Thanks AT, some string parts are muted but not  played a lot, this is the main foundation. once I master the whole thing I will repost it again. thank you

hi guys what do you think of this songs mix? do I have enough separation in the sounds? how can it be more improved in quality? Im wanna achieve more detail quality in my mixes. this is a mix I did, only the bass is live

thanks best regards


http://www.soundclick.com/mixtest

I think there is plenty of separation. But I feel almost like there is too much. I feel like everything is all out the front a bit too much. Everything is given a place to shine in the front. Nothing is sitting back in the mix to fill out the gaps. It all just feels a bit empty and lacking depth. Almost like it's all percussion. Some thicker pad lines with an appropriate amount of reverb could fill things in a bit. Mmm, it's hard to pin point it. I think it sounds very good, but just not quite right. When we first start out mixing, we are always tempted to try and make every instrument shine. Everything has to be out front. But that makes for a really busy mix. Often it's important for there to be those instruments there that you don't really hear, but more feel and you only really notice when they are removed.

I think it's more a composing issue that a mixing one here (any this is purely my opinion - others may think it's perfect). Mixing could clean things up and fill it out a bit more, but I think the best thing for it would be a bit more work in the actual composition.

And I think we are really getting down to personal opinions here. I'm sure plenty of other people will say it's great just how it is.

Oh and some of those sounds were a little 'cheap MIDI' sounding, but if that's the sound you're going for, then it's all good!

Guys I appreciate for all the advice. I wanna make sure one thing I across Avid hd website and this is what I found

this is from Avid website I copy pasted..
: 
Overview Create professional-quality, richly detailed productions, quickly and easily, with the lowest latency of any host-based DAW. With Pro Tools|HD Native—a new generation of Pro Tools HD core system that harnesses the power of your Mac or PC—you get amazing sound, incredible performance, and the lowest latency on the host. Whether you create music or sound for picture, equip yourself with the tools you need to compose, record, edit, and mix with great speed, ease, and reliability—and hear what you’ve been missing.
A complete Pro Tools|HD Native system is comprised of a Pro Tools|HD Native PCIe card, which comes with Pro Tools HD software, and your choice of one or more Pro Tools HD Series audio interfaces:
 

 I am very impressed with its stability. I tried very hard to break it but I couldn't! Well done Avid, a stunning product that works from day 1.

Mike Thornton, columnist for Sound on Sound



HD Native PCIe card and Pro Tools HD software—Unlike USB- or FireWire-based DAWs, which are inherently prone to latency, Pro Tools|HD Native employs a high-speed PCIe core card, greatly improving monitoring while recording. By eliminating distracting latency, increasing your I/O capabilities, and providing 64-bit floating-point processing for more headroom and a higher mix resolution, you get a professional native solution that meets the highest audio standards. And with the tight integration of Pro Tools HD software, included, you have all the tools you need for studio-quality music and audio production.
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My question is how would this affect  sound quality , its claiming to have the highest sound quality. this works with pro tools hd sound card. I have heard on this forum  and understood that sound quality in "mixing" or getting a balanced quality mix with detailed sonic quality has to do with internal processing inside the DAW and therefor not the sound card, ....please clarify me on this guys how does this work?  or is it because the dsp power? I hope I'm clear.. 
Thaks guys, Best Regards

I believe that for most people, anything above CD quality 16 bits at 44.1khz is simply lost to the inability of the human ear to hear it. 

are there advantages to recording above this level...of course and I most certainly do. But in the end it all comes back down to the CD standard. 

If you have a card that can record higher bit rates and such and want to use the hard drive space it requires, by all means do it with my blessings. 

The sound quality that affects us the most comes in at the source of the music. The microphones, the amps, the rooms, the musicians, all these things have a much much larger affect on the music quality than any respectable sound card will ever have. 

Even the much maligned Sound blaster cards will give you above CD quality, assuming the tracks are good. 

No doubt the new avid stuff is good, very good.  I haven't heard the new stuff but have used the earlier stuff.  But the last bit of hardware I would worry about is the converters - even the most budget interfaces today give a good, clean copy of what you provide it.  If you want to add some umph to your recording/playback it is far more cost-effective to add high-end analog hardware going in and out on the source rather than in the converter itself.  I could be wrong, but I've voted w/ my pocketbook on that issue.

Think about it this way.  You have a great, multi-thousand dollar channel strip.  With it you can capture a sound that has all the nuance you want - nice clean replication if the source needs it or a little more saturation, all with plenty of the 3-D we associate w/ professional sound.  The channel strip can help you do that (nothing is guaranteed, of course) which your budget converters will deliver w/ 99% accuracy.  A superior converter will do that w/ 99.6 accuracy, but if you are using a budget preamp that is fine w/ clean capture but is iffy when overdriven a bit and gets harsh rather full, better conversion only helps you capture more of that harshness. 

Coming out it is the same thing.  You've got a mix that sounds great - the good converters delivers that sound while the great ones delivers a tad more clarity or, if it is Burl or even an apogee a nicely thickened, analog style sound.  Running the mix through the budget converter and a nice stereo compressor and/or EQ you get a more analog sound more like the burl etc, plus some processing (which is actually doubled since most everything was recorded through it on the way in).

This is not to discount great conversion, just that as far as I have heard it is toward the end of what makes a great sound, not the reason for it.  Well, neither is the preamp/comp/EQ - that depends upon the source and your ability to capture it but it helps more than the converter does.  Ideally, you want a top notch stereo channels going in and out from preamp to converters, but unless you have all the money necessary at once building from the front end out is the way to go - or I have.

Of course, if you have a plan building up from the converters go for it.

@

Good post AT, and good reasoning.

It makes sense whenever you are considering a hardware upgrade is to ask the question "where's my current weak point in the chain" and to build on that.

I'm at the stage where most of my hardware is more or less firmly in the mid range of gear, so for me, what to upgrade next will be a major headache, and quite possibly, major cash outlay.

Aye. Another way around of looking at this is that the diminishing returns curve on audio gear can be quite stern. The difference between a £50 interface and a £500 one is vast. The difference between a £500 one and a £5000 one often surprisingly less so.

Ok, not to be controversial but there is a difference in the sound of Sonar and Protools and I have measured it. Now, I am still in progress on some tests but the difference may come down to VST versus RTAS when using plugins. I will not get into a debate about which sounds better but I can say that a recent test using the same test file, with the only variable being a single instance of the UAD Precision limiter and using the same settings, yielded a very audible summing difference. (reverse phase test). The two base programs with no plugins I am testing later today when I get some time. Even if they are exactly the same, which may be the case, when you instantiate plugins they diverge in their output and you will get a different result.

In this particular case, the difference was a higher level of the 100 to 300 range in Sonar with slightly more low end than PT below this point. The other difference is that there are several .5 to 1.5 peaks in the 1k, 2k and 3k areas in PT with a narrow Q.  There was a recent article, can't remember the guys name, in Sound on Sound where he mentioned moving from Sonar X1 to PT was the difference in a warm, more glued sounding mix in Sonar versus the clarity but also more sterile sound of Protools. I thought this his claim was bogus but I have heard and now measured a difference which roughly equates to his comments. Just for those scientific types, yes I checked the pan law which was -6 in both cases. There was no adjustment to levels. Stereo file added to both programs, one limiter on output.

All that said, the difference you are hearing is probably more attributed to the converters and possibly the monitoring system because anyone with an HD192 has probably spent some money on his room to make sure things are sounding balanced.

And it was definitely lined up perfectly, sample for sample?