Audio Quality / Post Production

[alexanderrness]

hi, i've been producing on ableton for a while with headphones and my mac speakers which kinda suck. i finally put some of my finished products on some big speakers just to see how they sound and i noticed that my music doesn't sound very high quality when i compare it to others. the instruments/beat sound kinda low quality/murky when i compare it with others.

is there something i need to do to make it sound more clear? also, the volume is kinda low, even though i normalize it, is there something else i can do? can anyone give me some tips on what i should do to enhance the quality of my tracks?

sorry, i'm trying my best to learn ableton as it is a bit overwhelming for a beginner, but i'm getting there. thank you

[mbird21]

Hey mate no need for sorrys lol your new to it so bound to be all alot to take in at once.

Firstly i would recommend taking a break from the audio production side and reading a little on the absoulute basics of what you need to do to firstly create professional sounding music, then you can move on to focus on musical side and daw side of ableton and production.

Finally the mix will sound shite because its mixed on a bog standard soundcard, no matter what anyone tells you on here to do, your not going to be able to identify it without the right monitors and soundcard for the job, otherwise it would be someone listening to the mix and telling you what levels need changing, which would be pointless as you wouldnt be learning yourself .

If i where you which i was 6 yearsa ago when i was at school and couldnt afford much at all, i would firstly read on the essentials you need which i know costs money but its worth to while your waiting to save, swat up on it all that way you not wasting production time, learning theory is just as productive!.

You might wanna read up on a website called SOS (Sound on Sound) have a read through there it will explain countless times what you need to have as a minmum to get started.

Firstly a decent soundcard with no latency, i got the audiophile 192 on discount at dolphin music for about £65, they always are on ebay sometimes for second hand, i think its perfect for someone whos mostly not using outside stuff.

Second, read about monitors and the difference between them, making sure you get to know about the self powered ones from the ones that need powered externally and the differences between size to size of your studio, can take a while but you have a good idea of where you want to go mate.

But yeah you really need a soundcard and pair of decent monitors if you wanting a profressional sounding mix and even then learning mixing and mastering can take years, dont expect to acheive it in a matter of months.

Hope that helps and sorry i couldnt help more, good luck dude

[Serra]

picking good sounds to begin with is better than processing sounds too much
with the right sounds you should have something sounding really nice with little processing (eq, comp, efx...)
so this could be an area of improvement if I have to guess, without listening
sounding good has a lot to do with good arrangements with clever use of sounds...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXIygTrV ... ure=colike

[Dragonbreath]

I was in the same situation as you. mixing with headphones and macbookpro speakers.
I knew I needed monitors, but couldn't afford them right away. Got the soundcard first (I recommend same for you)
It will start by giving you better sound for your headphones. But you cant mix just with your headphones and you mac speakers dont have full frequency responses.
I was using an old technics amp and 70's home hifi speakers to mix for a while. Helped out a little, but got some real monitors 2 weeks ago (KRK RPG8 found them used on a local adds website kijiji), and allready noticing real improvement in the sound of my mixes (especially in low end)

So start saving for a soundcard. I suggest a focusrite saffire firewire version since your on mac. Firewire is alot better.
Then continue using what you have and reference on has many different speakers as possible (home stereo, car, headphones, etc..)
Listen to what you dont like about the mix and read on some DYI mastering for the lack of volume (Takerith has good info on that amongst others)

The problem is that your current listening environment wont permit you to hear the changes you need to make.
You will essentially be working blind! (as you speakers might not reproduce the frequency witch are missing from your mix)

Your currently tweaking so it sounds good on your computer speakers... but it will only sound good there

It requires good equipement and room and lots of experience.
But if your aware of your limitation you can work around them until you can adress it

[Tarekith]

Here's some tutorials that might help:

http://tarekith.com/tutorials-and-reviews/

Really though you just need some real monitors, that will help loads compared to headphones and just laptop speakers. Personally, I think the speakers will make a bigger difference than a soundcard (built in Mac soundcards are THAT bad), so I would vote to save for those first. Soundcard should definitely be second.

[Dragonbreath]

so your suggesting he uses an unbalanced 1/8 stereo to feed monitors?

[Hermanus]

sounds lo-fi?

One thing to do [I don't speak about speakers or headphones here],

Mix your track's levels right with master track at 0dB, once master track doesn't go red, put the FX rack named Vintage mastering 2 [audio effect rack>Mastering]

just a lil tip.

[Tarekith]

Sure. A dedicated sound card will definitely help, but it's probably not going to be as big of a change as getting some real monitors.

[alexanderrness]

thanks a lot everyone! will take in everyone's advice into consideration. i will be saving up for some quality monitors and a quality sound card. headphones+mac speakers just aren't gonna do it =/

[mbird21]

Best way to do it mate, no rush to it all, just spend that time saving learning and you be all in the know what you want when the time comes good luck mate.

[pencilrocket]

thanks a lot everyone! will take in everyone's advice into consideration. i will be saving up for some quality monitors and a quality sound card. headphones+mac speakers just aren't gonna do it =/

The things which decide the quality of sound card are converter and good programmer who are working for the manufacture to write its driver. Not price. Good luck!

[alexanderrness]

thanks a lot everyone! will take in everyone's advice into consideration. i will be saving up for some quality monitors and a quality sound card. headphones+mac speakers just aren't gonna do it =/

The things which decide the quality of sound card are converter and good programmer who are working for the manufacture to write its driver. Not price. Good luck!

could you explain what you mean a little more on the converter and good programmer?

[alexanderrness]

Best way to do it mate, no rush to it all, just spend that time saving learning and you be all in the know what you want when the time comes good luck mate.

thanks a lot for helping me out man =)

[agent314]

Converter = digital-to-audio converter, which takes all the zeroes and ones that the computer uses to process your sound and turns it into actual audio that your ears can hear.

No amount of tweaking will make a crappy DAC sound good.

And a good programmer, what he means is someone at the company to write a good driver for the hardware. The driver is what lets the computer and the interface talk to each other, and if the person who wrote it didn't do a good job with it, even an expensive interface with great DAC is going to be a frustrating piece of crap