I always like to know what people have the most problems with in their productions. For some it's EQ, for others it's compression. For me believe it or not I tend to sometimes have trouble with gain staging, getting the volumes right, and I think it's because I focus so much on details sometimes that I lose sight of the bigger picture.

What's your biggest production/mixing/mastering dilemma that gives you the most problems?

 

My only two problems are:

Not having the money to pay a professional mastering service, therefore having to master my stuff on my own.

Not having the money/space/room for HQ-monitors/room treatment etc.

 

Yeah...money...the necessary evil we all suffer from..
You actually don't need that much money to setup a nice home studio, and trust me you don't need all that room treatment. Just a pair of good monitors, good headphones, a decent mic and you're good to go. If you want some treatment for vocals get one of those mic screens they cost like 60 or 70 bucks. That's all man, you don't need all that other stuff, you're not a recording studio you're a musician,

I'll tell you what, I'll master one of your songs for free how does that sound? No money involved

 

1. Levels/Gain-Staging but more like balancing the instruments back-forth etc., not necessarily peaks. But that's also a matter of taste, dunno really...
2. Reverb (I always spend the most time on it and it just never sounds good enough)
3. Clarity (Not sure if it's EQ or a combination of everything - I mean it could be a huge/muddy reverb tail, distortion, frequencies, phasing, loudness, panning...)
4. Tone-shaping without level/peaking problems/Compensation for tone-shaping

But I'm not really an engineer or a pro, so... I guess I can just make it acceptable up to a point.

 

Yeah we see that monitors are very important when mastering... and can't depend on headphones to do it! Need to test the track in all these different devices...
For me right now everything is difficult ... that's why I'm here to get some advices and possibly share cool things! :D

 

- Options. So many decisions, all of them nice and suitale for the track.
- Clarity, depth and wideness, when working with messy and really crowded sessions.
- Compression on sub low end or really high or sharp stuff like cymbals, glitchs and cuts.
- Overlapping stages... going back and foth again and again, too much sometimes.
- Distance/separation between instruments playing in the same range or really close, without killing them with EQ.

 

Well you've come to the perfect place then

Yeah guys these are all problems that I went through and sometimes still go through because every project and every song is different. That's what makes production hard is that there are no cookie cutter solutions for these things, I mean there are of course rules of thumb you can follow but the best you can do is just keep trying and learning and understanding why and how things work, and not focus on the tools and the plugins because in the end it really does not matter

 

My bitch ass girl friend

 

Getting extremely sidetracked with things. I go completely of course sometimes and even forget I had my DAW open haha.

 

^^^ I feel you... i just wanna shag and go on with the music but she always gets mad

 

Is best sound new, than sound good.

 

One of my main problems, either through lack of practice or other things, is the vocal track.
I have problems when fitting a vocal track in a mix.
For example, I'm doing a remix of Blondie - Call Me, I have the vocal track of the artist with too much reverberation room (typical of the 80´s).
I make a copy of the same.
Apply to the original audio, equalizer with high pass filter, then a compressor and finally invest phase track.
I mix two tracks (the original and the copy) to get the desired result.
Although this method takes you out of trouble, do not leave me satisfied, and at one point ruins the track.
Not only that, I also have trouble removing the hiss and other details.
In short, I can not let treating vocal tracks.
Found some enlightened maybe you can guide me. Regards

Sorry for my English

 

To me, looking back is the worst nightmare

That's why i try to perform/record on one DAW. And render tracks to another DAW to make the final mix/master.
So i don't fall back to recording/performing.

To me, being musician/mix eng/mastering eng can be a nightmare when you always switch back and forth.
It can happen with tracks, too : you need that perfect complextro-like break, so you stack 10 tracks but you can't render it in a single one, once and for all
Making decisions, sticking to them and never looking back...this is the hard way.

Rendering tracks is a good way to avoid it, because it takes time/motivation to tweak and render them again, not a single click.
And fixing yourself short deadlines is a good way to avoid this, too

 

Finishing a track/song!
I started to watch ill Methodology. There are some really helpful tips for me regarding organising of myself.

Perfection
I really need to tame myself. Perfection is boring.

Mixing/Mastering
Soon I'll purchase your tutorial fuad -> https://www.udemy.com/mastering-synth-pop/
I hope you teach me something *yes* Looking forward to it.

 

Mixing Chorus vocals.

Mixing Kick drum and Bass cohesively.

Nowadays, I'm just having trouble being creative.

 

Customers with over-compressed tracks (most commonly vocal-trax) who want me to do the mix-down... That's the real nightmare... A compressor is for compression and not to make it louder... It is not a fader... every mix needs air to breathe...

 

@Xsze...

I found this by accident... maybe it is something for you...
Tutorial

 

#1 dilemma: Too many ideas to focus on one idea

 

mine is not be able to play and sing when i had way to many beers

 

Not having enough CPU power and a dedicated audio card with low latency ASIO drivers.
At the start of a new project, everything is fine, but after inserting 4-5 effects on almost every track, automation, busses, my pc starts to go crazy and I need to bounce tracks.
Compression - I don't understand it yet, I know the basic things, but I was never good at math - calculating all those crazy ratios and understanding that some compressors have a faster attack than others, then there is that Soft knee.
I tried Brainworx plugins which has really nice comps, like Vertigo. But some of their plugins like one EQ (don't remember which one, was a blue one) have a really ugly and crowded GUI, which makes hard to understand which knob does what.

I want to understand Parameter Modulation in Reaper. I've read an article on SOS magazine and I saw this can do cool things, but I didn't quite understood how can I put this in practice in particular songs. I know, read the manual. I will get there, . Just right now I'm reading about some easier stuff and it will take a time until I'll get to the heavier stuff like Parameter Modulation and all the cool Reaper routing capabilities, which are overwhelming for me right now with all the pre-fader, post-fader, and etc.