This happens all the time, not only if you’re creating sounds from scratch. Since round about 1.5 years I also force myself to create sounds from scratch every time I compose, but just like you I often get something unplanned as a result, provided the sound is a little more “complex” than for example a pluckish synth or a growling bass. Therefore I still like to browse presets to get a foundation in the right direction as a starting point, and then I start designing and adjust the sounds to my needs.
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Yup. That sounds very familiar…
I just need to listen and compare with Pro Tracks
because my weakness of mastering and mixing.
For sure, my Shortkey Skills for Renoise are not very good as well.
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My biggest weakness as a composer is the disability to block the effects negative situations have on my mood, which prevent me from getting started.
I need to be in a positive mood in order to be creative.
And it seems, with age it´s getting harder to isolate oneself against depressions since we live closer to reality now (and some truths about life were hidden from us when we were younger).
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My weakness is knowledge and hardware 
That’s why I crave new knowledge and understanding.
That’s the beauty of music, you can go your own way. And when you stand behind it and can make things perfect, that’s the real value.
The mixing/instrumentation side of things, usually. Relegated more half-baked tunes to the pile of unfinished sketches than I can count because I couldn’t quite un-muddy the mixing after hours of cumbersome trial-and-error. I’ll have an exact idea in my mind where I want each element to be, but rarely connect the dots all the way to the end in practice.
Composition-wise, I understand how groups like The Orb or Ozric Tentacles layer dozens upon dozens of elements and everything so harmonically. It’s the mixing-wise side of that which I can’t comprehend how they do that exact thing without the entire soundspace of their songs turning into a mess of acoustic Jackson Pollock-style diarrhea, which is what happens to me when I try to bite off more than I can chew.
Every song I uploaded to the Internet sounds OK in their mixing, but those were all accidents of providence. Not once did I ever “know what I was doing”. I lack the knowledge to articulate into words how any of the rare, occasional release-worthy songs I made in the past, came out sounding clean and balanced.
Procrastinationooning
I don’t think this is a weakness at all when you are aware the concept of reference tracks, but a great practice because it is not a good idea just to rely on our bare ears that our speaker or some sneaky programs (Dolby Access) could alter the sound that you might not aware.
But still, mastering and mixing is also something I am not particularly good at. I don’t really seem to have a consistent loudness and tonal balance among all my track. I might do too much bass for one track, while too little for another.
Best way to judge your OWN tunes is to take off ALL the FX, then listen to it… Does it work standalone or does it sound Playskool?… If it’s Playskool then you got more to do, study & think about… Good music needs very little FX…
Use (different types of) instruments that don’t use the same wave forms and frequencies, use filters in order to remove most of the low ends, use EQs in order to emphasize desired frequencies, use compressors in order to tame peaks. Make sure your mix is right, therefore mix in mono in order to get a proper balance. If you don’t know how to start, check the mixing thread.
Depends. I’m relying on my ears only all the time. As long as you check through several outputs (like headphones, monitors, speakers) you should be good to go.
@strobotone
Literally me atm.
The end is getting closer. Other priorities are set. You want to leave a better world, instead you realize the (western) world is getting worse all the time and there’s nothing you can do about it, which is depressing. Let’s leave and move elsewhere, escape the rat race.
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Less sustain/release and gating are also often good ways to prevent the mix from becoming muddy, but it depends on the style. I agree though, to use filters to remove everything that doesn’t make the sound better is my first go to though and if i can’t make it sound good that way i’m using the wrong sound. Automation is also quite crucial, just a simple filter sweep or some moving eq’s can do wonders and give some air and space in the mix.
The main thing i have struggled with though, is to mix everything too loud. My 2 cent is that if you think something disappears in the mix, don’t increase the volume, but reduce the volume of other tracks instead. You could try the pink noise mix, adjusting the levels of all tracks to match the same pink noise, then you should in theory have a balanced volume in your mix.
How come? Less sustain/release means softer instruments/shorter instrument lengths, which means less instruments playing at the same time for a short amount of time, which means less competition between frequencies in that amount of time, which means less potential of muddiness. So yes, it could help, but it doesn’t fix the culprit.
Similar game as above. Moving the filters or EQs means continuously changing frequencies, which means in case of clashing frequencies shortening the amount of time in which frequencies are clashing. But the culprit, which is the basic instrument sound and its frequencies, is still there. So you gotta change the basic sound in order to prevent clashing frequencies, right? Instead of automating filters and EQs I would recommend to pan your sounds and/or automate panning in order to go “3D”, this way you can reduce clashing frequencies a little.
