Louder tracks?

gkmusic · Post by **gkmusic** » Tue Mar 17, 2009 2:19 pm

So i've bin tryin different things to make my overall mixes louder and I'm having a hard time tryin to get my tracks up to the level of stuff like Fly Lo, mike slott etc.

How do these beat makers create loud, clear yet heavily processed music? I've tried several things such as limiting, compressing, EQ'ing and i find these help but hinder the over all quality of the track (apart from EQ'ing).

i can't help but feel some how I'm doing the completely wrong thing or i'm simply not using said methods in the right way

I've also come to the conclusion that it's probably the quality of my DAW (which is FL studio) or the final mastering that gives the track it's loudness and clarity, am i wrong in assuming that?

Anyone got any adivce on how i can tackle this problem whilst mixing and also does anyone have any preffered methods they use to make their tracks loud and clear?

lowpass · Post by **lowpass** » Tue Mar 17, 2009 2:22 pm

Clearness = cutting of frequencies from individual instruments so the overall mix fits better together.

With less clashing frequencies the parts stand out more and the overal volume can be boosted

After this there is compression which I don't want to go into too much because people have different views on the matter. But essentially making the louder parts quieter means you can boost the overal volume without it clipping on the master bus

martello · Post by **martello** » Tue Mar 17, 2009 3:20 pm

I have a volume button on my speakers. I can change the level. Why do you want to do it for me? My ears are fine.

psyman · Post by **psyman** » Tue Mar 17, 2009 3:31 pm

your not gonna get your mixes as loud as most stuff thats been released unless you put some compression/limiting on the master out bus.

the reason for this is that all the stuff you hear has been mastered to bring up the over all level... i would look into mastering, read tutorials, have a play with multiband compressors and limiters on the master bus to get started i would say.

magma · Post by **magma** » Tue Mar 17, 2009 3:31 pm

Get your mix as good as possible before screwing around with compression/limiting... there's no substitute for all the parts being at the right volume to start with...

psyman · Post by **psyman** » Tue Mar 17, 2009 3:37 pm

and yes like you said limiting and compressing the whole track can degrade or atleast change the over all sound of the track, and thats just the way it is in afraid. part of the art of mastering is (in my eyes) about adding the limiting and compression in a way that does the least damage to your track, whilst still boosting the overall volume.

jedison · Post by **jedison** » Tue Mar 17, 2009 3:58 pm

Just leave yourself some headroom when making a tune and then in the end pump it up with some shit on the master bus.

Inversley you can try clipping the shit out of the master as well if that sounds good to your ears.

I personally am a fan of maximizers and eq's on the master to boost what I'm wanting and I try to have around -3db of consistent headroom. Basically do whatever you can to get headroom, if you fight and fight to get -3db of headroom without just turning the master fader down, your mix should naturally be a little less cluttered, muddled or clashing.

paradigm_x · Post by **paradigm_x** » Tue Mar 17, 2009 4:15 pm

Jedison wrote:Inversley you can try clipping the shit out of the master as well if that sounds good to your ears.

no offence dude, but please please please dont do that...

Sharmaji · Post by **Sharmaji** » Tue Mar 17, 2009 4:49 pm

flylo's shit has tons of compression going on everywhere-- lots of comp on the original sample, then compression in the daw, then on the master-- lots of nice pumping, etc, going on there.

basically just experiement w/ that for vibe.

for the sense of VOLUME and some of the fullness-- it's in the mastering. trying working w/ more saturated sounds and see what you get.

jedison · Post by **jedison** » Tue Mar 17, 2009 5:23 pm

Paradigm X wrote:
Jedison wrote:Inversley you can try clipping the shit out of the master as well if that sounds good to your ears.

no offence dude, but please please please dont do that...

What do you mean please don't do that? Do whatever sounds right, I doubt anyone in dance music knows the accurate way to do things. If you knew how compression works you'd know how pushing the master works, it's just the DAW's own form of compression. Guys like Danny Byrd, Nero and I'm sure many more do that too, not saying it's the right way but it's another thing to try. Better we throw out options than dictate what we should or shouldn't do, afterall none of us have too many credentials to put to our name.

Unless we were sitting in on this dude's session seeing every move he's doing we can't say for sure what he should or shouldn't do.

deadly_habit · Post by **deadly_habit** » Tue Mar 17, 2009 5:26 pm

Jedison wrote:
Paradigm X wrote:
Jedison wrote:Inversley you can try clipping the shit out of the master as well if that sounds good to your ears.

no offence dude, but please please please dont do that...
What do you mean please don't do that? Do whatever sounds right, I doubt anyone in dance music knows the accurate way to do things. If you knew how compression works you'd know how pushing the master works, it's just the DAW's own form of compression. Guys like Danny Byrd, Nero and I'm sure many more do that too, not saying it's the right way but it's another thing to try. Better we throw out options than dictate what we should or shouldn't do, afterall none of us have too many credentials to put to our name.

