why does my stuff sound under-produced?

wavejumper · Post by **wavejumper** » Wed Apr 12, 2006 2:38 pm

yup ,like markaugustus said...trial and error, errror, error, error, result!...

btw Markaugustus, checked your site, i can definitely relate to your bio and from your tunes I can see we have some common interest in movies too...

markaugust · Post by **markaugust** » Wed Apr 12, 2006 2:52 pm

wavejumper wrote:yup ,like markaugustus said...trial and error, errror, error, error, result!...

btw Markaugustus, checked your site, i can definitely relate to your bio and from your tunes I can see we have some common interest in movies too...

ehh...
and that would be which movies?
have no quotation on any movie on my site as far as I know.

I loved sincity though; and just saw private parts which was hilarious...
goodnight goodluck was awesome too

this is soooo off-topic

markaugust · Post by **markaugust** » Wed Apr 12, 2006 2:57 pm

ah sorry
just got that joke a second ago
hehe
she was my star for so many years...
it's a well-deserved-tribute.
more into teagan prestley these days..

wavejumper · Post by **wavejumper** » Wed Apr 12, 2006 2:58 pm

[quote="markaugust
ehh...
and that would be which movies?topic[/quote]

i think i should have said actresses...anyhoo, sorry, ooooofff toopppic

forge · Post by **forge** » Wed Apr 12, 2006 11:03 pm

Spikee wrote:
Have you tried the Waves bundles?? They're quite something...

!

2nd that - it's what I use and cant go past the L2 and the Renaissance stuff

like taking a scalpel to the sound and slicing it with total precision

djadonis206 · Post by **djadonis206** » Wed Apr 12, 2006 11:49 pm

Monitors you can turn up and headphones you can listen to quietly

Also, what you put in is what you get out - quality source material player

For now, my suggestion is if you want it to sound like it does on a record then go get that loop off a record, get that kick off a record - get those hat's off a record

It's what I did for a long time and it works - I'm really moving towards making my own loops but seriously - it's a good place to start and in the end when your shit get's pressed who's gonna know the difference

Sample dawg, sample

leisuremuffin · Post by **leisuremuffin** » Thu Apr 13, 2006 1:51 am

if you want to learn how to arrange, then by all means, sample.

But if you want to learn how to make your own stuff sound tight, you're not going to learn anything by sampling.

.lm.

Brittney Sparse · Post by **Brittney Sparse** » Thu Apr 13, 2006 1:52 am

Yo, Radiance.

Sound wise it seemed fine. I think you got all the mixing advice you need here. Hell, I got all themixing advice I need here!!!

It seems a bit more of a composition issue to me. Right after I listened to your track I put on "Look at That" by Scorn and shit, it's minimal as fuck but it's pretty amazing.

You have alot of different elemtns going on and the way they are put together now are not terribly interesting. Now, don't take this the wrong way. I think you have it in you to make the song into something far more interesting. It's just a question of putting it together in such a way to make it compelling and have girls want to fuck you. Or guys if you like. I have been married 10 years and don't think I got laid once on the strength of one of my songs. So don't quote me on that.

Seriously, play around with the arrangment. Make several mixes. PRetend you are a remixer presented with this track and you have to make several different mixes of it. I've done that for a bunch of my songs and it's quite fun.

radiance wrote:Hello

When I listen to techno records, they sound PHAT even if they contain just a few sounds. When I produce my own music, it sounds under-produced in the end, even when I have plenty of tracks going on.
My equipment is good though, so am I missing something?

leisuremuffin · Post by **leisuremuffin** » Thu Apr 13, 2006 1:55 am

and if you want women to fuck you for it, quit electronic music now.
Go buy a guitar, or get a nice haircut and pretend you can sing.

.lm.

Brittney Sparse · Post by **Brittney Sparse** » Thu Apr 13, 2006 1:58 am

Werd.

I suspect the only people getting laid through techno are Moby, BT, and maybe Hawtin. If he has sex.

And Moby doesn't count any more.

leisuremuffin wrote:and if you want women to fuck you for it, quit electronic music now.
Go buy a guitar, or get a nice haircut and pretend you can sing.

.lm.