Depends on the volume of those sounds. Before changing a lot of volumes of a lot of instruments just because one single instrument seems to get lost in the mix, I would rather EQ it, which means in this case raising desired frequencies and maybe also lower other ones in order to minimize competition first. If it’s still getting lost, you can change other values just like the volume.
There’s no way to prevent mudiness without choosing the right instruments and filtering the low ends. The more instruments you’re using, the more important is proper mixing. Just mix in mono and check through several outputs, no professional equipment required. At least that’s what I’m doing, and the results sound like this, which still isn’t professional but quite ok I think.
I said it depended on the style of music. At least in my experience when everything has a long release bleeding into each other it can become muddy.
Well, it’'s not anymore a culprit if you can make it sound good with a sweep though.
I think you should preferably use eq’s and filters before you adjust the volume to pink noise, or else you will just unbalance the levels again when adding those.
I found lately that it’s almost just as important to remove unwanted higher frequencies as it tends to steal from the energy in the mix.
Yes, everything above 10000 Hz is unnecessary imho, that’s what I’m filtering by default. But when it comes to mudiness, low ends and clashing frequencies are the culprit.
Absolutely. And you can avoid this by filtering and EQing correctly. 
That’s right. First adjust the frequencies by filtering/EQing, then adjust the volumes by mixing in mono (I’ll always prefer mixing in mono over pink noise adjustment, which is quite cumbersome).
Or you can prevent them from bleeding into each other. 
Like with a hihat for instance, if it has a tail bleeding into the next hit you lose some dynamics compared to if it gates before the next hit. What’s desirable in the particular instance depends on how you want it to sound. If you feel a lack of punch an muddiness and wants everything to sound snappy, i think gating those relases aren’t such a bad idea.
Timing of the hits are also quite powerful, just a slight delay on a sound can make such a huge difference to the transients.
As long as you are not using the same playback device, you will be safe. I have learnt the hard lesson without playing my tracks in other devices, listening different output from the same windows laptop, but dolby access in my laptop secretly altered the sound even I have disable all the possible features on the settings, created an illusion of perfectly mixed audio yet it is not.
Unfortunately, it is not just a western problem, it is generally getting worse worldwide, so these days, I decided to focus on the things I can control and achieve, and using less social media since I find doomer contents are very profitable and I don’t want to fall into it. Yes, it won’t change the world now, but at least these many tiny changes and achievements might help me for a better future.
Yes, but there’s a difference between drums and melody related instruments. You need that rhythm and punch (achieved by proper compression) when it comes to drums, but other instruments like strings and pads shouldn’t be “cut” at the end, that would destroy the fluent transition of notes. Anyway, there are many ways to improve the sound in general, but there are also some fundamental basics in mixing/mastering that cannot be ignored.
As long as you make sure that everything sound related was set neutral, you can also use the same playback device (for example the same computer). IF your mixing and mastering was properly done, it will sound good everywhere.
Nobody in the entire world is as crazy as the westerners, for example think about thousands of fake genders, mass immigration, radical feminism, “rainbow fascism”, double standards, the contempt of governments for its own people and so on. In Asia, Africa and South America it obviously remained quite normal, people are way less fake and more honest. Due to limited resources and endless stupidity of mankind, there’s no hope. It’s simply too late for changes.
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Looking for a new home (and probably a different country) since a while now. Where one is just left alone and be creative again like in those days when things were simpler.
Remembering the brilliant 4-channel Amiga tunes when we had to work with limits (forcing one to be creative).
But that´s the point. Now we have all the (more or less redundant) musical tools in the world but overall creativity dropped to an all time low. Sure we are getting older, heared a lot and get bored much easier. But i refuse to believe there can´t be anything fresh out there.
I still believe we can still grow, given the right environment (And Renoise being one of them).
But sure, i am grateful for some musical possibilities we have today but we have to set ourselfes limits on order to truly make great music.
Another weakness is not being able to finish a piece because of not having a specific theme or a lack of inspiration.
There are around 1000 unfinished tracks and snippets on my hardrive from the last 20 years. 5% of them evolve into something good. But the majority will never get finished. The arrangement is the hardest part. I found in the past, the flow was best when writing the first thing down which comes into mind when fiddling around. Then other things pop up when staying focused. But getting the ideas to sound what they sound like in one’s head is another story.
Well, you mute strings on a guitar to make it sound clearer and less muddy, so i don’t really see your argument that a melodic instrument never should cut.
A pad wouldn’t be a proper pad if it suddenly cuts, that’s part of what makes it a pad.