I plan on making more songs in this style and then send them to Ektoplazm (now that would be a dream!) or something similar, though I'm not sure if the "sound quality" is something you'd expect from a "non amateur". I mean, does this sound bad to you? Or is the mix clean (or at least, listenable), muddy, good, bad, etc.

You know what they say, what's better than a pair of ears? More pairs of ears.

THE DISCIPLE 6:44
https://clyp.it/ve3jx2v3

Sorry if I don't write much but I'm really busy these days and when I'm doing music stuff I don't have internet, so I can't even come here on the forums for long. Hope you enjoy the piece, I wanna be the honest, I really like how it turned out, but still I'm not sure if the "sound" is what I wanted to achieve or not. Ideally, it should sound clean on all systems, but we all know it sounds good only on our system ahahah

Damn I gotta go, thanks for listening and for all the help I received here
PS: If anyone has any tips on this kind of music (check out Return to the Source, Ambient Meditations, and similar stuff), he'd be more than welcome to share the knowledge!

 

Let me say this way. Right before i see your post i listen "Jazz at the Pawnshop". I mean cruel dsd quality Jumped right to your song, i didn't feel i miss anything major in sound quality from first impression. I think you have nothing to worry about and i like your music taste. Very good job

 

Sounds pretty clean to me man. I think this kind of track is easier to mix, since it's very light on sounds. It has a very overall soft ambient sound. What did you use for effects and mastering if you don't mind me asking? I picture myself watching a nature show listening to this. It's really organic and natural sounding.

 

Hey thanks peeps

@Trevor Gordon: I usually try to use less things as possible on the master because of many reasons (mainly my PC sucks lol). But all in all I always try to make every channel/sound be good on its own. Anyway, I used the Ozone equalizer to cutoff 30Hz and 18/19kHz I think. Then the Ozone vintage limiter to bring the volume up. I know what is compression, dynamics, etc. but I almost never use them in my songs, I guess because I don't really need them? Maybe it's the style of the music, I don't really know. Anyway yeah, that's all, EQ to cut and a vintage limiter to maximize a bit. But bear in mind I'm probably going to do touch ups again because from what I understand people at Ektoplazm really DO care about quality and stuff, so I want to make it as clean as possible. Makes me hapy to hear you guys liked it

PS: I try to avoid using the Ozone big deal (the one with all the instances, like the Exciter, Imagers, etc) because I don't really think they change the sound that much, and even then I'm still a newbie in the field of mastering/final mixing (but this is because my ear is inexpert, I'm pretty sure there's a reason why they have such a big name).

 

Since I do Dance/club style music I do a whole lot of compression, saturation and effects to really bring out the sounds. But you know, when I get to the mastering stage, I often find myself going down a similar path as you. My general mastering consists of some small EQ touch ups, a stereo imaging to widen it and a maximizer limiter accompanied by a few gentle limiters to keep it from sounding too squashed and I'm done. I say, if you can get a mix right, the mastering isn't that important really. The mix for me, is what takes a long process, trying to get everything to fit together, avoiding frequency conflicts and trying to make the track loud, but also breathe. That's a real art (I think anyways).

I like the way it sounds. You must have used some high quality Kontakt packs for this? It's very organic sounding and broad. Good work!

 

Yep I used a shakuhachi from Ethno Worlds. The rest is just Zebra and TAL Bassline (this last plugin is so cool tbh). Ah the drums are from the same library with some tweaks and stuff. Some of the sounds were made from scratch others are Just presets tweaked a lot. Oh and for fx the usual stuff delay reverb etc. nothing really exciting; and *a lot* of automations.

Sorry I'm from my phone writing this, can go into details if you want later on these days

 

Sounds good on my system, nice and clean. There's a good dynamic range, so refreshing. Sounds like that would be playing in a war game or something...

Minimalist songs can get away with less compression because they don't really need to compete in the "loudness wars". Really nice work mate.