Thanks. I still haven’t found the holy grale of mixing, but of course I adopted some techniques.
Put a VU-Meter on the kick and adjust the volume, it has to be 0 vu when the kick hits
Delete all unnecessary frequencies of every single instrument by filter (for example a hihat doesn’t need frequiencies within the low end section, needs to be “hipassed”)
Set the lower frequencies (everything under 200 Hz) to mono
Use compressors in your single audio tracks to regulate the volume peaks of the respective instruments (not every instrument needs to be compressed)
Set the whole song to mono and adjust the volume of all the other instruments, so that everything is clearly audible
If you’re executing point 5, make sure to adjust by using studio headphones/studio monitors AND common Hifi speakers, switch as often as necessary until it sounds good everywhere
Switch back to stereo and repeat the procedure for finetuning
Use sends and busses for some parallel processing to get more “whoomp” and “depth”
You’re not the first one telling me that the mids are strong in my tracks. I don’t know why exactly, the EQ in my master channel always pushes the highs and lows twice as much as the mids. I just push the mids when it comes to arps, plucks or other similar small and short “background instruments”, because for me it sounds much better, it’s thicker, deeper and clearer and most importantly you get a better audibility even if your song would be flooded with loudness and bass. Generally I’m pushing single frequencies for some instruments. The kick or bassdrum for example always gets a push around 1000 Hz. Usually some frequencies need to be tamed, others to be pushed, depends on the instrument and its sound. What I also do sometimes is to cut the highs by LP filter (hihats, snares, other drums and if necessary also other instrument types), but of course only if it’s stringently required (which my ears are telling me). And when it comes to the final mix and mastering, I also use mastering techniques like the rear bus technique, parallel drum compression (for example the so called New York compression), parallel bass compression or else. But I can’t say “it always has to be done like that”, depends on the song and the type of sound you’re creating.
All right, now it’s time for you to answer my question I asked 3 months ago.
Your song I’m referring to is called “Urlaub3d - C-nu4 Transi Nu2c” and you posted it in November 2020.
Thanks for your insight. How to you exactly apply the filter? what slope? do you usually “only” do like bandpass each instruments area? or do you only hp? Do you only use an eq/shelve or full cutoff/filter?
That mono check workflow is a nice approach, will do this again, too. Usually I am to lazy for all this, but surely, if it sounds right in mono it means that the eqing and instrument selection is done right.
Are there compression rules for background vs. front elements? Do you leave transients on background elements or front elements?
I am simply using midi pitchbend. There was a second track only with modulation wheel/vibrato, but I think it was lost by accident in version 239. I actually really like the cheapo implementation of pitchbend in Renoise, because with using pattern commands only, it sounds pretty “steppy”, which gives the bending some nice retro like character maybe. But most comfortable to edit would be to use a proper VST3 synth and MPE pitchbend pianoroll editing. Hope that helps you.
I use everything, but not for everything.
We’re still talking about using filters for mixing, right? When I want to “add” or subtract frequencies I use EQ., when I want to “kill” frequencies I use filters. What kind of filter I use depends on what goal I want to achieve. Most time it’s “only” HP (“killing” the low frequencies of hihats, hats, snares etc.) or “only” LP (“killing” the high frequencies of some basses or else) or both at the same time (for example when a hihat sounds too harsh), Bandpass not that often (for mixing). Mostly I’m using the standard Renoise Digital Filter with the standard settings (Biquad, Oversampling 2x) and adjust Cutoff and Resonance. Very simple.
No, not really. Transients are “eliminated” for example via heavy compression of the mirror of your drum bus while executing parallel compression. You keep the original signal of your drum bus and add for example 30% of the heavy compressed mirror without the transients. At the end you will get a fuller sound because the softer parts of the signal are “louder” than before.
I see, this one, ok. Never had a look at it, never thought about it. I will have to check this out, thanks. It seems to work similar as the pattern effect commands. Actually it seems to be pattern effect commands, just others. In any case better than regulating some VST portamento speed by instrument automation. That’s what I won’t do for sure, way too cumbersome.
Mein erster Reggea Track , soll es zumindest sein
Ahoi Becky,
Alles Gute zum B-Day.
Ich wünsche Dir Gesundheit und alles Glück der Welt.
Geb acht auf Dich und nicht so viel putzen näh
Bis demnächst
LG Tisi
My first Reggea track, at least it should be: rofl:
Ahoy Becky,
Happy B-Day.
I wish you health and all the happiness in the world.
Take care and don’t clean too much sew
Up soon
LG Tisi
Yery nice!
Again it’s a reminder to the good old Amiga days. I really like the melody of the lead and the way you played with the plucks and short synths in the background. But you see, it’s also a good example for the fact that tastes are different. For my taste there’s not much happening in this song, it babbles on. I could use it for background music while working or else, but I probably wouldn’t turn it on for listening to it because I want to. It’s a nice, soft, well produced piece of art, no more and no less. Keep it up!
Lot of people trying to made masterpieces all the time. They trying to made something unusual that nobody made before, something that millions of people will be exciting hearing. And how it works? Well, even some very commercial and known artists have only few (or even one) popular songs that everyone (at least “lot of”) people loves.
For me “nice” is enough. I don’t have plans to made “great masterpiece” every time I start Renoise. Couple of people who will like my work - that’s all I need. Thousan (millions?) of songs are produced every day and released to the network, so there is literally no option to made something unusual or revealing. So “nice” or just “fine” should be the main goal to every musician.
Glad to find something less percussive and more tonal here!
