Ever made a mix that sounded so good you thought it didnt need to be mastered?

[Outlaws]

Okay...first things first...


Samples and loops mostly don't need Mastering because they are ready for use out of the box.


Second. Activism sucks.

 

[Blue Bear Sound]

This is your idea of a mix????

First off - before even worrying about mastering or not, you have to mix it without all the distortion......

The sound quality is pretty much what I would have expected from someone talking a lot of shit.....

 

[TexRoadkill]

One day I hope to make a mix that doesn't need re-mixing much less mastering.

 

[mallcore pop]

Samples and loops mostly don't need Mastering because they are ready for use out of the box.

No, no, no! Especially in hip-hop, which is what I'm assuming illaboy is doing.

Let me extend the above statement to mixing, and that's the mindset that brings rapper/"producers" to your doors with a stereo mix off a Triton/Motif, thinking all they need is a vocal take and they're done. If anything, hip-hop tracks need (and are more tolerant of) heavier mixing.

Preset patches usually fill the entire frequency range, and swim in __effect in order to impress potential buyers. Of course, people don't edit their patches, and don't eq them, and don't eliminate cheesy verbs/multitaps/un-needed stereo info, because they're ready to use "out of the box".

 

[chessrock]

It's mildly amuzing stuff, Lillicaugh. The material isn't bad at all. Pretty inventive, actually. I have to admit I like your ideas.

I'm kinda' disappointed in the production and mastering, though. It sounds pretty amateurish. Ironically enough, my first inclination is that it could really stand a professional mix and mastering job.

And yet, that seems to be what you were bragging about most. Keep practicing.

 

[TexRoadkill]

I agree with Chess. The song isn't bad but the production kinda sucks.

On another note you should really try to sell yourself more in your description.

 

[faderbug]

cool song, i for one like the sound (very NWA/wu-tang) even though it doesn't comply to 'industry standards' ,everything's on the edge of distortion but still pretty much under control.

just one critique on your mix : i think the cymbals (you know wich ones) are too loud.



mastering could make this more radio friendly!!!



are you the guy rapping? funny, i thought you were russian.

 

[Blue Bear Sound]

...everything's on the edge of distortion but still pretty much under control.

Huh?? What song are you listening to???? It's not on the edge at all - it's well past it...........

 

[chessrock]

It sounds like it was intentional. I can get where he was coming from with it, though it might be a bit much for this particular song.

 

[malcolm123]

Me no see no song !!

And I wanted to check it out too !

 

[ChristopherM]

It sounds like it was intentional. I can get where he was coming from with it, though it might be a bit much for this particular song.

Are you talking about the distortion? 'Cause, coming from a newbie/"average joe" point of view, it didn't sound intentional to me, it sounded like crap.

Liked the song and performance a lot though.

 

[Son of Mixerman]

Have I ever made a mix that sounded so good to me that I thought it didn't need to be mastered?


All the time

But in reality people who mix "usually" are not the best people to make those kind of decisions. It is entirely possible that a newbie mix could be to the point where one song doesn't need any addition signal processing, but the song would still need to be mastered. Sometimes in the realms of professional audio albums to show up that don't need any processing, but they still have to be mastered. Mastering is not EQ and compression exclusively.

Mastering is:

A second pair of experienced ears evaluating the music's ability to translate to the largest number of playback systems.

Knowledge of equipment and workflow to minimize the number of components in the processing chain to balance eq, tame transients and adjust levels, fades and repair glitches to name a few.

Knowledge of tricks to enhance weakness in the audio, like MS processing or removing excessive reverb, parallel compression, upward compression, and countless other intimate and discrete things that takes years of experience, thru failures and successs both.

A great pair of Mastering speakers in a room that lets you hear things you usually can't in a nearfield enviroment.

Mastering is also making sure your disc/tape that goes to the duplication plant doesnt have anomalies that cause system crashes and BLER count, whats tolerable and whats not. Does the audio null on loadback and things like that.

Lets not forget that you also need to know enough about equipment to debug glitches in front of an itchy client.

That should cover the basics on Mastering without getting into the cost problem of having both colored and transparent choices of EQ, Compressors, Limiters Etc....

SoMm

 

[malcolm123]

Ok I found the track. I had to figure out the nowhere radio site.

Are we commenting on the track or is this another one of those war threads? LOL

Malcolm

 

[chessrock]

Are you talking about the distortion? 'Cause, coming from a newbie/"average joe" point of view, it didn't sound intentional to me, it sounded like crap.

I didn't necessarily say it sounded particularly good, or that it even worked for that song . . . but it did sound like he was deliberately going for a Beastie Boys kind of distorted beat thing, but it kinda' went amuck. I'm trying to be nice to the guy for a change. I'm turning over a new leaf.

