Ancient samurai mixdown techniques (FL)

[Sinus Sawtooth]

any FL producers care to share their mixdown techniques? I find myself still struggleing to get the mix right... what I usually try to do is to get the total volume around -4DB, so I can try to achieve a perfect harmony with the frequencies in my tune and making sure that I have no clippings and stuff like that...

for some it doesn't really work that well, I tend to use a lot of "fillup" sounds which get lost, or get fucked up,..

I was thinking about exporting the tune when it's done per instrument to something like cubase or something and mix in in there, lots of people told me that the soundengine of FL isn't really capable of producing tight mixes...

/discuss


oh, here's some reference of my music,... it sounds flat and I want to learn how to bring the dynamics in to a track

http://soundcloud.com/sinus-sawtooth/si ... n-progress





maybe I just EQ too much :-S

[vivace]

Dont work with FL, but NEVER TOO MUCH EQ Getting more contrast in
there, giving different aspects of a track their 'own' frequency band and
panned place in the mix helps getting more space in a track. Don't know
if this helps, but don't be afraid to PUSH that EQ to the LIMIT for the sake
of CONTRAST

[widelows]

To be honest, i allways eq with -6db headroom.

But sometimes.

Some tracks i make actually sound okay without eq, thats mainly why i dont bother.

But most frequency exotic tracks need it.

[Sinus Sawtooth]

I hope this isn't bait for feedback on this track.

This track sounds flat to me. The mix sounds good to me though, maybe somethings can be pushed or pulled, just in terms of volume, but I hear the flatness that is probably buggin u.

Fact of the matter is that there are many little tricks and techniques that accomplished producers use to strengthen sounds and produce more dynamic mixes. Unfortunately these techniques have avoided me all of these years. I hope what I'm hearing isn't just flstudio sucking the life out of this mix. I don't think that is what it is. U might want to select a few elemental sounds, and give them extra treatment, like harmonic exciters, some distortion, some character compression. Send some of it out of the box for the hair treatment. See Terakete.

Pay Macc 25pounds or whatever it is, and have this track mastered, and ask Macc what he did, that information will be worth well over the 25pounds it costs to have a professionally mastered track.

F what the populists say, sometimes the high quality sound has to come from high quality gear. An ME will have that gear.

EXACTLY! thats whats bugging me, couldnt lay a finger on it, but it's flat indeed, and no it isnt a bait for feedback, it's a problem I have which I want to solve by learning the right production techniques

but thanks, I really have a use for that information and I already had the plan to get one of my tunes mastered at a studio and just sit there and see/learn what they do

[james fox]

i would imagine that good mixdown techniques are universal and not just specific to one sequencer.

personally i'd probably disagree with the previous poster saying 'never too much EQ' - i tend to find that making any one plug in work too hard makes your mixes muddier. to that end, i find that if i'm really fiddling with the EQ to get a sound to sit right, i'll usually change the sound at source (different sample, or change the synth patch, or whatever). only use compression if you are 100pc sure what you are doing, and even then only a couple of db here and there to keep things tight.

beyond that, if you want a good mixdown that is easy to do then just make sure you don't have too many sounds in the same frequency range playing at the same time. i think most mixdown issues are actually arrangement issues, so fix them that way. definitely split things into frequency bands - top end, upper mid, lower mid, bass, sub bass - using group channels and EQ / filters. also, once you have done your first mixdown, save the project under a new name and reset all the faders and EQ to zero. then bring up your kick drum so it peaks @ -5db, and mix the drums around that. then bring the bass in. then vocal, then lead, then pads, then fx.

blah blah blah. that's how i do it, seems to work ok, sometimes

[Sinus Sawtooth]

EQ to zero. then bring up your kick drum so it peaks @ -5db, and mix the drums around that. then bring the bass in. then vocal, then lead, then pads, then fx.

blah blah blah. that's how i do it, seems to work ok, sometimes

good advice, think I'll just strip every effect from the instruments and redo them... in a logical way...

[james fox]

one other thing i learnt is to watch out for internal clipping of plugins as this will make your track sound flat and lifeless. good mixdowns are about a lot of little things that when you add them all up together makes the track really come alive.

i should point out that i come from a house / breakbeat background, so i'm not sure what i write necessarily applies to dubstep music.

