Mastering Fail - Thinking about giving up now after 7 years.

[Ryanmf]

I always end up bringing this up, but here's more advice from Ira Glass (he's specifically talking about storytelling in the context of TV and Radio, but it really applies to anyone doing creative work):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BI23U7U2aUY

[nopattern]

what you need to do is stop trying to mix your track at home like you think it should sound in a club. people so often make the mistake of thinking a mix that sounds hyped up on their monitors will translate like that because they think that's how monitors are supposed to work, make it sound good here and it sounds good everywhere. it doesn't quite work like that

what you want to do is BALANCE the mix so nothing is jumping out at you. if you can achieve that the mix will sound hyped when played back elsewhere. 85-90% of a good mix can be achieved with the levels alone. no ones room is perfect so try leaving the studio room with the track playing and see if anything is jumping out, usually you will hear resonances from that distance that aren't present in the listening position.

also, lives spectrum is OK, but try voxengo SPAN or if you want to spend a few bucks get Nugen Audio Visualizer and reference other people's music that you like. try using a drip style spectrum with color intensity as this will allow you to see where things are overlapping. SPAN is free and allows you to route multiple channels of audio through it at once and view each as a separate color readout.

try a google on fletcher munson

and for you from listening to your tracks a little, start getting into filters and eq's. your sounds have way to much highs and results in an overly bright sound (the opposite of a deep sound)

[crumhorn]

Give it a rest for a few days, reset your ears with some "normal" music or no music at all.

Then go back to it. What's the very first thing that you notice as bad when you hear it again? That's the first thing to fix.

Some times I work for hours on a track and I'm really happy with the result, only to come back to it the next day and realize it sounds rubish. Usually too much / muffled sounding bass and over use of compression in my case.

[xzusa8ky]

Hmmm......"Now where you have been driving 7000 kilometers and you are only about 2000 kilometers away from your actually goal, would you really want to turn around without reaching the goal of your dreams?".... No! Keep up the work! You are actually on the right road but you just do something wrong! Think the hole setup though and try to force yourself to think logical! Mostly when i feelt like you it was because i was so close to my goal that i didnt even see it!? Then i started to overthink my way of working and viola suddenly everything was logical to me. Today i am mastering all my own stuff in amazing quality and i do everything myself!

Dont give up! Think different! But logical

[mdk]

- Way too much mids and highs in the overall sound of the song.
- .... you've got WAY too much compression happening, and it's not helping the song at all.

I'd suggest removing all the mastering processing you have, and focus on the mixdown first. Maybe post that for some feedback before you start trying to master it yourself.

what he said.

also do you play it loud when you're trying to mix?

try mixing at low volume, fletcher - munson and all that.