PLEASE HELP - How can I mix for a stronger spectrum?

[pajhonka]

Hi,
I've got to mix my album in a very limited amount of time and I'm admittedly not very good at it. My music is dynamic and mostly electronic in nature (save for vocals and piano). I've carved out notches so each instrument has its own piece of the spectrum. The bass is ducking the kick drum. I have a Multiband Dynamics on the kick (which also has a sub layer). On the master track is a W2 Maximizer/Limiter. I'm doing all the tricks I've read about for getting a more full sound, and yet my levels look nothing like a professionally mixed track. My levels barely move, while the professionally mixed track is VERY active. My track is not mastered, but the waveform is brick-walled. Attached are screen shots of the levels of each respective song's chorus in iTunes. Any advice would be great. Thank you

[loquat]

I like where this thread is going!

[Johnisfaster]

I could be wrong but I think the difference you're seeing there is from harmonic exciters and what not, as well as modest use of distortion to give you more harmonix to work with.

[ghast]

this is nice:
http://www.har-bal.com/

[djsynchro]

Turn everything up! The mid, the bass, the Airco! Helllloooooo HellllllllllllllOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[pajhonka]

this is nice:
http://www.har-bal.com/

That is nice. I'm on Mac and don't have time to wait for their Mac release.

For mastering, I bought the Waves Gold Bundle 5 a while ago, but since it was academic, I can't update it. My version won't work with Ableton 8. I could bounce down an aif though and master everything in Live 7 since Waves Gold 5 works with it.

@Johnisfaster
I agree with you, I think there's some harmonic exciting going on to get their spectrum as active as it is. I'll do some research on it. My chain is strictly digital with no overdrives or analogue saturation to create distortion harmonics.

[Tone Deft]

IMO the 'professional track' looks like ear fatigue to me. these days I'd rather not sound 'professional', this last decade (at least) will be known as the dark days of production where everything's compressed, side chained and mastered for iPhones. I prefer dynamics and discrete sounds over a mash of frequencies.

[knotkranky]

I've got to mix my album in a very limited amount of time and I'm admittedly not very good at it.

I'll tell ya right now, no matter what you do to your mix, it will never measure up to a professional mix.

Choices:

1. Hire a professional mix engineer

2. Lower the bar.


Mixing is not about procedure in the slightest. Simply hooking stuff up will get you squat.

Right, so, don't do anything to the kick except some light eq. take all that junk off. Don't duck anything so take that crap off too, I know you don't need it. Limit your choices and mix with the basics - eq and light compression only. After yer done with all that, hire a professional mix engineer.

[cbentley]

Context is everything. It's really tough to hear something based on a screen shot of a iTunes spectrum so without hearing your song all that anyone can do is simply guess at what the problem may be, if there even is one. The sonic imprint of your song will not only come from eq but arrangement and balance of each instrument. Remember, the music is in the midrange...

[pajhonka]

All good advice guys. I guess the "excitement" (no pun intended) is what I think I'm missing from my mix relative to the professional mix (Major Lazer "Keep It Going Louder - I downloaded it from iTunes because it was free and I needed an electronic song to compare). The brightness and clarity of all the sonic ranges are much better in the pro mix.

I paid to record my vocals in the studio and I have to finance a tour, so I can't afford to pay someone to mix this. I have to do it myself. I'll try to keep all those things in mind as I go forward. I'm going to sweat it out with simple EQ and light compression like knotkranky said because that's all I know how to do. At the very least, I can pay someone to master it and perhaps clean up mistakes / get things a little truer to the spectrum.

Thanks!

[nuxnamon]

psp vintage warmer..

[mikemc]

It is appealing to try to answer your question, and some things might be suggested to improve along the lines you are looking for, but I think others are right about 'not just a matter of plugging things together'.

You could try a warmer/saturation plug along with multiband compression. You also need to have actual strong signal/levels in the bands you want to add, and nice 'blend' of those: just bringing up the levels may introduce murkiness in the mids.

There is also a lot of ducking/sidechain used: if the track has vocals or a prominent lead instrument, it might be set-up to pull the edges down and itself up with sidechaining.