Compare a mix to your Master?

pure.fusion

New member
Hi all,

Amateur here wanting some feedback on this cheat method for mixing.

I've mixed a few dozen of my own songs now but there's no doubt I'm still way in amateur mode.
Some mixes come out better than others. I'm sometimes feeling like I just can't get to "the end" of the mix or I'm not fully in control of it.
I'm ok with this btw, it's all fun.

I recently took a recording that I'm storing on Soundcloud and tried out the new Mastering function.
I was impressed at how good it made my song sound, even though I could recognize that it was just a computer algorithm doing it's thing (and a bit like a blunt tool too, i'm sure humans would do better).
It was easy to be impressed too; it was slightly louder, more treble in the entire mix and clearer separation of the all instruments. Especially vocals.

Question is: If I had done a better job mixing this song, or perhaps had a better idea of what end sound I was heading for, would this mastering process have had such a dramatic effect?
Another way of asking would be, would a well mixed song sound much different after being mastered?

So (and don't laugh) I was thinking I could just load my songs into Soundcloud, get a taste of what the "Soundcloud Mastering" does to it, then head my mixing towards this sound.

I'm interested to hear your thoughts on this.
FYI the recording in question is "Tribute" in my signature. It ended up being a fairly flat and dark mix compared to others.

Cheers.
 
The loudness thing is what makes it hard.

New[er] versions of tools like Ozone, which have presets and some kind of "AI" (aka "assistant" feature) to master your mix. The nice feature they have is the ability to loudness match with and without their plugin so you can make a clearer [headed] listen and decide if what is being done is really improving, just making louder, or perhaps changing some things in ways you don't like.

You can loudness match your final mix with a master (if the trial lets you download) by using a loudness meter, and applying gain+limiter, and maybe a little bus compression, and measure your mix against the "mastered" version until you have the loudness (integrated LUFS) the same.
 
OK...but ARE we just talking about loudness differences...or something more than that between the mixed and mastered versions?
That's a question for the OP to answer first...what was different between your mix and the "nicer" sounding Soundcloud master?
 
OK...but ARE we just talking about loudness differences...or something more than that between the mixed and mastered versions?
That's a question for the OP to answer first...what was different between your mix and the "nicer" sounding Soundcloud master?
Yes, but if you "normalize" loudness, then the other changes might be more obvious.

Obvious suspects are EQ and some MBC they probably have a genre-wheel to spin to pick that.
 
Yes, but if you "normalize" loudness, then the other changes might be more obvious.

Obvious suspects are EQ and some MBC they probably have a genre-wheel to spin to pick that.

What I meant...is the OP simply looking for more loudness when he says his mixes don't measure up...or is there more to it than that.
 
Hi all,

Amateur here wanting some feedback on this cheat method for mixing.



So (and don't laugh) I was thinking I could just load my songs into Soundcloud, get a taste of what the "Soundcloud Mastering" does to it, then head my mixing towards this sound.

I'm interested to hear your thoughts on this.


Cheers.

I'm gonna go out on a limb and just say "NO" your mix should sound like a "Mix" and a "Master" should sound like a "Master" to me there's a difference that I won't go into, but that's my opinion. In this day and age you have all the tools available so you can learn to first "Mix" Then "Master" your tracks.
 
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