Hi guys.  I have worked hard over the years to learn this dark art we all practice.  My stuff is pretty good.  But professional stuff has punchy warmer lows and a perfectly balancing sheen on the highs.  My stuff sounds balanced too but just harsh.  Here is an example.  How do I get that warmth and sheen.  Or this where I would need to get it professionally mastered?

http://soundcloud.com/sun...n-the-name-of-paradise

Not saying that the above is perfect.  In fact it is still a work in progress.  But wondering.

rent a day in a pro studio.

track something simple, and dynamic.

observe what equipment is used.....
gain staging....
mic choices.....
especially pay attention to the sound of the room.


ask to sit in on the mix, just to watch and learn.

listen to the playback, and get a copy.

take it home and study it.

compare it to your stuff, to see where the differences are.


your answers are in that process.

Not a bad recording at all.  But there is a lot of mids in it.  The vocals, guitar (esp. the lead underneath the vocals), even the snare all fighting for the same frequencies.  It could be something as easy as re-EQing.  Once you've learned to use the high/low pass filters often times there is too much mid left, and you have to find the certain frequencies that make a sound stand out, and then cut those on other tracks.

You might have also reached the limits of your equipment - mics, preamps or convertors.  It sounds a little like your recordings might be straining the limits of your equipment, producing the harshness.  A different mic, or use of different mics can help.  Or a better preamp - most of us only need one.  Most convertors are pretty good these days, unless you drive them too hard.  You might try a cheap (or expensive if you've got the money just lying around) ribbon.  It rolls off the highs but extends the bottom, which might balance out the mids (esp. if you are using one bright mic).  If you are using your interface's preamps and have them pegged at 11, that probably calls for a preamp (and you'll need that too w/ a ribbon probably).

But try the eq first.  Sometimes I go back to zero and strip everything down to get a mix to come out better.  But like I said, it is still a nice recording and a good song.

@

I would give Danny Danzi a try at mastering.

Danny provides a vid when he mixes for you. Maybe he will do the same for mastering, remembering that every master project is as unique as a mixing project.

IMO if you're not happy with it now, having it professionally mastered probably won't make a night and day difference. The magic really has to happen in the mix. Why not buy time in a professional studio and have it mixed while you watch? Any for-hire engineer should be willing to teach you for the same hourly rate they'd charge to you to do the mix. Seems like a better investment.

bitflipper


IMO if you're not happy with it now, having it professionally mastered probably won't make a night and day difference. The magic really has to happen in the mix. Why not buy time in a professional studio and have it mixed while you watch? Any for-hire engineer should be willing to teach you for the same hourly rate they'd charge to you to do the mix. Seems like a better investment.

Or, as I said DFanny will mix and provide a vid of what he did and compare it to what you did. For a fee of course.

Since I am at work I cannot listen to your track....

However, Bats and Bit and Bapu all have very valuable points.

they are right on the money. Both are worth their weight in gold.

My suggestion would be for Danny first because:

With having him do a video of your mix you can revisit it several times....this way you will catch what you may not of the first time around.......with a day in the studio you only get to do it once and its over with so you could end up missing  or forgetting some finer points........

Just my two cents...

Clifford

I don't think there is any easy answer to that but go through the motions with your ears. I dont have the same level as some of the guys above but Ive come a long way, and most of it has to do with practice, knowing what Im hearing and knowing what to use to make that change!

Im at the stage now where Im desperately trying to figure out how to tackle the mids, which are often left (as AP stated) after hi and low pass filtering.

bitflipper is right too, If the mix is shot, a master will do f all for it, the magic must be in the mix.

Id recommend Danny too, he's fairly priced and he really likes his job, meaning that he will explain it really well and give you his time of day.

Best of luck,

Cian

The most critical thing I believe to getting a good pro sounding mix is to have good monitors and know what you are listening for in the mix.

If you can not....for example...hear that there is a midrange bump, say....around 500hz, how can you take appropriate action to fix it? 

Learning to listen properly is the key.

Thanks Ed, Clifford and Cian! Much appreciated.....tour hugs! :)

Mun: I think this is a pretty good mix and you're being a little hard on yourself brother. The one thing I hear which is no fault of yours is the mp3 encoding really took a lot from your song in my opinion.

Great classic rock vibe, loved the song, the vocals were great and there are some really nice things going on here.

A word about trying to make things super pro: To get pro, you have to think pro, know pro and buy pro. Once you do all that stuff, it's how you use it all that makes it even more pro and of course picking up bits of information from those you admire.

If you ever hear a recording someone has done that impresses you, by all means email them and ask a few questions. Worst case scenario, they will not share any info...but most times they will to an extent. Your recording habits, how you capture sounds, what gear you have...and of course your ears and know-how all make it into the scheme of things. I think you have a really good grasp on everything, so the things you may not know...aren't out of your reach in my opinion.

Studio's and booking time: To me, this sort of thing is a lot like going out and buying a book. Though books can be VERY helpful, they can also be incredibly mis-leading and here's why. When you got a pro engineer or producer telling you all these things that he does (which most do NOT show you step by step how to do these things) 8 times out of 10 it doesn't apply to the gear you use.

So if you went to a pro studio, you would definitely pick up a great deal of knowledge, but there's only so much you can do if you don't have the stuff that studio has. This is one of the cool things about the video's I offer. They are created around what you use, using your songs, your plugs, your DAW (if I have it...I prefer to use Sonar) and we get the best out of YOUR sounds.

You can go to a studio and watch a guy mic up a snare. You can use the same mics and procedures and not even get close if you don't have the snare he used. This field is difficult in that area which is why I am very cautious about buying audio books. It doesn't help me if the gear they are teaching on is in the millions with a million dollar room to go with it. It doesn't help me if they are using outboard gear that I don't have....so these are the things to keep in mind and they all stem back to "how pro do you want it?"

I had a guy send me a song to do for him where he wanted me to mix it and turn it into this pro recording. The sounds he used were horrible and my hands would have been tied. I couldn't take the guys money because in certain situations, you just are NOT going to make a bad performance or badly chosen sound sources to sound like a major label. It just ain't gonna happen.

Instead, I offered him an alternative. I ran video and I resampled as much of his project as possible while keeping the originals archived, and showed him what he could have if different sounds were chosen. I then played guitars using both expensive gear so he could hear what it sounded like in case he wanted to purchase it, and then did it on stuff I had which is much cheaper and easier to afford. So he got nearly 3 different ways to do his project. I turned his badly recorded drums into midi using Audio Snap and then ran different drum modules and ran Drumagog on them as well showing hybridding methods.

So there are loads of things you can do to make the best use of what you have without spending a bundle really. It's also nice to have a video of your song showing before and after processing so you can see where you may have went wrong...or where you can make things different. And you have it for life without a one-trip studio visit that may not apply to you since they don't have the gear you have or the DAW and plugs you use.

Not trying to sell you on it, honest...I just figured since the guys mentioned it, I would tell you a little about how it works. As for mastering, I don't do any mastering vids because...well, there are just some things I like to keep to myself. LOL!

Anyway, I think you did a really good job on this. There are a few things I would do differently within your mix and would do different things via mastering, but to be honest, you did a good enough job in my opinion to where it would be pure subjectivity and not worth me mentioning really. I don't hear anything blatantly wrong other than the encoding really sucking the life out of the tune which is another reason it's not fair for me to comment on the mix more. But it sounds like a really strong demo where the engineer had a clue as to what he was doing. That's really as far as most of us can get anyway without spending a chunk of change that becomes another mortgage. LOL!

-Danny