Distortion on this beat....Someone please help

[SwurVe]

Hello,

Will someone please look at this beat and tell me whats wrong....I did not make the beat but me and the guy who made the beat are trying to figure out why the beat is distorting...If you listen closely to when the bass hits you can hear it make a sort of distortion...the guy said he tried turning the bass down adn changin it and nothing happens....it still does the same thing...He thinks it might be the piano....Will someone please help and tell what he can do to fix the beat


http://SwurVeOnline.com/chyno-revelation.mp3

Thank You,

[RAMI]

I don't know man. It sounds pretty damn good to me. I love this piece. I'm not sure what you mean when you say this "beat" is distorting. There's nothing wrong with the beat. The low piano note might sound like it's being hit too hard, but if you didn't say anything, I would have thought it's supposed to sound like that. It's got an aggressiveness to it that I think is cool. Maybe instead of turning it down, roll off some of the bass if you don't like it. But I really dig it the way it is.

[SouthSIDE Glen]

Swurve,

It sounds to me like you may have some "competition" going on between the piano and either the organ or the bass when the piano hits the low notes. By that I mean that two or three of those instruments are getting close, if not exact, in frequency or frequency range and their sounds are just not getting along all that well. It could be that you are getting some BFO-related distortion from the instruments not being quite in tune with each other or that the harmonics of the instruments are clashing and giving some phase-style problems.

First and foremost, make sure all instruments are properly tuned. If all your keys are electronic, there may not be a whole lot to do about that short of making slight pitch shifts in the mix tracks; but I would only recommend that as a last resort. If the bass and/or piano are organic instruments, then first make sure the bass has fresh strings and is tuned to a tight spec. Getting an acoustic paino tuned is not that cheap, I know, but if that's the problem it will be well worth the few bucks investment. (Many Big Boy studios have their pianos tuned before every tracking session...nice, but only the big boys can afford it, I know; but it's a good indication of just how important that's considered.)

If you have gone through the steps and it's not a tuning issue, then you may have some harmonic phase distortions happening between the instruments. Try some narow Q EQ cuts at the first and second harmonic frequencies of the note (or fundamental note of the chord) in question. EDIT: Do this on only one of the instruments, let the other one(s) be dominant at those harmonic freqs.

HTH,

G.

[SwurVe]

Anyone else have any ideas of how to fix it?

Thank You

[Kainz]

Hmh.. I must say I don't really hear any major distortion in this beat. I'm not also quite sure what are you chasing here.. Clipping type of distortion?

What kind of equipment are you listening this through? Are you sure the distortion is in the beat? Can it be eg in your monitors, since the track is quite bass heavy? (alot stuff under 50hz too)

Also when you did master the track you did slam it through a some kind of a digital limiter. When the limiter works, it produces distortion too. And since the bass is so loud in the mix allready you seem to limit some of those kicks when mastering. So this might give some distortion too. Check if the distortion is in the unmastered track allready.

If it is there too, then you need to fix it in the mix. You possibly have instruments clashing; "Everything works fine when soloing but when played together sound sucks" problem. After this, it is all about mixing. Check some tips for that from the previous post.

[SouthSIDE Glen]

After a few more listens, I'd still narrow to down to it either being the piano out of tune on the low end (those low resolve chords just sound slightly "off" to me, even during more open parts of the mix) or the low piano is fighting either the bass or the organ for phase. But my first bet now would be tuning.

G.

[SwurVe]

well the person made the beat I think in reason i wanna say....and he thinks its the two pianos he used that are clashing together or something