Stems and samples vs recorded audio

[georgelindsay]

Can stems and samples ever sound as big as audio recorded through an interface? ie. working 'in the box' as opposed to recording in?

If you are remixing, then of course you need to use mainly samples and stems of the original track. How do you get these to sound big and not flat?
Or is it really not a problem?

[The Carpet Cleaner]

off course there is so many huge tracks that use samples, you need to choose the one that sounds good (to you), then mix.

[tw1nstates]

its all about glueing your mix together, finding little holes that you can boost another track's frequency into just a tad, getting your mix to balance so that there aren't any big peaks or troughs etc. Average power is your friend here, making sure that the average power of individual frequency bands dont have any huge discrepencies and follow the contour of your reference material will work wonders for your mixes. More so than a new piece of gear / ITB OTB etc.

Dont believe the gear slutz, knowing how to use your kit, learning how to measure stuff accurately so you can compare with your reference track and learning how to use your ears in conjunction with your tools (I know there are some idiots online who say just use your ears but honestly that's pretty much the slowest way to learn) to get the results you want. . .