Feb 14, 2007 04:28 pm hey man, might help if you enter what you're using for gear and stuff in your profile so people can make more intelligent suggestions...
How do I get my mixes to sound good in ALL systems....
Posted on Feb 14, 2007 04:26 pm
sdp530
Member Since: Jan 19, 2005
I have been mixing hip hop on and off for a couple of years and it feels like I have reached a barrier. My mixes always sound OK but I just can't break through to that next level. Whenever I compare them to mainstream hip hop mixes, I can't, its just not comparable. You can pop in a professionally mixed cd anywhere and it sounds great. I am not looking for any miracle fix, but I am lookin for a few tips that will help me on my future mixes. I have uploaded a sample to my yahoo briefcase so you can have a listen for yourself:
briefcase.yahoo.com/[email protected]
The sample is in the "SDP Mix sample" folder.
Beware their is some explicit lyrics so please don't listen if this offends you.
-C
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Feb 14, 2007 04:28 pm hey man, might help if you enter what you're using for gear and stuff in your profile so people can make more intelligent suggestions...
Feb 14, 2007 04:42 pm alright lets see....
Blue Baby Bottle Mic
Focusrite Platinum preamp
Recording and Mixing into Nuendo 3
effects mostly with Waves plugins
M-Audio near field monitors...
its not the best, but we strive to get the best out of it..
Feb 14, 2007 04:49 pm your two biggest problems are your room, and lack of professional mastering...you're gonna hafta drop some cash on room treatment if you wanna mix properly, you're pretty much painting in a room with nothing but red lights, so it's hard to tell how much red to use in your painting.
Feb 14, 2007 05:00 pm Can an ideal mixing environment be created in a home studio without major reconstruction? From what I understand mastering will help with my problem, but I still feel that my mixes can be improved before I send them off to be mastered.
Feb 14, 2007 05:39 pm yeah, room treatment, and monitors that match your room, along with a few different speaker setups and some good headphones and you'll be able to work just fine...really if you get a good set of small monitors (6" actives) some kinda powered subwoffer some small regular computer speakers and some headphones, you'll be set....try to treat the room as best you can, otherwise turn your volume down, the quieter it is, the less the room affects the sound. also import a commercial song of similar style/sound right into your project for quick and easy A/B comparing.
Feb 14, 2007 05:53 pm Yes, you can have a good environment at home. It'll cost you money and/or take you some time. If you are a handyman you can build some sound treatments and place furniture and wall hangings in the room and make a decent sounding room.
Feb 14, 2007 06:11 pm I appreciate the tips, I guess it would be difficult to mix a track and have it translate when my room sucks. I'll have to back off it a bit before I can drop some cash on treatment. thanks again.
-C
Feb 14, 2007 07:07 pm Mastering will definitely help out a bunch. While the room can be bothersome, it is not insurmountable if you learn how to adjust for your room. I think the best thing to do is use WYDs suggestion of getting a similar style of song that you are shooting to replicate (soundwise), and use it to A/B compare your mix to it. If you can hear how your mix needs to change in order to mimic the sound qualities of the pro song.
Yeah, also if you can set up multiple sets of speakers, you can help it sound good across differernt speakers. Also A/B your mix with the pro mix across speakers...
Feb 14, 2007 10:19 pm I can't believe dB didn't use the 'H' word !
Feb 15, 2007 05:49 am Yeah, I was gonna mention HarBal...especially with version 2.3 in beta.
But I digressed.
it's all about EQing, man, thats what it's all about getting it to sound as good as possible in all environments.
Feb 15, 2007 11:09 am ROFLMAO@Hue.
It's quite amazing how quickly dB-Wan will chip in the "H" word ("My guitar strings keep breaking..." - dB-Wan: "You need Harbal!"), and he was suddenly uncharacteristically remiss...
Is there a new, super mastering program that he's keeping to himself? Has Harbal's Binford 9000 model suddenly found itself on his hard-drive? [Quote: especially with version 2.3 in beta]
Inquiring minds want to know!
Feb 15, 2007 12:20 pm I guess good old eqin will prevail, maybe he didn't use the "H" word because he knew I already used it on this track. The link he threw up is true about that Intuit eq. If your mix is terrible to begin with then its not gonna get any better after the "h" word.
-C
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