creating a good mix. any tips?

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electronicdreaming

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hey i use cakewalk pro audio 9, and i am currently working on a song. for some reason i just can't get it to sound "professional". any tips? also, when i add reverb, a crackling occurs. any tips out there? i really appreciate your time, thanks!
justin g.
 
"Professional" is a subjective term. What exactly is wrong with the sound?

Generally sound quality on a DAW is a function of your mics, pre-amps and sound card. You certainly won't get "professional-sounding" recordings by plugging the mic that came with your computer into the sound card that came with your computer. What's your set-up?

Cakewalk is simply software. It allows you to capture and manipulate the data provided from your input chain. It has no effect on the sound quality (except for when you use its tools to process sound - as in applying FX).

As for your reverb problem - reverb tends to be a fairly memory intensive plug-in. Some brands more than others (e.g., Waves Ltd.). How much memory do you have, and what reverb plug-in are you using?
 
heres my setup

my setup is:
1. alesis qs 6.1 synthesizer
2. cakewalk pro audio 9
3. SB Live platinum with live drive interface
4. Ibm clone 128 RAM 500 MHZ 30 gig hard drive

...........ok there it is :) the reverb problem only occurs on one sound from my alesis, so it just doesn't mix with that lead sound i guess. no prob. :) and i use the cakewalk FX ..........Cakewalk Audio FX that is......and the stereo reverb. maybe i'm just being too hard on my mix anyways. oh well. anyways, got any more tips for me?:) thanks!
justin g.
 
try here

there are tons of tutorials at this site...http://www.digido.com/
I have used the bob katz one as a general primer on mastering but there are other ones as well. No matter what your equipment mixing is an art and has taken me a long time to develop...the more information I had the better my mixes....
 
Pro Sound

Jason,
You have to consider your pre amps, mics used,mic placement, acoustical area, playback reference,and lack of knowledge of your software.
Recording is not as easy as it seems. The "sound" comes with schooling and or experience, and hardware/equipment.
Sometimes the kiss method is the best way. (keep it simple stupid). If you have a good recording, do as little to it as possible.
Eq what needs it, gate the drums, a little chorus/delay on vocals, a light compression/eq on the final mix, do a stereo pan on the channels (kick,bass,vocals@64,guitar-1@ 55,guitar-2@75,back up vocal-1@54,back up vocal-2@74,Snare@80,high hat@50,pan the toms as they are played, as well as the over head mics. Play with these settings to suit your taste. If it sounds good mono it'll sound better in stereo.
Get enough stereo separation on the instruments. Remeber how you mix live. Don't try and push your input eq beyonds their means.

Hope this helps

Gidman
 
panning and such

hey gidman, how do you do stereo pans and stuff? i am interested in adding that to my mixes, i just don't know where to go in cakewalk to do pans.....thanks for all your help! i appreciate it
justin g.
 
Stereo Mix

Justin,
On each track where you set your pan and volume. Both your pan and volume go from 0 to 127. The pan @ 64 being dead center (mono) on the mix. Set your pan where you want each instrument in the stereo mix 0 being total left and 127 being total right. Record @ 64 on your pan, then set the pan where you want it on your mixdown. The settings I gave you above may need some doctoring to your taste. Does that help?


Gidman
 
Also, in the audio view you can add pan envelopes which are a lot easier to work with IMO. To insert a pan envelope, right click on the track's waveform that you want to pan and choose envelope -> create pan. This will insert a green line throughout the track and you can grab the line and move it up (to pan left) or down (to pan right) to change the panning. You can also righ click on the line and choose add node which will place a dot on the line and you can change the panning of just certain parts of the song without effecting the spot before or after it (the envelopes can be a little tricky at first, so if you need help just let us know :)).

Hope this helps.

-tkr
 
thanksguys

hey guys i'm gonna work on all this........thanks for the info! i will probably be back in a couple days with more questions ;) ...haha peace you guys, and thanks alot!
justin g.
 
I'm still learning mixing myself, but have found some stuff that seems to work:

- i found that it's hard to make it sound professional without good equipment (condensor mic, a compressor, mic preamp). the software can only do so much...

- as far as the actual mixdown, don't be afraid to copy a mono track and paste it into a second track, panning one left and the other right. (for panning, go to view/console and you will see little sliders near the top of each track). I use this double-ing up trick on the main rhythm guitar and it fills out the sound nicely.

- be careful not to wash the song in too much reverb.
(lots of articles, such as those at prorecording.com emphasize this, and over time I have come to believe it)

- if you have soundforge software, try the wave hammer function to add some compression. or do like i did and buy an RNC Compressor box to route your instruments to before it goes to the soundcard. i think other companies make good compressor boxes too but everybody raves about the rnc... plus it's not too expensive (around 200 i think?)

- your crackling may be from the soundcard input? make sure to use the line-in instead of the mic-in (although this will only work if you have a mic preamp... I got a little art preamp from sam ash for less than 100 bucks that works well and has phantom power for the awesome 80 dollar marshall large diaphragm 1006 condensor mic

- take it one step at a time and experiment. treat it like a demo and don't try to make it perfect the first time. that's the best advise i have to give!

Good luck and be patient, experiment, and read all you can online.

Cheers,
Brendan
 
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