What goes wrong with my mixing, could never figure out , today expressing ,plz help.

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DevD

New member
for last 8 years I have been composing , arranging programming and mixing ,when I was mixing on Nuendo I had some great mixes, then I switched to Logic pro x ,

PROBLEM : I eq I compress, I select the best quality sounds in the business..... yet when I listen to my mixes now it seems as if headphone is playing 20 percent of what the power I felt should fill the headphones .....what do you all think can be the reason... is it that I simply don't know what mastering is all about if it's about power ? when I compare them with other professional mixes I find two things missing 1) power in sound 2) sharpness and clarity and distinctness in sounds ,MY mixes with best sounds start sounding poor in SOUND quality .... my song ultimately starts sounding less big and clean .now the question

1) I use the best kicks and best snares and best sounding guitars out of thousands of sounds.After finishing the mix , I feel what the hell has gone wrong that now in totality why a kick is not hitting me in the stomach and a snare in my head , and strings are sounding so dull and it seems that the entire song which when a professional sound engineer mixes fully fills the head phone but when I finish my mix it sound powerless.
 
Well you were clearly doing something right if Nuendo was giving you the results you wanted. So, you can either switch back or figure out what is different about what you're doing now. Have you changed anything else apart from your DAW?
 
YEah might be the daw ,as mix proceeds definitely frequencies start fighting with each other but what do you think maintains what I am describing as quality of a sound till the end..what methods you use to maintain
1)distinctness of sounds
2)body and power of individual sounds
 
For a start, pick the "stars of the show". Except when they are interacting with each other musically only one thing at a time should be the star as you move through the song. Make the stars sound great and make sure all the other sounds are only there to help them sound great. If all the sounds are fighting to be at the front, the mix won't work. A good start is to ban yourself from using solo when you mix.
 
Just a couple things that came to mind while reading, but keep listening to other suggestions as well...

- did your headphone/monitoring situation change?
- did you use stock plugins to mix with? If so, obviously those are gone now and you're using the vst's in the new DAW. Maybe those are subpar? Maybe you used presets from the first DAW's plugins that are now gone? Take a look at the settings for the compressors you used on the last DAW. Compare to the new compressor
- I highly doubt the track will sound that drastically different from one DAW to the next. Unless, of course, point 2.
 
Not to sound harsh, but how do you know your previous mixes were good???

Maybe they sucked and all that had happened is your ears and ability to hear got better.

If your prior mixes were truly good, then examine what has changed.

The 'seemingly' obvious thing is the Daw, but that's not it. All Daws sound the same. Unlike a console or tape deck they have no character.

Time to examine how and what you were doing then as compared to now.

For starters you could try a dry mix. No effects, no processing and see how everything fits together just with levels.
Then move on to eg to carve out a spot for each element.
 
So share some examples and we might be able to advise.

Usually a powerless or dull mix has too much content, too much compression and not enough gaps in frequency and time. Often more down to the arrangement than the mix.
 
The best kick and snare in the business might not be the ones that fit the song you are recording. All the sounds have to fit together in the context of the song, even if the individual sounds of the instruments don't sound good.

You might be accidently chosing sounds that take up the full spectrum, which then fight with each other in the mix.

Post and old and a new mix, then we will be able to make specific suggestions.
 
Thanks for you replies
how do I know my previous mixes were good ???
it's been almost 8 years of posting those videos or listening to them every time things sound proper and clean ...

what was it that I was doing different then ??
I had no knowledge of what to cut what to boost , I had no knowledge of how the speaker should be or the room should be ......I just heard what it sounded like , some of my eq setting were like huge mountains and all compression was some preset as I had no knowledge of compressors and how to use them .....every setting of every plugin was a preset ...ha ha ha I am sorry to reveal this but this is a truth and till date they sound open and big and most important , how good sounding songs sound like.... YEs daw was different .....

WHat do engineers mean by engine of a daw , stating that it sounds richer or warmer or bigger , ......what does this engine do really or do they really mean it when we are saying there is no difference between daws.
 
DevD said:
...stating that it sounds richer or warmer or bigger , ......what does this engine do really or do they really mean it when we are saying there is no difference between daws.
Click to expand...

Again, I'm very sure what's happening is that the stock plugins you're using, and their presets, are making you think the sound is better from one DAW. Like I said, the plugins drastically differ the sound, and some plugins are far better sounding than others. Take into that that you are selecting presets. If I chose two presets, one from each DAW's stock compressor, one will obviously sound better than the other.

I'm very sure that's what's happening here. But, you know, whatever.
 
The 'engine' of the daw is the part of the program that does all the math, when mixing. But the days of the DAWs actually sounding different from each other are long over. (if they ever really did sound different, most of the difference that everyone heard came from the different stock plugins and/or the different interfaces that you were forced to use with older daws. The actual math behind mixing things together is the same)

The problem you are having is you are not using the same plugins with the same presets. That is why it sounds different. If you were using 3rd party plugins in the old DAW and the same plugins on the new daw, the stuff would sound the same.
 
are you mixing the same way. same order of actions? Do you have a clear picture of what you want the mix to sound like finished? Sometimes when changing DAW's the work flow process changes, if your not careful. Also I don't think the eq plugins from cubase to logic react exactly the same. I had this problem moving projects back and forth through different DAWs. I fixed that by using the same third party plugins throughout the sessoins/mixes.
 
Sounds like you kind of cheated before.
Don't mean that in a bad way, just saying the presets made life easy.
Little thought and learning of the plugins was required.

Fast forward to now. Use those plugins OR learn the new ones.

Learning them, in the long run, is far better.
:D
 
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