What tracks do you use as reference tracks for A/B Compare when you are mixing or when you make your mastering ?
In all styles of music, Pop, Rock, Reggae, Funk, Soul, Jazz, Latin, Afrobeat, House, Deep House, Techno, Trance, Chill....... Acoustic or Electronic..... Let me know.

 

Porn music - used to make the following below lol

Funky feelings

Blues - Impact liveliness

For reggae distortion & Bass. Listen to the bass in this

Trap Bass

Depth & Openness - R&B

All Flac...Except for the reggae track .wav only

 

Generally Leather Strip, Front Line Assembly and Combichrist tracks. Depending on what I'm doing. I find their tracks really well produced for my taste and music. LS and FLA productions are quite different, though. I lean towards LS more as I find FLA too thin [with their SSL production]. Combichrist sounds more modern, but I don't like limiting that much. So Leather Strip it mostly is an audio reference for me.

 

I'm an amateur.

For rock music, I've to use .mogg multitrack to do sound matching, roughly. For EDM, I like to refer to Singomakers' sample packs overall (I like its colors).

On mixing attempt and pre-mastering overall track, I tend to search for particular genres and make references from the nominees of grammy's best engineered album here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammy_Award_for_Best_Engineered_Album,_Non-Classical

Still learning. That's how I do it for now.

 

"Except for the reggae track .wav only". Haha
Do you really think that wav file would sound better than the same file, but converted to flac?

 

At least someone got it. Lol

 

Thanks for your answers.

For me, i always try to use a new production (not to old) to compare.
A modern track with a similar music style.

For the vocal productions, i use references like Rihanna, Beyonce… it is not my favorite music, but it’s always super well produce.
it helps me to find the right place to put my vocals.

 

I like to play rock..and pop/rock, so probably some of the best from the 80's would be the sound I'd shoot for...

but since I'm not that creative musically, and mainly try out covers... I always have a "perfect" reference track...

not denying the endless bevy of "pop tarts" have good production, just find them uninteresting musically so I would
have a problem listening to them carefully for "production value"

I have often wondered how famous/busy mixing engineers listen to horrible crap songs hundreds or thousands of times,
and remain sane, not sure I could maintain that level of objectivity

 

I'll submit this one as an example.. where all the sounds seem to have been given their own space to shine... feel free to disagree,
maybe a personal preference as I like to hear major elements stand out on their own somewhat in a mix
it's 70's so it's pretty dated I suppose

 

I actually use loads of different reference tracks, depending on the sound I'm aiming for. But those older Leather Strip tracks are so up to my taste... Then there is old and new Depeche Mode and other stuff... But you know, it's just a reference. I'm not referencing much, just levels of bass, mids, highs, vocals to all these. Not trying to replicate it, if you know what I mean. But it does help if the track sounds similar. Sometimes it's just hard to find something similar, though. It happens when you're trying to do something original.

However, some productions just sound better than the others, no matter the quality of music, so they should be brought up in this thread, I think. That's why I mentioned Leather Strip and FLA. Their 90s albums that sound incredible to my ears.

There are many nice sounding productions. Shame some of my favourite band's production like Click Click, Clock DVA and Decree sound pretty shite. They could have used some better reference tracks, I suppose.

 

Last edited: Jan 16, 2018

Just came across this article, thought I share it here.

Next-Gen Reference Tracks: 12 Top Engineers Share Their Essential Reference Mixes
https://sonicscoop.com/2017/04/24/reference-tracks-next-generation/

 

Tony Andrews from Funktion one says: (This from a soundsystem designer point of view, but you can flex it enough and make some own conclusions.)

"How do you go about tuning a soundsystem, and making it sound good?

The first thing I do is look at the midrange. Is it all there? The best way to discover that is through a known human voice. I have a really nice female and male singer that I always use for reference when tuning a soundsystem. The female will tell me if we have anything harsh going on in the high mids. When girls really pitch up and go for it, it’ll crack anything.

So you use the same track when testing any soundsystem?

Yes, I use Diana Krall’s “Let’s Face the Music and Dance,” and George Benson’s “Nature Boy.” When I play those tracks, I think, ‘Does this sound like the Diana Krall and George Benson that I know and love?’

After you’ve got your midrange working, what’s next?

I start bringing in high frequencies until they are all there, but ensure that they don’t swamp the mids or vice versa. It’s all about balance. That is what tuning soundsystems means: balance. Then, once we’ve got the right balance between the highs and mids, I will start to work in bass, again balancing between all three. At that point, I might switch to Diana Krall’s “The Best Thing For You” as that track has superb upright bass for this part of the tests.

I won’t usually test soundsystems with any electronic music tracks until I am happy with the balance across all the frequencies. Then finally, when I’m happy with the overall balance, I will take out my 48 kHz copy of Gat Decor’s “Passion” to test overall bass response.

Why that track, and not another house or techno classic?

That track begins with a fairly solid kick, which is good for testing overall bass response, and then the track suddenly gets into a really punchy kick, which will tell me how the definition part of the bass is working. What we’re talking about here is the upper bass, but in the US they call it mid-bass. When tuning for bass, you’re trying to get the upper bass to a point of transparency. That’s the magic bit when it all just feels right. That point that we are trying to reach with tuning is neutrality. When tuning a soundsystem, you should not be interested in flavors of sound or character. Believe it or not, the best soundsystem is entirely neutral."

EDIT: Baxter may not like it without sources, http://djtechtools.com/2014/04/10/f...systems-from-wembley-stadium-to-your-bedroom/

 

I actually have about 10 reference tracks loaded in Magic a/b
currently all except 1 in my native language, in the styles I work with. (hip-hop subgenres)
I switch these tracks up regularly with better songs or songs that have impressive parts.

These 3 are actually more about vocals and less about the instrumentation,
in fact, the vocals are layered well above rest in terms of volume and that is actually where I use them for.

Spoiler: Hef - Hayabusa ft. Jayh (prod. Spanker)

Spoiler: D-Double - Intro (prod. D-Pep)

Spoiler: JoeyAK - Soon On Top Ft. Lucass

this next one is produced by Nightwatch, Witch is actually Noisia from Groningen

Spoiler: Kraantje Pappie - Pompen (prod. Nightwatch)

I can go on like that, but I think everyone should find his own.
it really helped me stepping up my mixgame

 

that site looks like a wealth of info for producers, especially for the gear oriented, thanks for making me aware... nice one