The dubstep tips super thread

[r33lc4sh]

no offence Kion but u sound a little bit like an audiophile

[kion]

No I just know a good sound when I hear it. This isn't really about dubstep, its just general sound engineering stuff.

I like to get a good sound and then diminish it from there, rather than battling with a crap sound to start with.

[r33lc4sh]

No I just know a good sound when I hear it. This isn't really about dubstep, its just general sound engineering stuff.

I like to get a good sound and then diminish it from there, rather than battling with a crap sound to start with.

actually i have the same thoughts as u - but i don't agree with some of the things about achieving this good sound
happy easter

[kion]

I agree some things are subjective to each individual which is fair enough.

[RandoRando]

some good tips in this thread.

not to mention seeing emalkay post in this thread

[daeMTHAFKNkim]

some good tips in this thread.

not to mention seeing emalkay post in this thread

Seen you post on some random youtube video. It was a Ascian youtube tutorial video for a reese bass I think. Nice to see a dsf member randomly on youtube.

[RandoRando]

some good tips in this thread.

not to mention seeing emalkay post in this thread

Seen you post on some random youtube video. It was a Ascian youtube tutorial video for a reese bass I think. Nice to see a dsf member randomly on youtube.

haha yeah, youll see jrisreal on some random youtube vids too

[Electric_Head]

some good tips in this thread.

not to mention seeing emalkay post in this thread

Seen you post on some random youtube video. It was a Ascian youtube tutorial video for a reese bass I think. Nice to see a dsf member randomly on youtube.

Ascian is contributing member and he released all those videos here.
Seems pretty obvious that some folks from here would post on the vid.
Not evenly remotely random.

[daeMTHAFKNkim]

some good tips in this thread.

not to mention seeing emalkay post in this thread

Seen you post on some random youtube video. It was a Ascian youtube tutorial video for a reese bass I think. Nice to see a dsf member randomly on youtube.

Ascian is contributing member and he released all those videos here.
Seems pretty obvious that some folks from here would post on the vid.
Not evenly remotely random.

Well my bad. I didn't know that.

[CE9958]

The best thing anyone can do for a mix especially in dubstep because it has such powerful and full sounds but really for any genre of music is to make sure you are taking care of clashing frequencies. I'm sure most of us have seen Reso's masterclass but that one thing he said was soooo true. You gotta make everything fit nicely in the drawer by taking things out and organizing it well. Not just loading a bunch of crap in to make things stand out (rough paraphrase). Getting a clean mix is really about giving each sound its own little space to sit on in the frequency spectrum without it clashing with any other sound. EQ EQ EQ my friends! Sounds will sound a little strange at first and on their own but the goal is to get everything to sound perfect together. In the reality of a mix no one cares how great your basses sound if they swallow your kick whole. But when you have it sitting in a way that when that bass place and you get the kick thumping clean through it... thats when you really make the impact!

[Electric_Head]

some good tips in this thread.

not to mention seeing emalkay post in this thread

Seen you post on some random youtube video. It was a Ascian youtube tutorial video for a reese bass I think. Nice to see a dsf member randomly on youtube.

Ascian is contributing member and he released all those videos here.
Seems pretty obvious that some folks from here would post on the vid.
Not evenly remotely random.

Well my bad. I didn't know that.

Nah dude, I was just being facetious.

[Electric_Head]

The best thing anyone can do for a mix especially in dubstep because it has such powerful and full sounds but really for any genre of music is to make sure you are taking care of clashing frequencies. I'm sure most of us have seen Reso's masterclass but that one thing he said was soooo true. You gotta make everything fit nicely in the drawer by taking things out and organizing it well. Not just loading a bunch of crap in to make things stand out (rough paraphrase). Getting a clean mix is really about giving each sound its own little space to sit on in the frequency spectrum without it clashing with any other sound. EQ EQ EQ my friends! Sounds will sound a little strange at first and on their own but the goal is to get everything to sound perfect together. In the reality of a mix no one cares how great your basses sound if they swallow your kick whole. But when you have it sitting in a way that when that bass place and you get the kick thumping clean through it... thats when you really make the impact!

That`s where gain structuring comes in.
The best advise on this site is macc's gain structuring thread.
Not all EQ but how to arrange your track correctly from a gain standpoint to prevent taking up all the headroom.

[Basic A]

noooo never normalize! It's an unnecessary evil. Get your mix right and bounce at a higher level if thats what you want. And as for L1 on the output. Not a good idea. If you really want to master it yourself, bounce it and do the mastering offline using a chain of plugins, in something like Wavelab.

Theres nothing wrong with normalization. All it does is raise your highest peak to 0 and everything else proportionately. Aside from the effect of amplifying dither noise proprtionate to the rest of your mix, it doesnt effect the sound at all. I saw a few people say this in this thread, dont give advice if you dont have any to give.

[dopocc]

nice bump

[naroja]

The best thing anyone can do for a mix especially in dubstep because it has such powerful and full sounds but really for any genre of music is to make sure you are taking care of clashing frequencies. I'm sure most of us have seen Reso's masterclass but that one thing he said was soooo true. You gotta make everything fit nicely in the drawer by taking things out and organizing it well. Not just loading a bunch of crap in to make things stand out (rough paraphrase). Getting a clean mix is really about giving each sound its own little space to sit on in the frequency spectrum without it clashing with any other sound. EQ EQ EQ my friends! Sounds will sound a little strange at first and on their own but the goal is to get everything to sound perfect together. In the reality of a mix no one cares how great your basses sound if they swallow your kick whole. But when you have it sitting in a way that when that bass place and you get the kick thumping clean through it... thats when you really make the impact!

