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Yo!

This is more than likely a basic question to a lot of you, and the answer is probably somewhere on here but I can't find it.

I'm at the stage of mastering my track. I have all my synths and sub sounding nice, clean and fat. My beats sound crisp when played on their own. But I'm having trouble getting them to all sit nicely when played together. I've been told to roll the bottom end off at 200hz for everything except the sub. When I do this it changes the sound of some of my synths so that they sound completely different....not how I want them to sound

When I've mastered previous tracks(not with great success) I bounce all my tracks down as raw audio files, with no EQing or anything, then master the individual audio tracks.

In regards to my beats, is it best to bounce them as seperat tracks, ie. kicks, snares, hats, percs etc, or is it best to master beats while they're still midi, then bounce them as a single track to master with the other tracks.

Also, with my sytnths and sub bass, I'm stuggling to get them to gel together. Someone with an ear from music would be able to tell that they are to seperate tracks playing together. I want them to sound as one individual sound. How would I do this? Compression, EQing?

One more thing. I've heard many times that to master a track successfuly, each track/sound needs to have it's own space in the frequency spectrum. Any rough guides to what sounds should be sitting at what frequencies??

Cheers in advance people!!

This is all mixing stuff, not mastering.

Whoever told you to roll off at 200hz was wrong. Sub bass is under 100hz.

Don't rely on any guides for mixing, rely on your ears and common sense. Also, it's true that tracks should have their own space, but a lot of people get confused and think they should roll off everything not in that space. Just cut a bit with an EQ. Sub bass, however, shouldn't have any other tracks interfering with it.

Heartless wrote:This is all mixing stuff, not mastering.

Whoever told you to roll off at 200hz was wrong. Sub bass is under 100hz.

Don't rely on any guides for mixing, rely on your ears and common sense. Also, it's true that tracks should have their own space, but a lot of people get confused and think they should roll off everything not in that space. Just cut a bit with an EQ. Sub bass, however, shouldn't have any other tracks interfering with it.

+1 In my experience you shouldn't have to roll off your kick at 100 hz seeing as subs are usually a tad below that.

use your ears bro, if it sounds good to you, it generally should sound good to everyone else

Thanks for the input people.

But my main question is in regards to my beats. When I get to the mixing/mastering stage, I bounce all tracks to audio then mix them as audio. If I leave everything as midi and audio when mixing my comp starts to glitch when I use to many plug-ins. So in regards to beats, would you bounce them as one complete drum track then master that, or bounce them as individual tracks such as kick, snare, hats etc, then mix these seperately, then bounce them back down as one individual beat loop to mix with the rest of the tracks.

Also in regards to where each sound/synth should sit in the frequency spectrum, I know it all depends on what track you're making, what kind of sound you want, what kind of samples etc etc, however, I have seen before a kind of diagram that shows where each kind of sound should sit at what frequency. It listed things like; risers/fallers, percussion, electro bass, sub bass, vocals, stabs, bongos, kicks, snares, hi hats etc, and showed roughly where they should all be sitting in the frequency spectrum to get them to cut through the mix well. But I cannot for the life of me find the damn thing!! Someone much have some rough guidlines in regards to frequency.

Peace!

For your beats I would have them on seperate channels originally so you can eq and effect them accordingly, then bus them all to the same channel and add slight compression if needed. Once you done this you could bounce the audio as a single loop.

The chart you're talking about is in the money shot thread I think, or if you google frequency chart you should be able to find something similar.

It's not that hard to get your head round if you think about it, sub at the bottom then kick then snare then hats on the top, then fit the other elements around that. Leads and midrange bass will be somewhere in the middle, pads will be high.

good luck.

give a serarch for magic frequencies theres a table saying where different sounds can sit...