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Hey everyone, I have been producing for about one and a half years and i i dont know whether to keep going or not. My songs are what i wish them to be but i never make a good mixdown or master and I understand that "you cant polish a turd' meaning that the reason I dont get a good master is because i have a bad mixdown but here is the problem. Each one of my songs sound better unmixed. I dont understand how a person can keep on doing errors and making the song sound like a turd. Any advice or tips or links would be much appreciated.

not everyone is cut to master, since you clearly are doing something wrong.

Seriously just keep trying, don't give up. My mixdowns were completely wank for about 3 years, and I feel like I'm still improving with every track I make

Have you checked the track that you think is better without mastering on other systems?
You may find your current referencing system is no good.

- Take breaks while mixing... go out and smoke a cigg or whatever you like to do, just get some distance from your tune and come back after a few minutes... sometimes it will sound totaly diffrent
- When you ad compression or any other fx, close your eyes and randomly switch it on and off and then decide wich is the better version
- Compare your mixes to other ones you like
- Check every step on headphones
- Keep it simple

one and a half years is nothing

been producing for 13 years now but my mixdowns were rubbish for years and years. A combination of crappy pc speakers, on- board soundcard ect didn't help but i never even knew or cared about 'mixdowns' for about 5 or 6 years. I was far too buy with ideas and just getting stuff down to be concerned with that. Now i'm the total opposite and spend too much time on mixdowns so never get anything done! haha

Depends how Much you want to actually read, if you're passionate about shit, and if you get the right direction and criticism from people. I've been in almost 3 months now. Sure my stuff isnt great yet but i've really started to grasp the right thing for me. just keep at it man if you love it, dont forget to have funz

Vizor wrote:Hey everyone, I have been producing for about one and a half years and i i dont know whether to keep going or not. My songs are what i wish them to be but i never make a good mixdown or master and I understand that "you cant polish a turd' meaning that the reason I dont get a good master is because i have a bad mixdown but here is the problem. Each one of my songs sound better unmixed. I dont understand how a person can keep on doing errors and making the song sound like a turd. Any advice or tips or links would be much appreciated.

One and a half years and you're able to make songs how you want them to be? Hell I've been doing this for a few years now and I still think everything I make is garbage. They are just different levels of garbage.

Really you aren't behind. It may seem like you aren't getting anywhere but you seem to be on schedule, maybe even a little ahead. It's just a matter of wanting to continue. I think if you're sitting there thinking that you really don't want to do this anymore then I think you made your decision already.

my guess is that you're doing too much, that you eq everything, compress a lot, and use numbers instead of your ears for gain levels

forget that all. don't eq something out unless you don't want it, not because you think you're supposed to
don't compress unless you need to
and just use your ears for the levels

my mixdowns got a lot better when i got proper monitors, but i has also been producing on my desktop speakers for ages
the less is more approach helped me a lot as well as katz book on mastering

Vizor wrote: Each one of my songs sound better unmixed

then, quite simply, you shouldn't be doing anything.

take whatever money you think you need to spend in the next few months on gear/plugins/whatever and hire a good engineer to mix your tunes. watch and listen. There's absolutely no better way to learn to mix, and to learn how to listen as a mixer and what to listen FOR. Years ago i traded some drum tracking for a mix session w/ a friend of mine who'd just opened a studio (and is now my publisher)-- it was really invaluable.

Sharmaji wrote:

Vizor wrote: Each one of my songs sound better unmixed

then, quite simply, you shouldn't be doing anything.

take whatever money you think you need to spend in the next few months on gear/plugins/whatever and hire a good engineer to mix your tunes. watch and listen. There's absolutely no better way to learn to mix, and to learn how to listen as a mixer and what to listen FOR. Years ago i traded some drum tracking for a mix session w/ a friend of mine who'd just opened a studio (and is now my publisher)-- it was really invaluable.

that and i think a lot of people mistake mixing for mastering and abuse dynamic squashing tools like limiters or multiband compressors without any proper understanding of how to utilize them trying to get the max rms rather than a solid mixdown and leave the mastering to the pros