Mixing Frustrations: Loudness vs. Quality

B

BarryPruce

New member
Hey everyone!

Mixing the ‘proper way’ is new to me. I used to mix with everything slamming at 0db’s… also compress, saturate and limit, until the sound couldn’t take it anymore. Then I researched on mixing forums and some advice was given to mix around -10db’s because it allows you more headroom to hear what changes you’re actually making.

I mixed this new track tastefully (meticulously using EQ, compression and saturation). I bounced the track to hear what it would like in the car. Since it was peaking at no more than -7db, it was much softer than my reference tracks, but I was fine with that because at this point in the mix, I wanted QUALITY over LOUDNESS. I looked at the .wav file for my bounced track and noticed it was very different from the .wav files of my “reference tracks”. My track had peaks whereas the reference tracks looked like a brick wall. They were also much louder and knocked harder in the car.

I was pretty satisfied with my mix, but knew that it was time to ‘master’ the track and get it to commercial levels. So I threw limiters on my bus tracks, but it sounded AWFUL. I’ve attached both tracks I’m working on (before limiting and after limiting), as well as my reference tracks.
Could someone please shed some light on what I need to do in order to bring my track to commercial levels without the result sounding like crap? I just want to learn because I’m frustrated with how this song has turned after I tried to make the track ‘louder’.
Picture of the individual files:
Comparisonoffiles-1.png

Question:
Can anyone identify if I'm blatantly missing an important component of mixing/mastering? I’m in desperate need of advice/resources I can read in order to achieve this!

MY TRACKS:
New Project - Tasteful EQ, compression and saturation
New Project - LIMITED (volume increase)

REFERENCE TRACKS:
Love In Motion Ft. Mayer Hawthorne (Skrillex's Funkt-Out Remix)
All Gold Everything (Protohype & Carnage Festival Dub Remix)
 
Don't even think about volume or loudness during the mixing phase. Just mix it so it sounds good. Turn the volume knob up if you need and don't compare the loudness level to a commercial release.

The mastering or finalizing stage is where you get the volume up. That's done on the 2 track mixdown file. Some people like to combine mixing and mastering together by putting limiters on the master buss. I like to separate out the two as separate processes. I even use different programs for mixing and mastering/finalizing. Cubase for mixing; Wavelab for mastering/finalizing.

I'm guessing, if your mix sounds wretched with a limiter on the master buss, then you probably are using too much compression on the individual tracks. Too much of a good thing and all that....
 
Chili said:
I'm guessing, if your mix sounds wretched with a limiter on the master buss, then you probably are using too much compression on the individual tracks. Too much of a good thing and all that....
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Chili, thanks for the response! Did you get a chance to check out the tracks? Is there anything you hear that sounds off? I included the tracks pre-Limiting and post-Limiting. I don't feel like I used too much compression before I threw on the limiters because I was really careful not to over-do
 
I listened to the Limited track. There was nothing glaringly obvious to me. I'm not regular listener of that genre, but mix-wise, it sounded good. Maybe better advice is not to be over-critical.

I'm not going to listen to the reference tracks because, honestly, I am not going to put that much effort into it. But looking at the image you posted, I'm willing to bet the reference material probably sounds like crap and yours sounds better.

Okay, I just listened to about 2 seconds of the skrillex track and it is full of clipping. Horrible. You don't want to be like them. Do your own thing and don't worry about competing with volume. If people like your tunes, they'll turn the knob up.
 
Chili said:
I listened to the Limited track. There was nothing glaringly obvious to me. I'm not regular listener of that genre, but mix-wise, it sounded good. Maybe better advice is not to be over-critical.

I'm not going to listen to the reference tracks because, honestly, I am not going to put that much effort into it. But looking at the image you posted, I'm willing to bet the reference material probably sounds like crap and yours sounds better.

Okay, I just listened to about 2 seconds of the skrillex track and it is full of clipping. Horrible. You don't want to be like them. Do your own thing and don't worry about competing with volume. If people like your tunes, they'll turn the knob up.
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I am pretty critical of my music...and people do like/support my music, but I just always feel my mixing isn't up to par. I know you said that you don't like the way that Skrillex track sounds, but mannnn, that's my FAVORITE track to listen to in the car! It just sounds awesome to my ears...more so than any other track I play.

How is it that they can squish the track to a brick, but still keep the 'punch'...that skrillex track punches. I really appreciate your help Chili!
 
BarryPruce said:
I am pretty critical of my music...and people do like/support my music, but I just always feel my mixing isn't up to par. I know you said that you don't like the way that Skrillex track sounds, but mannnn, that's my FAVORITE track to listen to in the car! It just sounds awesome to my ears...more so than any other track I play.

How is it that they can squish the track to a brick, but still keep the 'punch'...that skrillex track punches. I really appreciate your help Chili!
Click to expand...

