i was listening a tutorial and it said

to finish this track to release it i would start to compress things so it has that shine of a commercial track

what did he meant by shine? maybe i'm missing out on something

 

Hey, not sure but maybe by shine he meant glue and punch? That's what I use it for...Not sure though!

 

He means "so it feels (or sounds) and stands strong like a commercial track". It's basically just a placeholder. To answer your question,
no, you didn't miss anything. He is not referring to some hidden magical stuff.

 

NextGenSound

Hey can u give an example how you use compression to glue

 

these terms are so subjective and dumb IMHO
i've listened to a lot of examples and a lot of tutorials and even people on here the forums.

they just mean you need to polish up your mix and have a professional master (which no amateur/hobbyst can afford). there's no magic stuff, really. compression helps in a lot of cases, that's what they refer to when they say terms like 'glue'.

at least from my pov! peace

 

"Shine" is usually a high-end term, to add/boost some top end or using an exciter. "Shine" usually don't involve compression or parallel compression, but everything is subjective. Maybe the guy/girl who said it meant shine as in dynamic gueing.

 

at the end of the day your ears are the only RULE! there are people that mix the hell out of a track and whatever they used to record the track was so on point that they probably could get over without even getting the track mastered and this is proven by the years of independent music that was released straight from un-mastered demo tapes back in the 90s especially with underground house and hiphop.. if it sounds good it sounds good.. like the old saying you can't do polish a turd.

I don't know what the person meant about shine.. as these terms can have all types of meanings depending on who's saying them.. but my master bus at minimum always has EQ, Compressor, and a limiter (and these days Virtual Tape Machines at the end)

Side note..., I personally don't like how a lot of the music released today is mastered.... as a DJ a lot of it just doesn't have that sound that a DJ would be happy with... only example I can give is listen to older music from the 80s and 90s on vinyl or cd and then listen to music being released today especially the stuff specifically mastered for "Itunes" and such.. a lot of it is just loud to be loud.

 

Hey, well generally if I place a compressor on the mix I use a slow attack to keep the transients hitting that way I like, and adjust the release in a way that sounds pleasing to me...Threshold is really a matter of preference, some like to smash it and some like it nice and easy...Depends on your ears.

 

You can start by putting a simple-to-use compressor (Klanghelm MJUC is good) on a mix and trying out different settings, listening to how it changes the sound. Try it out on your favorite songs, don't be shy to wreck em' for science.

The main thing to remember is that we don't care at all about the volume of the mix.

If it got louder after compression, you can always turn the volume down, so it was like before.
If it got softer after compression, you turn the volume knob up.

The most important part to "get" about compression in the beginning, is that we don't care about the apparent volume. We only care about the squashed tightness quality of the sound. A little less squashed, a little more squashed. Trying to find that sweet spot where it's great and how you wanted it to sound. Takes a little bit of experimentation to train your ears to pay attention to squashiness quality and ignore the loudness quality.

After you play around like this for a week or two, you won't have any problems glueing tracks using a comp and will know exactly what they mean in tutorials, because you heard it all 100 times before yourself.

 

Last edited: Apr 23, 2017

"Shine" is when you finalize in such a way that your track stands out and holds its place against commercially released tracks. "Glue" is not just using a finalizing compressor but rather when you get it right using it hehehe. The "glue" term is derived from the famous SSL bus compressor. It has a specific character in sound that when you compress a good mix it brings all elements' timbres closer to each other, while maintaining stereo image and applying a bit of saturation too (the latter is what probably brings the timbres closer, along with the loudness being attenuated).
For the nth time, as a mastering engineer, i will advise the newbies to try and mix their track the best way they can and stop worrying much about mastering. Just peak-normalize the final mix and it will suffice if your mix is good. Having a good track is a matter of content and not necessarily polished sound. Just remember how many times you 've heard a shitty or on the fly master that became a hit. Tons of examples here.
Of course you can always experiment with mastering and by all means do so if you like, but the thing with this is, it can't be learned overnight or after 3 video tutorials, and the more you learn the more you realize how much more there is to learn. Becoming a master at mixing first, is always better if you write/produce tracks or songs. You can't be a master of all in a jiffy. Take it slow and with the correct order and you will find sooner or later that each time you apply something you learned you get more closer to your goals.
Cheers

 

Shine would in my opinion be the opposite of mud. If a track shines all the separate instruments will come together as one in perfect harmony. A muddy track would be something that is so pushed together sonically that it clashes and sounds like shit. IE not being able to hear a guitar over bass/drums etc.

 

transient pop, but still probably not bets way to word it

 

or sheen.... not to be confused with sizzle. That would require saturating the shine. lol

 

he looks glossy :D