Hi,
what are your reference tracks, regarding mixing, regarding arrangement, or style? Please post it here, and also add a short explanation, what you find so good about it.
Meeeh, no reference tracks? Any tracks which you think are nicely mixed? Or is your own music simply the best without any competition?
There is no âthe bestâ. But indeed, no reference tracks in my case. Iâve never ever used reference tracks in my life. But of course I could name some tracks that are nicely mixed. One of my recent favorite mixes when it comes to Electro is this one:
The balance of drums, bass and synths/pads is great, both through headphones and speakers. In MANY cases itâs great through headphones but somehow sucks through speakers because of a lack of balance. Either the drums are too loud or something else. But not the one above. Thatâs simply a great mix imho.
And in general I really like the mixes by Röyksopp. On one hand theyâre clear and on the other hand they have an impact and depth.
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Depends on genre, mood, medium, public⊠Thereâs no single answer for this.
When mastering I always use reference tracks based on the specific needs of the artist (and tracks).
Some artists prefer a clean master, with no analog modeled processing at all. Other artists like tape saturation, passive equalizers, etc⊠This preference completely changes what reference track Iâll be using.
ok maybe let me be more clear here: I mean a reference track which actually is very good in eqing, compression, layering, reverbation, dynamics, which works on all the different speaker sizes and always does amaze you. Which transports some magic. Within your preferred genre.
Ok I do master mostly breakcore, jungle and other high BPM stuff.
Stazmaâs mastering and mixing work is VERY good, so when mastering breakcore (or similar) I usually pick his recent stuff to check tonal balance (rather âsmiley-ishâ) and loudness (mostly around -9 LUFS-I and -6 LUFS-M).
Most breakcore tracks lack lower frequencies (or theyâre too muddy due to poor mixing) AND sound too squashed/overly limited, so Stazma really stands out among the crowdâŠ
His stuff sounds very dynamic and you can tell instruments from each other despite the characteristic complexity in breakcore or drill ânâ bass. In the track above you can also hear the master limiter being consistently triggered by the kick - and the sub showing up once it starts releasing. It sounds awesome.
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Nice, for the genre (am no expert here), it doesnât sound too harsh and there seems to be a lot of short reverb involved, which make it sound smoother.
two of my favorites
i like the old Dirty South sound overall.
This is a particularly well done example, the bass is divine:
An exemplary example from Moritz von Oswald of how minimal music works without becoming boring:
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