hello everyone

i have been producing progressive house from few months ... now i want mixing and mastering my tracks myself ... i have normal speakers and headphones to use .. i dont have any gear for monitoring ... can u plz advice me how can i mix and master my track in best way without using monitors.... my normal speakers boosts up the basses ...



one more thing i wnt to know is ... it is said that the track which sounds good on loud volume also sounds good on low volume ...but the vice versa is not true...

i cant play my track loudly .... i dont have studio ... i produces track at home in fl studio and due to family issues .. i cant play it loud to check if everything is fine ..... is there any way to solve this problem ... i dont have access to any studio or good monitoring system .... can i use any technique or plugin to artificially boost the volume to check the quality of my track ?plz help



thanx

 

this is a huge issue, i found the best way to mix with shitty headphones is to utilize reference material heavily...i.e. listen to a professional song you respect on your headphones, and you can use that as a reference for your own material.

mixing with only headphones is not ideal- If you only ever use headphones for mixing, it’s all too easy to misjudge your mixes. Common mistakes include making the stereo field too narrow, and not splashing enough reverb onto vocals and synth parts, leaving them overly dry. BUT! headphones can expose lots of tiny details in your mixes that you might miss on speakers.

Some headphone amps, accessories and plug-ins provide optional 'crossfeed' that mixes a little of the left-hand channel into the right and vice versa, to mimic the natural behaviour of our ears. This technique is sometimes known as acoustic simulation- and can be helpful when using only headphones.

Low frequencies seem to cause the most trouble when it comes to mixing with headphones- Part of the problem is that headphones don't allow us to physically feel the bass as we do with speakers, and this and can lead to over hype it. The other part is that a lot of headphones (even some quite expensive models) don't have a very accurate bass end either peaking around certain frequencies or being overall lacking.

if want to discuss the best headphones, you can search here at audiosex for lots of recommendations-


and you can get alot of good tips by googling your search terms:

how to mix music with headphones

how to mix music without monitors


cheers and good luck!

 

Alot of times I have to do the exact same thing you are. It's late and I have to use my headphones to do BOTH mixing and mastering and all the producing. The first thing is you need a pair of good headphones, they don't need to be expensive, just good and you need to hear the bass frequencies properly and make sure that it doesn't exaggerate the high frequencies. The second step is you need reference songs and a spectrum analyzer (the best, free plugin for this is Voxengo SPAN). Download it from voxengo's website here. Import some songs that you like (that sound like what you want to produce) into FL studio and insert the analyzer plugin. Listen to the songs, on your headphones, while watching the analyzer graph and the number and take note of the frequencies, the peak values, the rms values, and any other values on the analyzer. Write them down if you need to, take a screen shot of the graph if you need to. Most importantly, is remember how they sound on your headphones so that when you're mixing your own music you compare it to the reference songs. This is what I do all the time when I'm mixing and mastering on headphones and it always works.

Let me know if you have any other questions.

 

You can t judge your audio because is distorted by speaker, converters, room response, in headphone we have more distortion than real acustically controlled room, 2) if you takea progressive song and apop song and a hip hop song , the apectrum analyzer probably give the same result but the song is completely different!!! So your experience and your ear have learn till today things in a not correctly manner , so you don t know when a kick is compressed right or not, if is balanced the bass with the snare , etc etc so send this to a mastering engineer pay some money and enjoy the result. , if it s not right, swnd the stems for mixing track too, you don t know probably if the problem is the mix, i think yes

 

thanx for reply everyone ... one more thing i want to know is there any way to make sure that the track that i have made with normal speakers and headphones will sound good in clubs and on large music systems .... ? it is said that our track may sound good on low volume but it will fall apart wen played on large sound in clubs ?

 

thanx a lot bro voxengo span is really good plugin ... can u advice me some more plugins of this kind ?

 

s(M)exoscope is handy too

Anyways stick around, this is long ride and you will not get all your answers in one thread, neither you will put all advices in use successfully for a while, it's a journey and exploration, be patient and prepare yourself for bunch of information that needs to be processed properly and examined in practice, dig arround the forum you will find most of the answers to your questions, spend some time reading and than when you feel something isn't asked before than open a thread, welcome to AudioSex

 

You need to investigate the limits of PA systems and do things to minimize dissonance in your bottom end such as keying your kick to the bass.

 

definitely another one of my favorite plugins. Especially useful for letting you know if you're overcompressing and for pointing out where there are sharp peaks that need to be tamed. But for an analyzer all you need is SPAN pretty much. If you want to go an extra step (not needed in my opinion) then get the TT dynamic range meter and use it to analyze the dynamic range of your favorite songs and work on getting yours to around the same without of course making it distorted or anything like that.

 

can u also plz suggest me some good mixing and mastering plugins ...for eq , compression , limiter ,delay and reverb ..?

i have heard a lot abt izotope ozone and fab filter plugins ?

 

Please trust me when I tell you this, just use the ones that come with your DAW, them + your ears and maybe one good analogue saturation plugin (Nomad factory cosmos is AMAZING) to give some attitude to your track and that's it. trust me I mix and master my own music with the built in plugins and maybe one or two things from 3rd party plugins if I absolutely have to for whatever reason.

Fabilter is also amazing yes, I use it for mastering because it has a great analyzer, mid/side function and is very precise, for mixing, just the regular built in EQ.

