Help with Mixing in Ableton

[Integxx]

Hey guys,

I currently have a finished song in ableton although the bass and especially drums dont seem to be doing the song justice. Im doing electronic dance music and when I hear other djs/artists songs.. the bass and drums seem crispy/ balanced/ and resolve alot deeper than mine. I have a whole library of bass kicks.. I choose one and add a compressor/ some eq but I cant seem to get that clear/deep bass sound that dance music needs. I know ableton is not the best program to mix/master in but my main concern is that when we go live (using ableton).. the levels are going to be way off and each song is going to sound like it has a different kick sound. btw: Im using vsts and also synths in audio for the bass. Is there any tips or direction you can point toward in order to get a better mixed sound. Thanks.

[H20nly]

run your original uncompressed drum track to a Send.
run your treated drum track to the same Send.
add EQ add compressor etc and continue adjustments from that Send.

[michaellpenman]

its all experimenting maybe use some drive and tape saturation, drive heavy compression or soft,
Basically there is not one solution.

[Kristijonas]

I know ableton is not the best program to mix/master

This is totally pointless proposition. You can do this "magic" with most todays "DAWs"!

the bass and especially drums dont seem to be doing the song justice.

Looks like your mix needs a little EQ. Spectrum analyzer helps in mixing a lot (for example "Spectrum" in Live). Try to "clean" your mix by cutting "unnecessary" frequencies in each track. Just be careful to cut too much Also, check your arrangement, maybe it has too many instruments playing at the same time? Did you know that "Less is more" ? As I wrote somewhere before - it's all about compromises, about one thing yielding place to another, just like in life. It's physics - you won't be able get your hand out of the pot if you'll take too many nuts!

[anachroschism]

Layer them, as many as you want/sounds good, and add seperate efx and eq to each individual layer. One pan L one pan R one "stock" and one compressed to shit, try out combos of that but avoid the "mud" that comes when you dont make room by eqing each one.

[DJMillsy]

Firstly Michael Penman is bang on the money, there is no one stop solution, every mix will present different challenges and it takes years to build up a collection of techniques to help you get the best results every time.

The other posts mention some great ideas for you to play with, but moving things out of the way of one and other will probably yield the biggest results.

Using spectrum check all of your low mid instruments, is there any reason for one of them to have frequencies below 100hz or even 150hz? Roll off as much bottom end from them as you can whilst listening to the entire track playing back, if the instrument starts to sound a little thin back off a little. Apply the 100hz cut to all of your high mids / higs etc and see how much bottom end you can lose from them, if you can roll them past 300hz with a low roll off, great!!

Finally check to see if you need to side chain your sub bass or automate a filter / EQ to move it out of the way when the kick plays.

The above should improve things massively for you but it is only really scratching the surface of what you can do with EQ etc.

Lastly, (I know i've banged on a bit here!) Live's effects are more than up to the job of getting a high quality mix. Sure, there are better out there, but you can comfortably get by with Live's offering.

Good Luck

Keith

[Xelat]

Make subtile adjustments rather than using extreme settings. See mixing as an art where many subtile adjustments add up to something beautiful, little by little.

Also try to keep track volume down (i use between -6dB -12 dB). This will increase transparency because most DAW's distort, eaven if you don't see it visually.

Understand timbre and pitch. Make sure the raw material you use is of good quality, has enough timbre, is in the right pitch (ocatave up or down rather than scale).