When is a song ready?

4

42low

Banned
Through some years off digital recording i've made me some recordings which became songs. I learn each day and to practise that i regular start remastering old projects.
Some songs were simple cause a vocal on an existing musictrack. Some existed of 7 vocals on music, and some were fully self produced songs existing of multiple tracks.
Not professional (i'm still an amateur which has to learn and practise a lott), but they sound not that bad as people who heard and got songs confirmed that they were quite good (sure not worst at least). Some songs were received as 'great and well made'.

So i (think i) know quite some basics. I make vocals better with the right tricks. Learned better how to EQ tracks and how to get annoying sounds out of it. Learned how to master the song so it get's more body en depth. Learned better and more which plugins do what and were to use them. Know which plugins are quite common to use. And many more of that stuff.

But after reëditing and remastering i can't really say the song became that better.
Different, better on aspects, but not really better overall. Editing failures seem to effect the originality of the song, so agains the profits there seem to be (unwanted) losses too. Some more reverb doesn't always sound better. Some 'improvements' seems to flatten the song. That 'one annoying guitar tone' between the rest of the play seems to 'make the sound'.
And in the end both sound nice, but a bit different. Where i win i loose too with an 'equal' result where i can't name one 'better', and sometimes even a worst sounding remastering.

Is this because the original wasn't that bad at all at first? Is this because the recordings were already quite good? Is this because some sounds give a song it's life and characteristics and if you change these the backbone of the song is gone? Is it that less many times really is more?
Or is it because i still have to learn more? That it's a bump in the learning curve everyone confronts and which i have to break through? And how to take that bump?

Does my problem and question sound familiar to you? Do you have or had that too?
What bothers me?
Really need some help with this. :confused:
 
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Without hearing before and after, it's hard to say anything useful. However often less is more. Too much polishing and finessing can kill the mix. That's often the problem when the rough demo sounds better than the formal recording. When it comes to editing, only fix problems that are actually audible.
 
iqi616 said:
Without hearing before and after, it's hard to say anything useful.
Click to expand...

I thought about putting up an example but as i am looking for an anwer in general i didn't so anwers will not be specified to that one song.
And i trust that you all understand what i mean, and i'm looking forward to reactions. Like you reacted iqi616 for which my thanks.

About the 'only fix problems', what about the rather basic handlings like compression and eq and so on?

An example of what i mean.
Recorded guitar which missed some warmth. Something one can easily create in the DAW.
But then after that, the sound is warmer, but now the snirpy sounds are much less too. :confused: And those gave the song song character which you take out too.
So in the end better cause warmer, but a less charistic song.
 
Try a different EQ or maybe you went too strong on the EQ. You definitely want to keep the character. Maybe try some parallel processing so the warmth gets added without killing the character.
 
Thanks for your reply iqi616.

The EQ moslty is not the problem. I think is is more to be found in plugins like compressor, limiter, cabinet emulators and so on. And then especially the combinations of those. They add to to sound which off course is wanted, but they seem to cut other stuff too.

It looks like the more you add the more difficult it gets to keep the sound right. So now i would like to know if this is normal cause you all have that too, or try to find out if i am doing something wrong. I'm afraid i use to much pluggins, although i already always try not to use to not more than needed.
But it's not that i don't understand plugins cause i achieve it too to make a worst recording to sound resonable. If i wouldn't understand plugins i think i wouldn't achieve that either, would i?
Now i tend to grab back on the simplest way of recording as much as you want it and edit/master less. But that would be sad cause mixing/mastering IMHO must stay possible to add, not to cut off? So i need to know if i need to take this bump or walk around it.

O man. Am i running around in some kind of producers-block or whatever?? :facepalm:
 
Probably over-processing is the issue. My mixing philosophy is to make sounds the best version of what they already are. Whenever I work to try to make a sound into a different sound, it usually ends up as smudgy crap.
 
A song is ready when you come to the conclusion that you'll have nothing to regret about it when listening to it 20 years later.
 
Clear. Perhaps keep it simpler like i mostly intend to.

But that's were my question also comes from.
More then once posted productions online and got some technical criticism. Like some tones to snirpy or whatever.
And i must say that that criticism was correct. Some of those aspects could be better.

But there my dilemma starts. When correcting these aspects, other charismatic aspects that one doesn't want to mis get cut away too.
Or is it so that you have to accept some minor aspects to keep a production charismatic as it is?
 
You're too close and involved with the song, so any change is either heard negatively or as 'so what'. Sometimes it helps tostep away form it for days or weeks, but it sounds like you already did that.
 
Yeah. I'm a fanatic amateur and eager to learn. so to involved could be the problem.
Know that i have to step away sometimes, but hard to do when busy enjoying quite comfortable having fun.

As i look to it now i think that i need to choose more what i want en when it is enough.
Sometimes i feel like an art painter who made a wonderfull painting, but when he add's some extra (needed) strikes of paint it takes away the spontaneity of the painting cause it get's a 'too made look' and looses some 'reality'.
Is it right to say and accept that a project never will be perfect? Or perfect with and because it's minor shortcomings?
 
Did a quick try with the thoughts i got from you all in this topic, and i must say it helped.
Probably i wanted to much and did to much. Now i did less and it turned out rather well. And i must say that the 'old' original was quite acceptable and didn't need that much indeed.

Thanks all. You got me a step further.
 
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