimum.

What I see in this track…first thing it is TOO loud. I had to turn down my headphone amplifier after listening to normal top loudness mastered stuff. This is not good. Not because of the dynamics, those are cool in their artificial pumping ways I find, but because of the main mix voicing. Maybe fatigue of the ears after a long LOUD mixing/mastering session without recalibrating with reference tracks? Ears get tired like muscles lifting the ever same weight again and again for a while, and then sound is totally different unless you have something good to try to calibrate them with constantly …

Seriously, I had an impression as if my ears were blown by overload loudness. Despite knowing my headphones were on limited volume.

You hit some sweet spot, or lets say hard spot, where one has the impression of ears overload since hours and still listening too loud. This is unpleasant. EDM people normally seek for absurd loudness figures, but still try to wrap the listeners in smooth silk and velvet instead of drilling their ears. You are louder, you are a lot harder. Try your mix formula on grindcore, please…

The pumping is very cool for me as I said, but I felt some bassdrum hits were ducked by…the bassdrum itself? No, you setup something wrong there. And the main beat bassdrum has to be steady and come on position one on EDM, yours is sometimes evading silly high freq elements.

Musically this has a taint of EDM, yet it lacks the stric progreassion of specials and drops and rises of a modern disco piece while keeping up a general musical thread that stays throughout the piece. Yep, its still rather very experimental and peculiar. The usual disco piece would play around an idea, slowly taking it up and down with the usual break/drop sceme, but not do pretty random sudden changes without a bit stair to step up for them.

Don’t take this rude, I see your skills higher than mine in general. I just want to point out what I think (or rather hear and feel) about your scene, just as you demanded, so you can revise your work to the better.

I figured it was a bit loud as i just recently started using a loudness meter, didn’t know it was that bad though. Now i’m new to these LUFS numbers, but it seems like the LUFS is around -9 to -8.5 integrated, down to -7.5 short term. I’ve seen others aim for around -10 to -11.

To me the loudness isn’t really all that bad, i don’t feel it’s too hard, but i guess i’m tainted from listening to noise rock, death metal, black metal etc. Some of my favourite bands include Sonic Youth, Necrophagist and Darkthrone. I’m used to experimental sounds and i honestly don’t listen to EDM at all. I’m not to fond of the average EDM tunes, though i find their production appeals to me from time to time. There are always exeptions, but i’m green when it comes to this genre, so i can’t really point out what is considered EDM and i can’t come up with a single EDM artist i really like.

The closest to EDM that i like is probably Chemical Brothers, but that isn’t really EDM is it? Ok i like some Daft Punk as well though.

I’m really just trying to do my own thing, i don’t want to be governed by any particular genre or style. My aim is to make it sound more appealing to others, while it still has to be within my own frame of acceptable standards. Haha acceptable standards, what am i saying, i don’t really have standards, i just pump out whatever that comes to mind. I want to still be able to do this though, but at the same time improve my techniques and make my stuff sound better.

Because of my way of working i find it rather useless to use references, because i can’t find good references to what i want to make.

Is it really that loud? I’ve heard a lot of D’n’B mixes on youtube an such and i’ve gotten the impression those sound even louder? I guess you compared to EDM though…

I think i will adjust the levels to around -11 LUFS, i guess that will fix the loudness part at least, i don’t want it to sound much louder than usual, but not much lower either.

I notice you both complain about the kick and i do understand why, but i actually filtered it with a LP because i wanted to get rid of the higher frequencies. So you are right about this, but this was definately intended. It’s an easy fix, but i’m not shure yet if i want to make this fix or not because i don’t like to give the kick too much attention.

I can’t really hear the thing you mention about the kick ducking itself, but i guess you must mean where my effects and occational bass hit makes the whole rest of the mix duck to it. I did this all on purpose because i thought it sounded cool, but maybe i need to make some adjustments? Maybe my monitors lie a bit, yeah i know krk rokit 5 do lie a bit, but i didn’t feel it was a problem on my earplugs either.

I’ll experiment a bit with this and see if i can make some adjustments without too many compromises.

Ah, yeah i might have given the impression that i want to make EDM, but i’m really not aiming particularly for this. I would be more interesting in figuring out how to make more IDM oriented stuff. I really like experimental music, like Aphex Twin and such, but not so much swooshes and drops and such, though i would find it fun learning to master those too.

This particular track is not really all that what i want from a track, but for a few hours of work one evening not using any commercial plugins i think it turned out allright. Personally i think i made some improvements compared to some of the other comparable tracks i’ve made earlier, but i have always struggled getting the sound i want i probably find a lot that is wrong with this one too after a while. I’ll experiment some more using your valuable input and suggestions, maybe if i can make it work i’ll post an updated mix soon.

Well, we got different skills allright, but you’re as close as it gets to being my mentor. You’re definately way behead of me when it comes to the theory.

Thanks as always OoopslFly, you should know that i shure do appreciate it!