Unless we were sitting in on this dude's session seeing every move he's doing we can't say for sure what he should or shouldn't do.

that is one of the worst pieces of advice i've seen on this forum to date

psyman · Post by **psyman** » Tue Mar 17, 2009 5:26 pm

Jedison wrote:
Paradigm X wrote:
Jedison wrote:Inversley you can try clipping the shit out of the master as well if that sounds good to your ears.

no offence dude, but please please please dont do that...
What do you mean please don't do that? Do whatever sounds right, I doubt anyone in dance music knows the accurate way to do things. If you knew how compression works you'd know how pushing the master works, it's just the DAW's own form of compression. Guys like Danny Byrd, Nero and I'm sure many more do that too, not saying it's the right way but it's another thing to try. Better we throw out options than dictate what we should or shouldn't do, afterall none of us have too many credentials to put to our name.

Unless we were sitting in on this dude's session seeing every move he's doing we can't say for sure what he should or shouldn't do.

in my opinion clipping the master will give a very dirty sound (far too dirty for most applications) but then again if you want that sound who am i to say you cant do it? there are no rules right?

megaladon · Post by **megaladon** » Tue Mar 17, 2009 5:31 pm

Surely pushing the red zone would only really get a nice result with analogue. Digital clipping sounds good on some things, but surely it's still taking up a lot of room if you do it to individual tracks?

deadly_habit · Post by **deadly_habit** » Tue Mar 17, 2009 5:34 pm

unless you want all your tunes to sound like breakcore avoid pushing into the red in the digital realm

paradigm_x · Post by **paradigm_x** » Tue Mar 17, 2009 5:40 pm

digital clipping sounds shite 99.9% of the time. one of the fundamental goals of digital mixing is to avoid digital clipping.

of course you an do anything you want, stick distortion on everything hi pass everything at 200hz, put a reverb on the master, art is art, but clipping the master is awful practice.

yes i know lots of dnb heads do it, a lot also think that cubase has a built in limiter.

it sounds shite.

and not shite-in-a-good-way shite, shite. as in shite. s.h.i.t.e.

give me an example of a decent tune with digital clipping on the master. the new metallica album is a prime example, digital clipping all over it, even the 45 year old half deaf metal heads (:6:) could tell it sounds shite.

sorry dude, did say no offence, but there are much better ways of getting loudness than digital clipping, and TBH cant think of a worse one at the mo.

peace.

gkmusic · Post by **gkmusic** » Tue Mar 17, 2009 5:41 pm

Deadly Habit wrote:unless you want all your tunes to sound like breakcore avoid pushing into the red in the digital realm

yeah, analouge stuff apparently sounds good distorted liek when you hear old elvis stuff [not a fan tho..

] digital distorion is just harsh n more so would sound garbage on a system

cheers for the advice really helped

i was hopin for sum feedback from depone cos his tracks are massive but he's no where to be found

psyman · Post by **psyman** » Tue Mar 17, 2009 5:45 pm

i remember ages ago when i was first stating out i wanted my tunes louder i read this and it helped a lot.

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/aug04/a ... tering.htm

scooterjack · Post by **scooterjack** » Tue Mar 17, 2009 5:55 pm

Deadly Habit wrote: that is one of the worst pieces of advice i've seen on this forum to date

+1

jedison · Post by **jedison** » Tue Mar 17, 2009 6:48 pm

Well take it as you want it, just throwing it out there, there's pros that use it too so I mean it's not horrible. Digital clipping doesn't always become apparent in a lot of DAWs anyways unless you're really pushing it. 3db might not even cause much distortion at all. Of course it's all to taste and if you're spinning tunes out and you want to get it loud right away it'll probably do. I'm willing to bet a lot of people clip the signals in the insert plugins anyways so I'm sure there's a lot of digital distortion in tons of tracks that aren't clipping on the master anyways.

I've played tunes on phat systems where I've clipped the master and I've also played tunes where I've left lots of headroom and fed maximizer to eq to maximizer on the master. I prefer the latter option but people seem to make it work for them using the former option as well. The only bad advice is the advice you blindly accept.

beerz · Post by **beerz** » Tue Mar 17, 2009 8:25 pm

Jedison wrote:Well take it as you want it, just throwing it out there, there's pros that use it too so I mean it's not horrible. Digital clipping doesn't always become apparent in a lot of DAWs anyways unless you're really pushing it. 3db might not even cause much distortion at all. Of course it's all to taste and if you're spinning tunes out and you want to get it loud right away it'll probably do. I'm willing to bet a lot of people clip the signals in the insert plugins anyways so I'm sure there's a lot of digital distortion in tons of tracks that aren't clipping on the master anyways.

I've played tunes on phat systems where I've clipped the master and I've also played tunes where I've left lots of headroom and fed maximizer to eq to maximizer on the master. I prefer the latter option but people seem to make it work for them using the former option as well. The only bad advice is the advice you blindly accept.

Finally someone with a solid opinion on production that i haven't heard b4

Louder tracks?

Louder tracks?

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