Mixing and mastering are separate processes, but you have to mix with the final desired result in mind. That reference mix is squashed to hell and it sounds good in the car because it's squashed to hell and doesn't have much dynamic range so you can hear everything over the roar of the engine / road... I mean, look at the wave form. If that was how I wanted to end up, I'd be approaching the mix that way and doing a lot of the levelling out in the mix, before doing a final squash in the mastering phase... Just my $0.02, but it's probably a question for a professional mastering person, which I'm definitely not...
 
Armistice said:
That reference mix is squashed to hell and it sounds good in the car because it's squashed to hell and doesn't have much dynamic range so you can hear everything over the roar of the engine / road
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I even like the way it sounds through my studio speakers...everything is just so punchy. I think part of it is that the kick is in a frequency that doesn't conflict with the sub bass. Do you think my mixes sound good and I'm being too critical of myself. Or do you have any tips? Do you suggest any Youtube videos or specific articles that I could read to improve?
 
Looking at audio 3 and 4 looks like they are either compressed so hard or clipped. I assume compressed. They look nasty.
 
Honestly it seems the limiting and little bit of mastering steps you did on it were fine, but you may not be liking it because, in trying to compare it to Skrillex's track, your kick sound just doesn't stand out much at all. If you really want to make it sound like the other and have that stand out punch you may need to revisit the EQing and power of the drum sound you were using. Just listen to the kick in his track: it is deeper on the low end and even seems to last a little longer in the mix, suggesting he may have used some minor reverb. Hell I know jack about dubstep, but in terms of quality, the limiting you did doesn't make the track sound bad from where it was in the 'tasteful' stage. KEEP IN MIND HOWEVER, there are pieces of software/hardware specifically dedicated to mastering a track through all sorts of means, not just limiting! They utilize pre/post eq, multiband compression/limiting, even sometimes just magical dynamic enhancement. I'd suggest to revisit the mixing and eqing of the kick vs. the deeper bass. You'll get it there.
 
BarryPruce said:
I even like the way it sounds through my studio speakers...everything is just so punchy. I think part of it is that the kick is in a frequency that doesn't conflict with the sub bass. Do you think my mixes sound good and I'm being too critical of myself. Or do you have any tips? Do you suggest any Youtube videos or specific articles that I could read to improve?
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I got most of the way through your song. I got about 2 seconds into the skrillex song (I started somewhere in the middle). Not because it isn't the style of music I listen to, but because it sounded really bad. Flat-out slammed to -0.001dB from zero. Totally clipping in several freq ranges. It was just horrible. (I can give a subjective and honest listen to songs that I wouldn't personally listen to for entertainment.)

Yours has room to breath. Some dynamics and clarity. That's because it wasn't distorted from digital clipping. You could probably bring the level up more. I didn't hear the need to, but I saw the waveform and it isn't brick-walled (which I think is a good thing).

So, try this. On your master buss limiter, turn the threshold up (or down depending on how you look at it) until you get the nose-bleed distortion that you like so much with Skrillex. Then turn it back down until it sounds good again. I think what you're looking for is an increase in the RMS level of your audio signal. The threshold setting will help you there. But this is where commercial releases destroy all their hard work. Sacrificing a great song and mix for the sake of being loud.

hth,
 
reverbdk said:
your kick sound just doesn't stand out much at all. If you really want to make it sound like the other and have that stand out punch you may need to revisit the EQing and power of the drum sound you were using.

KEEP IN MIND HOWEVER, there are pieces of software/hardware specifically dedicated to mastering a track through all sorts of means, not just limiting! They utilize pre/post eq, multiband compression/limiting, even sometimes just magical dynamic enhancement. I'd suggest to revisit the mixing and eqing of the kick vs. the deeper bass. You'll get it there.
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Thanks for the advice reverbdk, I'll revisit the EQ and possibly even the sound I chose. Also, I'm going to take a look at some of the other tools like multi-band comp bc I didn't use any on this track.
 
Chili said:
I think what you're looking for is an increase in the RMS level of your audio signal. The threshold setting will help you there. But this is where commercial releases destroy all their hard work. Sacrificing a great song and mix for the sake of being loud.

hth,
Click to expand...

Thanks man, I'll just spend a little more time playing with the mix today!
 
it takes a pro, to MASTER a song like yours, and get levels even close to something like the skrillex tune, and still have it sound good.


the problem is, you are getting stuck in an arms race....
a VOLUME race, that folks like skrillex lead the pack in.....
and because it's popular, it gets accepted as the goal, and that is just flat out wrong.

trust your ears.

if something sounds like crap, there is a reason.

anyone can flatten a mix with limiting, but is that what you really want?

you should take your mix to a pro for mastering, and then learn from that process what you should strive for.

unless you are just copying skrillex, et al.
 