[Sinus Sawtooth]

one other thing i learnt is to watch out for internal clipping of plugins as this will make your track sound flat and lifeless. good mixdowns are about a lot of little things that when you add them all up together makes the track really come alive.

i should point out that i come from a house / breakbeat background, so i'm not sure what i write necessarily applies to dubstep music.

could you explain what you mean with internal clipping of plugins

[james fox]

one other thing i learnt is to watch out for internal clipping of plugins as this will make your track sound flat and lifeless. good mixdowns are about a lot of little things that when you add them all up together makes the track really come alive.

i should point out that i come from a house / breakbeat background, so i'm not sure what i write necessarily applies to dubstep music.

could you explain what you mean with internal clipping of plugins

well, i use ableton live, and i one day i noticed that the little level meter on the right hand side of the drum machine i was using was redlining, i.e. clipping internally. this means that the sample itself was too loud, and so as i understand it was clipping internally, so now i bring down the volume of the sample using the individual drum machine gain to make it as loud as possible without redlining.

some people like the sound of digital clipping, but i prefer to keep it unclipped and then use saturation across the bus, as it sounds warmer to my ears.

[james fox]

i'm at work, but will try and listen later on...

[lowpass]

one other thing i learnt is to watch out for internal clipping of plugins as this will make your track sound flat and lifeless. good mixdowns are about a lot of little things that when you add them all up together makes the track really come alive.

i should point out that i come from a house / breakbeat background, so i'm not sure what i write necessarily applies to dubstep music.

could you explain what you mean with internal clipping of plugins

He might be referring to gain staging? where each component will have certain "sweet spots" at the right volume. Making sure to get the most out of each stage in the signal chain will help achieve a better sound. And some will just plain distort at lower volumes than you'd expect, if this is the case I wouldn't expect it to sound flat/lifeless I'd expect it to sound just plain shit.

@op you mentioned filler sounds? what I like to do with these (non fl-user) is get a really frequency rich sound that covers most of the spectrum and then hack away at it with some heavy Eq'ing to make space for the really important elements (kick,Snare,Hats,Bass)

So I'll usually HP then cut at 100 (If the HP hasn't already taken care of that area) cut at 250/300ish (wherever the body of the snare is) Maybe cut at 2-5k if I want the cymbals/hats to shine through. Then if the rest of the track is quite dull it might be an idea to boost the high shelf from 10k+, whereas if the rest of the track is bright then contrasting would be nice, so maybe drop the top end.

Hope this helps

[Sinus Sawtooth]

yo fox, what do you say about this track though? I agree that most mix issues are arrangement issues, but what about this track. The only thing I hear is that bass drone could just be killing everything, though I really like the way the bass drone carries momentum, so everything is should make space for it but still. Thoughts on what this track needs in terms of arrangement and mix?

well, tbh, thinking about internal clipping, it could be that Massive is clipping internally... I used a shitload of bitcrusher, dimension expanders etc effects on the sound to create the filth, rerouted to 2 different effects channels... I do know a fair bit about clipping and stuff but I never knew that a synth can clip from the inside... so the sound is send out around -10DB but if the synth is clipping it could destroy the whole vibe/sound...

maybe I should try to recreate the sound on a more zen way,...
or maybe I should try to find a easier hobby...

[james fox]

gain staging

yep, this exactly.

well, tbh, thinking about internal clipping, it could be that Massive is clipping internally...

if you're bitcrushing it and so on, then you shouldn't worry about internal clipping. i was mostly referring to internal clipping on drums, as i've found it really sucks the life out of them.

[lowpass]

gain staging

yep, this exactly.

well, tbh, thinking about internal clipping, it could be that Massive is clipping internally...

if you're bitcrushing it and so on, then you shouldn't worry about internal clipping. i was mostly referring to internal clipping on drums, as i've found it really sucks the life out of them.

Ah I see what you mean, I guess clipping the drums would be in effect adding some huge amount of compression/limiting to them.

Overcompression = flat,

gotcha

Whereas clipping a bassline that is probably already really compressed/distorted won't make as much of a difference as they don't have as much transient detail as the drums? or something like that

[Sinus Sawtooth]

when I get home I'll just start from scratch...

first getting the kick right, then the snare(s), then the fills, then the subbass, then the melody, then the filthbass... hopefully I'll learn and understand the process resulting in a tighter more dynamic and alive feeling mix... thanks for all the information/tips and help guys

[vivace]

Maybe try to work the other way around?
Use the EQ to REMOVE obsolete frequencies, instead of boosting
the ones you want to emphasize.

[james fox]

indeed. also remember you can't boost something that isn't there in the first place...

(that actually sounded quite samurai-esque)