DKushner · Post by **DKushner** » Thu Apr 13, 2006 3:24 am

Track sounds fine to me. I would punch up the mids on the wobbly synth maybe, but I like it already.

All the advice regarding panning you drum sounds off: Discard now.

First the advice was wrong, second, the advice doesn't really apply to this style of music. That advice applies to Real drum kits or someone trying to emulate a real drumkit from a drum machine.

However, for the record, here's how its done.

The poster said you should pan either the bass or the kick right or left. Wrong. The kick drum, in any style of music accounts for 70% total of the musical energy. It's weight must be shared equally by both side. Pan dead center.

Bass too. Keep the bass center. The way people get the bass and the kick out of the way is with subtle eqing or ducking. This is not too big of an issue with your song, but for the record, the best technique is to determine what kind of kick and bass line you have and go from there. Big booming kicks mean you roll off the mids on the kick, and on the bassline roll off a bit at 80hz followed by a punch in the mids. If the kick is punchy a la DnB and the bassline actually dominates the low end, then reverse the eqing status.

If you want to add stereo width try these techniques.

1. Add a stereo chorus to a part.
2. Add a stereo phaser to a part.
3. Take a part, double it, change the instrument on the new track, pan left right. As in your wobbly synth? Double that part. then load up a different synth with similar characteristics on the new track. Pan left/right.
4. Put a slapback delay on the synth. This will make the part bigger. Now change the left right time of the delay a little bit. Be subtle! Mix it into the background.

However, I think your track was fine. The only thing I might really say is that it kinda needs a bassline. And maybe the first synth sound could be more interesting, but I get that it being very plain creates a nice contrast to the wobbly synth line later.

DKushner · Post by **DKushner** » Thu Apr 13, 2006 3:26 am

Also be careful with compression. Especially IN track as it can get ugly quick.

Play with it however. Dont expect it to work out for quite sometime. In 3-4 years your ears will go "ah ha!" and you'll understand. Compression isn't a catch all solver for weak sounds. Its a volume governer with practical, not very creative, benefits.

thelike5 · Post by **thelike5** » Thu Apr 13, 2006 3:34 am

Brittney Sparse wrote:Werd.

I suspect the only people getting laid through techno are Moby, BT, and maybe Hawtin. If he has sex.

And Moby doesn't count any more.

leisuremuffin wrote:and if you want women to fuck you for it, quit electronic music now.
Go buy a guitar, or get a nice haircut and pretend you can sing.

.lm.

I don't want to imagine any of the names you mentioned getting laid...

Maybe you meant to type getting "paid"? Then yes, by all means, yes...

markaugust · Post by **markaugust** » Thu Apr 13, 2006 9:17 am

whatever kushner says about discarding;
discard now.
panning tricks are really common in this kind of music..
and putting just chorusses and phasers on top of your sounds will make it muddy and unclear. sounds that move around in the spectrum or little hihats panned hard right or left open up your stereo field, if possible.
sometimes it is not just on the amount of sounds you have.
listen to AME-ENGOLi to hear what I am talking about
why does transitions of richie hawtin sounds so good sound and quality wise???
apparently cauz it mathers that the mix is made for a 5.1 system and allthough richie can't really explain technically why; the stereo 2 way mix sounds way spacier rendered from the 5,1 then when he cut out that whole process.

Dubreak · Post by **Dubreak** » Thu Apr 13, 2006 11:13 am

Hi,

Try downloading Sir Reverb from here: http://www.knufinke.de/sir/index_en.html (read the readme, stick the .dll in your vst folder)

And a few of the Impulse Responses from: http://www.echochamber.ch/responses/ (Make a seperate folder on your pc for these, get a big collection on the go... you can get more from noisevault.com)

This combination will basically give you a free virtual high-end hardware reverb unit.

Try the Lexicon MPX500 hall impulses. Give your snare a bit of slap-back reverb by using a forward instance and a similar but reversed second instance of Sir reverb as sends. This is a very common but effective way to add serious depth to the snare hit.

Sir is the best free reverb on the net, but it is only as good as the impulse responses you use with it.

why does my stuff sound under-produced?

Re: why does my stuff sound under-produced?