GONZO-X said:
you should take your mix to a pro for mastering, and then learn from that process what you should strive for.

unless you are just copying skrillex, et al.
Click to expand...

I definitely need to find someone in my city that I can learn from. It would be super helpful because everything I know, I've had to teach myself. And I don't think I'm copying Skrillex, I feel like I have a different sound, though similar to what's popular right now.
 
You also have to take i to account that the skillrex album was mastered by a famous mastering engineer, using the best and most expensive equipment that was designed specifically for mastering at a high level.

You are simply putting a software limiter on the main buss and cranking it. There is more to it than that, and a mastering engineer will use different limiters and methods for limiting, depending on the source material.
 
This week's theme: Tracking, Mixing, Mastering--Three Separate Processes.
Seems like I've seen this kind of post a couple dozen times already this week.
There's a Third Day album that I absolutely love, but when you look at the songs in an audio editor they look like blocks. Don't know how you get that kind of intensity and still keep it sounding good throughout the track, but that's why the big names pay the big bucks for the big mastering...I just try to pump it up a bit and widen it out a little less. :D
 
I'm going to go against the crowd a little and say that if you have decided at the outset that loudness is a goal of the project then you have to make it loud in the mix. A mix with lots of dynamics will sound awful compressed and limited to Skrillex levels.

That said, deciding at the outset that loudness is a goal seems kind of self defeating. But, hey, if that's your thing...
 
That is true. The mixes that end up the loudest are the ones that kind of start out that way.

Basically, everything needs to be conpressed individually, or in groups to keep the dynamics to a minimum. That way, once it goes to mastering, the limiter doesnt have to do so much work.

But, like I said, real mastering engineers tend to have better, more specific tools for the job. That helps a lot.
 
your doing it right. less is more. let your mix be open, be attentive to your soundstage and as the wise man said, "if you want it louder, turn up the volume." If you listen to classical music, it's not banging the meters by any stretch.

bear in mind that often when you send a track out to someone to master it, they are using some pretty top shelf gear to draw out the nuances of your mix and get them up to commercial levels without damaging the mix. Not to many plugins let you just do that. that's why pros often suggest not trying to master your own mixes. a) you probably don't have the best gear for it and b) your ears are biased. its best to let someone who hasn't been immersed in the music make judgement calls on the final cut.

That being said, most of us don't have the money to hire a mastering house. I have found that using some outboard gear on the 2-buss mix makes a huge difference in getting things up to commercial levels. Analog gain is so different from virtual gain, that even slight adjustments can make a radical difference in your levels without compromising your signal...but thats one man's perspective.
 
BarryPruce said:
Hey everyone!

Mixing the ‘proper way’ is new to me. I used to mix with everything slamming at 0db’s… also compress, saturate and limit, until the sound couldn’t take it anymore. Then I researched on mixing forums and some advice was given to mix around -10db’s because it allows you more headroom to hear what changes you’re actually making.

I mixed this new track tastefully (meticulously using EQ, compression and saturation). I bounced the track to hear what it would like in the car. Since it was peaking at no more than -7db, it was much softer than my reference tracks, but I was fine with that because at this point in the mix, I wanted QUALITY over LOUDNESS. I looked at the .wav file for my bounced track and noticed it was very different from the .wav files of my “reference tracks”. My track had peaks whereas the reference tracks looked like a brick wall. They were also much louder and knocked harder in the car.

I was pretty satisfied with my mix, but knew that it was time to ‘master’ the track and get it to commercial levels. So I threw limiters on my bus tracks, but it sounded AWFUL. I’ve attached both tracks I’m working on (before limiting and after limiting), as well as my reference tracks.
Could someone please shed some light on what I need to do in order to bring my track to commercial levels without the result sounding like crap? I just want to learn because I’m frustrated with how this song has turned after I tried to make the track ‘louder’.
Click to expand...
Learning to master your own tracks with satisfactory results is possible, but just like learning to play the guitar or mixing proficiently takes a lot of time and energy to really get to a place where you feel confident.

Getting your levels right in the mix stage is/was a huge step in the right direction.
Similarly, how you gain stage in mastering is important because it directly effects how the integrity of the mix is retained. Having a good monitoring and listening environment and the experience of doing it over and over to develop your critical listening skills really helps.

For me the main processing tool in mastering is eq, ..to get the frequency balance to a desired place to where your track stands up at at low and loud levels and translates across a wide variety of playback systems. Retaining the transient energy is important and one of the first things to go south if you are just relying on a limiter to get your tracks close to a modern EDM level.

The more you work at it the better you'll get, but if all else fails and your happy with how your mix sounds, as mentioned, decent pro mastering isn't all that expensive these days. GL
 
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