This is a great thread! Nice tips CE9958!

I've been practicing new ways to eq / separate pieces out from the mix to give various elements more space.
posted here about it : http://www.dubstepforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=230432

[naroja]

The best thing anyone can do for a mix especially in dubstep because it has such powerful and full sounds but really for any genre of music is to make sure you are taking care of clashing frequencies. I'm sure most of us have seen Reso's masterclass but that one thing he said was soooo true. You gotta make everything fit nicely in the drawer by taking things out and organizing it well. Not just loading a bunch of crap in to make things stand out (rough paraphrase). Getting a clean mix is really about giving each sound its own little space to sit on in the frequency spectrum without it clashing with any other sound. EQ EQ EQ my friends! Sounds will sound a little strange at first and on their own but the goal is to get everything to sound perfect together. In the reality of a mix no one cares how great your basses sound if they swallow your kick whole. But when you have it sitting in a way that when that bass place and you get the kick thumping clean through it... thats when you really make the impact!

This is a great thread! Nice tips CE9958!

I've been practicing new ways to eq / separate pieces out from the mix to give various elements more space.
posted here about it : http://www.dubstepforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=230432

[spectralbeats]

A lot of bad advice I'm seeing just on the first page alone:

1. Normalization is just moving your master fader up or down. It is useless

2. For the people saying not to use a limiter on your master, that's absolute garbage. Just about every top-40 song in the past 20 years has been mastered with some limiting. If you don't know what you're doing you'll screw up the transients. But it is absolutely necessary to get a loud master in any form of electronic music these days.

3. There is no reason to bounce your track to .wav before mastering except for saving CPU (this is of course assuming you're doing the mastering on your own). You shouldn't have to stare at the waveform, your ears and a peak meter are enough info. Generally speaking, an eq and a limiter (l1, l2, etc) can be enough to master your track.

4. When EQ'ing, your sounds should NOT sound 'strange' when solo'd. It is very possible to get a clean mix WITHOUT completely destroying your original sounds with EQ.

5. Gain structure matters very little when working with digital vst's in a modern DAW. It's more important when tracking recorded signals.

[spectralbeats]

A lot of bad advice I'm seeing just on the first page alone:

1. Normalization is just moving your master fader up or down. It is useless

2. For the people saying not to use a limiter on your master, that's absolute garbage. Just about every top-40 song in the past 20 years has been mastered with some limiting. If you don't know what you're doing you'll screw up the transients. But it is absolutely necessary to get a loud master in any form of electronic music these days.

3. There is no reason to bounce your track to .wav before mastering except for saving CPU (this is of course assuming you're doing the mastering on your own). You shouldn't have to stare at the waveform, your ears and a peak meter are enough info. Generally speaking, an eq and a limiter (l1, l2, etc) can be enough to master your track.

4. When EQ'ing, your sounds should NOT sound 'strange' when solo'd. It is very possible to get a clean mix WITHOUT completely destroying your original sounds with EQ.

5. Gain structure matters very little when working with digital vst's in a modern DAW. It's more important when tracking recorded signals.

[sunny_b_uk]

^^ erm no, mastering is WAYYY harder than just sticking on a waves limiter and an EQ
the mix would have to be entirely mixed down by a qualified mixing engineer in order for it to be that way.
not talking simple EQs either.. there is use of pultec EQs, tube EQs etc to sweeten up the mix, exciters to add harmonic content that isnt there to add more fullness and high end sheen, very detailed compression to sort the dynamics, tape saturation to add warm and character.
the more important roles in mastering are things like stereo phasing and checking for negative polarities on the waveform.. which can be a pain in the ass to sort if the person mixing the song wasnt aware of these issues.
not only that.. when limiting on the master the dynamics are SQUASHED and dynamics are all lost. having too much loudness without any subtly and softness in any part of the song makes it boring! thats why when the mastering engineer gets the mix loud enough they will use an expander to get back the dynamics whilst keeping the song still just as loud.
also L1 and L2 are kinda shit, unless some really is an expert on mastering then they will have no problem using it.
those are just a FEW things that tend to be done in mastering and it takes a lot a lot of years to get it right.
also an ME would not want the person to normalise a track or any sounds because some DAWs out there can mess it up on a microscopic level and you can end up having a few small peaks that will still wreck things. its better to stay away from normalising, it can be a bad thing in some cases.

[spectralbeats]

Believe me, I know. But my post is directed at beginners. I never said you just 'slap on' an EQ and compressor. You're twisting my words. I said that a lot of the time, a master will generally have just compression and eq being used nothing else. I'm not a fan of exciters and pultec/tube eq's still qualify as EQ's. Tbh though Dubstep doesn't require anything fancy. Dubstep is not audiophile music - most Dubstep I've heard sounds like typical modern digital squashed to all hell no transients harshness. Even the well known stuff.

L1 is industry standard. As long as you stay within 3dB reduction you should be fine. About your last point on normalizing. I agree it's useless, BUT I've never seen any DAW's cause clipping as long as the meter's are set properly. At least not the good ones (Pro Tools, Logic, Cubase, Sonar).