 

Agree with Fuad, first you need to spot the problem, than you need to find the solution and what is in your disposal to accomplish that, than when you actually know that something else will fit better there than it's time for 3rd party assistance, for example you feel that some material would benefit if you boost 4k, normally you need an eq, after trying with your go to eq you feel that some other will do better job because it has that smooth character you like, than you pull that one and you are there, but it's a process, first you need to learn techique of eq-ing and how to use it properly, than you need to learn the ones you already have in disposal and just than you are free to compare that eq to some other 3rd party, so you can easily spot the difference and spend enought time trying out the same one on different sources so you have clear picture of his strengths and weaknesses, basically again learning that one too, after a while you will instantly reach for that particular one, but that's the time when you gained enough knowledge, practice and workflow in solving problems.

It's not about tools, it's about how you are using them, just after some time it's about that small difference in quality, but until than you have long road to walk, there will be no tool to make your music better if you don't know how to use them properly, after that small quality difference will be something that is your concern, not just making something decent and getting away with anything, when you are aiming for perfection, that's where you will need perfect tools for perfect vision, until you reach that stadium, make it work and learn what you already have, maybe that perfect tool was in front of you all the time, but you never give it a chance and proper testing

On a side note, there is "thanks" button and we all use it to show out appreciation, support and personally I use it like a "like" button too, so if you feel that someone is done something special for you or you just dig what he is saying, use it, it's nice gesture and it feels good

 

i wish there b more than one thanx button ...so that i cud have shown u how helpful ur comments r for me and how thankful i m for u thanx a lot Xsze , fuad and everyone ,

 

Sure my friend, stick around, we are family here

Some good advices in this thread, check it out

http://audiosex.pro/index.php?/topic/6074-how-do-i-get-my-mix-cleaner/

 

http://www2.zippyshare.com/v/34044284/file.html

this my very first track ... i have not done mixing and mastering yet ... i think bass and kick frequencies are overlaping ... ?

plz suggest me what more can i do to make this track better
how shud i start mixing ?

 

I noticed your track is pushed to the limits already and I sense you have limiter on your master buss, so just remove that limiter from there and pull all the faders down in your mixer(except your master fader), now pull up your kick to peak on let's say -10dbfs and you gonna match all other channels according to him(but leave the kick there and try to make everything around him, he is like foundation and all the rest is what comes on top of it)

Now I'm gonna copy-paste Fuad's response and everything that is written is actually your next steps:

-When mixing, start with your kick drum (or your most important instrument, usually it is the kick drum), then mix everything else around it. The bass should be 3-6dB lower in volume than your kick. The start mixing in your percussion and then other instruments like synths and things like that.

-Get your bass and kick to work together..first set the volumes like i stated above, then sidechain the bass if you need to. use a spectrum analyzer and see where the peak if the kick is, and cut the bass 2-3dB at that frequency with a Q of 3-4. then sidechain it if you need to.

-Make sure your low frequencies such as your kick and bass are in mono so they don't interfere with other stereo instruments.

- Use a high pass (low cut) filter on pretty much everything in your mix except the kick and the bass (sometime you can even low cut these as well if you feel they have too much sub). Usually, instruments and synths that are not basses or a kick can be low cut up to 200Hz and even more if you need to. So, even if you see that an instrument, or percussion, or synth doesn't sound like it has an bass frequencies, low cut it anyway, because it will almost always have something there that you can't hear but that will contribute to making your mix sound muddy and mushy.

-Start with an eq and start cutting frequencies that you feel the instrument doesn't need. Get it to sound like it does in your head. Sometimes this includes cutting the very high frequencies above 16,000Hz. A build up of these high frequencies also causes the mix to sound like a mash. Put an eq on the instrument that you want, put a bell curve with a high Q, like 20-30 and sweep around the frequency spectrum and look for really loud, or annoying or harsh frequencies and cut them out until they don't poke out so much

-After cutting bad frequencies, use a compressor if you need to to even out the peaks or volume of the sound.

(Now it's a good time to start panning, your goal is to balance the stereo field and give the sounds little space if it's possible)

-After cutting and compressing, use another eq to boost anything if you need to. For example, if you want to add more air to the vocal you can do that after cutting and compressing. Or if your bass needs a bit more 100Hz then boost 1-2dB to make it more prominent.

Now it's time to manipulate that spectrum even more and give the sounds more sense of space, character and your goal here is to make everything sounding like a whole, now effects come to play, reverbs, delays,choruses,distortion/saturation and whatnot, this is the moment when you are left with your vision, judgments and skills to pull out the best mix you can

Hope its' enough to get you going

IMHO this tutorials are really good, you will get more than general idea, boost your knowledge and get inspired to work more *yes*

http://www.dancemusicproduction.com/mixing-and-mastering-vol-1/

http://www.groove3.com/str/mixing-electronic-music.html

 

Also we have some useful videos in our AudioSex Academy section in Education. There you will find many YouTube videos, books and interesting sites that can help you take your music to the next level. It is being expanded all the time so you never know what you might find. I am also in the process of making a post with a detailed table of contents so you will be able to locate the exact thing you're interested in with very little time and effort.

 

i hv fl studio... its built in plugin reliable ..?

 

thanx bro im following audiosex academy.
i m waiting for ur valuable post hope to c it soon

 

thanx bro for ur amazing reply .. i hv started mixing with these tips ....
can u plz send the link of fuad's post where all guidelines r written..

n thanx for listening to my song ...i knw its not gud bt its first one
anything i shud change in it before mixing ?