 

[illacov]

So you finally herd it

cool
and so far your comments have been exactly what i thought were gonna be typical

yep

as for distortion perhaps digital distortion is what blue bear is referring to but i wasnt able to hear the mp3 because of the dial up connection at least after they did their onesy twosy to it

hey the production sucks?
Thats a matter of opinion half of it is fueled by personal shit anyways so its whatever

If mister bear is such a nice professional could we please have some links to his sites or material he's mastered??
This way i could tell the difference between the crap that im spewing all over the web and what he's sending out

BUT HERES ONE THING TO CONSIDER

The song cost me absolutely NOTHING to produce nor is it gonna cost me any money to distribute it because I own the company that sends out this material

In your opinion you may not like it but ive already sold my music before and lets not forget

I was wrong about the mix in the first place

I backed offf ALOT of volume on the tracks after giving it a second listen and trying to figure out the pumping problem

as for this borderline distortion issue im kind of lost if Blue Bear is an engineer then you should have experience with pressing houses and their big gripes with rap music

EVERY THING in rap music is always over compressed or tooo tooo high over the edge when its coming to levels etc they usually have to re mastered hip hop mixes at least twice...once in the remixing facility and at the pressing house itself before they even print that stuff because its on a whole page by itself when it comes to levels.

Pay attention to vinyl especially. Vinyl pressers burn out their heads all the time when they print rap lps because of the levels so you do the math on that one...even after the material has been re mastered TWICE at least...the material is still too loud for the pressers equipment but they have to deal with it and burn out their heads doing it.

Still though Bear can speak his peace im still thrown by the whole reverb unit bit though

you dont see me listening to music with a microphone jammed up my ear and a pair of earbud headphones in my mouth and im calling myself a recording engineer

anyways thanks for your feedback im sure ill get more and since we need to see the difference when im done remixing the song ill give you the remixed/mastered version on nowhere radio
ok
Peace
Illa

 

[illacov]

theres no samples on the song

just to clarify that
theres no samples on the song its all done with the roland jv 1010 and my sampler (just the drum hits nothing else)

well yeah cubase sequenced the audio and midi thats about it though i didnt use any samples on my album AT ALL

So do synths need to be mixed properly with limiters and all that
YES...fx on synths is the key to breaking your factory presets out box hell half the presets that you hear are variations on the same patch with different effects on them anyways

I used some factory fx on the guitar though i think the strings too im not sure

I ferget i have to check my log

Peace
Illa

 

[TexRoadkill]

Re: So you finally herd it

hey the production sucks?
Thats a matter of opinion half of it is fueled by personal shit anyways so its whatever

I've got no personal beef with you and sound quality is not a matter of opinion. Compare your mix to any commercial release and you will hear a huge difference in sound quality.

Most people here have pretty crappy sounding stuff and I can be guilty of it myself. If you want to grow as a producer you must accept criticism and learn how to improve the quality of your work.

If you would rather just believe your shit don't stink then good luck to you.

 

[chessrock]

Re: So you finally herd it

hey the production sucks?
Thats a matter of opinion half of it is fueled by personal shit anyways so its whatever

No, it doesn't suck. It's just not that great. For something that you're apparently taking very serious and looking to sell . . . I would think you would be much more successful with it if it was a slicker production.

And no, this isn't fueled by personal shit. Granted, you are a bit on the pretentious side , and your people skills on the internet could use a little work . . . but I don't know you personally and could care less, frankly.

I'm listening to your production and making an evaluation of it. I'd give you the same evaluation if you were my best friend -- although I just might be a little nicer about it and more careful how I worded it if that were the case.

So I hope you can take this in the spirit in which it was intended -- which is to help you further yourself. And if you are interested in developing, improving, and being more successful, then I would strongly urge you to work on your production and mixing skills. They could most definitely stand some improvement. And any incremental improvements you could make in that area could pay off handsomely down the road. But in order to do this, you're going to have to humble yourself a bit more, I'm afraid -- and I can see where that might be tough for you.

 

[illacov]

HOLD THE FUCK ON!!!

Ummm

are you hearing the music with me as a little kid???

I mean the beat is it like REALLY REALLY FAST??

I think they down converted my MP3 or something

The song is 103 bpm

When i finally took a listen to the song on the web its MAD SPED UP
like i sound 12 rhyming

are you getting that when you listen to the song??

Oh my God im so fuckin embarrassed...




who's idea was it to post at that site i waited for a half hour to put that damn file up for it to come out like this???

oh my god

Yo somebody please tell me this is not happening
Peace

 

[TexRoadkill]

lol, no dude we are hearing it normal speed. You probably need to update your media player.