, advances in technology and my own growth as a musician, how do i break from this?
Good question. I had a couple of threads here desperate for help in making my music sound good and my mixing better. I remain continually baffled and amazed at how bad my stuff sounds compared to all manner of music from full on pro big studio stuff to dudes with 4 track cassette Portastudios creating stuff that just effortlessly surpasses what I do.
I habitually make music that sounds pinched and thin, shrill and ear splitting yet also muddy and dull and indistinct all at the same time. It's very demoralizing. I could blame my having to use VST drums...but plenty of people make great songs with VST drums. I could blame my room...but plenty of people do great stuff in worse rooms than mine. I could go on and on in a similar vein and cover every aspect from A to Z of making a song. There's excuses I could make...but I think the main problem is something to do with my ears or my perception of what everything should sound like or in terms of mixing where I should begin and what to do...am I hearing or not hearing the incredible amount of harsh 3khz in the acoustic guitar? Chances are I'm not. I'm hearing it as nice and bright. Or am I hearing the massive thudding of the VST kick drum at 100hz or do I perceive that as a nice solid kick? Chances are I'm just getting it wrong and I'm just not noticing that the kick is clashing hugely with the bass or vice versa. Magnify these kinds of issues across every single track...every bar of the song. Magnify these kinds of issues when recording even...let alone mixing...just recording lame sounds to begin with because you don't know any better...and you end up with this vortex of shit that
nobody could mix. The lame unconvincing vocals that need to sell the song because they are the lead vocal are riddled with mud, honk and harshness...and you hate your voice anyway and you realise you're just on a suicide mission and you're not a musician or a singer and you've worked a day job all your life...not worked your obsession and passion for music all your life. Because you don't have an obsession or passion for music you just tell yourself you might or you do if only people would hear it like you hear it in your favourite headphones. You're just a weekend hack like so many other weekend hacks.
When you compare your stuff to people out there in the world with real passion and belief and drive and who are good musos...you just realise that you're a very, very mediocre plonker who will never get it. I'm talking about me here. But you've dedicated a lot of time buying things...pumped money into trying to turn an 8x9ft spare room into Abbey Road...kidding yourself at every turn that this next purchase will make the difference. And your music continues to sound utterly amateur. You're stuck in the pipe dream. You're not a musician or a song guy...you work in a box factory and you gnash your teeth when the government tax you to death.
I just spent the last 3 or 4 months recording 20 songs. Really enjoyed recording them. Thought they were good songs. I mixed them. Thought they turned out ok. Started trying to master them...doing the extra checks and balances, comparing to references, checking in the car etc. They just suck. All that effort and whatever emotionality the song was supposed to have just overshaddowed by how lame playback is. What really gets me is that my stuff, it doesn't even hang just kind of like 'ok' you know. I mean there's no forgiveness at all...there's no case of oh you know I just recorded a bit of guitar, bass, some vocals, some BU vox and an organ and a shaker and yeah I mixed it and put it on youtube and ah well you know it sounds alright. No. It conspicuously does not sound alright. It clearly sounds shit.
I dunno how to get better. Something is fundamentally off about what I'm doing. I'm monitoring too loud, too quiet. I'm starting a mix with the drums way too loud or not loud enough I dunno. I do know that recording a nice sounding acoustic guitar is catastrophically difficult. Every inch of the recorded file frequency sounds awful usually. Bass guitar is always just awash in overtones, utterly boomy. So there's that.
Another thing mixing is that you very quickly get used to any sound. You'll make changes and then you'll acclimatize to the sound and think it's good. This happens to me despite taking breaks regularly and repeatedly. It's so bad that I'll even reference songs while mixing and make changes that I think are closer to the reference or the tone I'm going for but in the blink of an eye you'll lose all perspective and whatever changes you make you'll just "OK" them because your ears just very quickly adapt and incorporate changes. You'll come back the next day and there'll be no body to the mix. It's all gone. And you'll be like...what the hell was I thinking??
So to answer your question. I don't know. I'm just about ready to call it here with my whole music thing. Coz I just don't get it. My last resort is maybe to go back in order to go forward. I'm going to try very hard to limit myself to 4 tracks...something like drums on one track, guitar and vocals on track 2, bass track 3 and then something else on track 4. Just keep ultra minimum so I don't have 40 thousand things to juggle when mixing. Maybe I need to master that before moving forward. But who am I kidding?
