Ableton Forum

when i complete a track and listening to others in the genre (electronic dance music basically..) the most of them sounds somewhat fatter than mine even with mastering.
my tracks usually look like this : U
highs and lows are stronger compared to mid-ranges.
but if i use pitch shifters eqs, multiband compressors etc, and even throw in a new sound in the mid range only they usually seeems too harsh. if i check the spectrum analyzer they are almost the same as the recent commercial stuff but those arent sound harsh at mids (there are exceptions, but lets say 90% of them are good for my ears).
any advice...
thx

You can't go by a spectrum analyzer to shape your sound. Always try and match the sound with your reference material using your ears. It will always be difficult to get your original tracks to sound as good as a commercially available track. The difference is almost always that they were mastered by experts with top notch mastering HARDWARE that cost more than we can afford and the engineer has had years of experience. ENGINEERING is an applied disipline in science. Not to do with turning nobs and attenuating faders on a mixing board. Just my 2 cents. Cheers!

thanks but is really a 2cent
i know some of my references im talking about is mastered with just tweaking knobs and the main problem (if it is..) must be my production method/mixdown not the mastering.
some of my tracks are released and mastered by the labels engineer and they say its okay, sounds good for me too but not as fat.
and if it is, then i dont like it. harsssh.
wtf
stop doing drugs?

You should post an example track.

Well, sometimes that fat sound is elusive. I agree with you on that point.

A real top end mastering facility will typically use a combination of hardware and possibly analogue gear in their chain with top end converters such as Lavry Golds, Mytek, etc which will allow you to pump something a lot further than a Waves L2 or whatever software plugin with less artifacts.

Also, where dance music is concerned, quite a few master to 1/2" analogue tape and use expensive outboard gear and then the top end digital stuff like Weiss / Mytek / Lavry gear (from 8 to 10 K for one way, i.e. A/D), some of this stuff is upwards of 10K.

This compressor is much loved by Bob Katz, Bob Ludwig and many other mastering engineers
http://www.mercenary.com/wedidy.html

This EQ is also used by many top mastering studios
http://www.mercenary.com/gml95dualcha.html


This is why people like Tarekith (and myself) who do some mastering, call it 'demo mastering' because although we will take care and be able to push the volume without making something turn shit and charge a reasonable price, because getting another +2 to +3dB RMS without that really high end gear isn't possible without potentially destroying the mix with an all software mastering solution.

try cutting out everything with EQ8s only letting a few frequencies through of each element, if it doesn't achieve your elusive phatness on the mixdown its not gonna master into phatness, thats too late in the process

lots of present electro / dance stuff is really too much clipping, compressed... all 'in the red'

you mixdowns maybe too clean?

d-track wrote:when i complete a track and listening to others in the genre (electronic dance music basically..) the most of them sounds somewhat fatter than mine even with mastering.
my tracks usually look like this : U
highs and lows are stronger compared to mid-ranges.
but if i use pitch shifters eqs, multiband compressors etc, and even throw in a new sound in the mid range only they usually seeems too harsh. if i check the spectrum analyzer they are almost the same as the recent commercial stuff but those arent sound harsh at mids (there are exceptions, but lets say 90% of them are good for my ears).
any advice...
thx

Welcome to the art of production.

There could be millions of reasons,

too much bass,
too little bass,
not enough sounds
too many sounds
competing sounds
bad arrangement
bad song
bad mix
bad mastering
choice of sounds
bad performance

Everybody including professionals struggle with this at times.

fatness can only be achieved with a mac, by the way

There are no presets which just 'fix' up a bad mix. Some mixes are like sponges, you can throw a ton of things in there and it just soaks it all up nicely. Other mixes are like putting oil and water together - they just don't mix no matter what you try to do from a processing point of view. Sometimes it just requires you rethink your parts and change some things. Change the kick drum, or layer it. Change the bass arrangement/guitars/keys/vox/b.vox. Change the drums, or play with tunings to get them to fit better.

You can sometimes fix things up with processing, but pound to a penny it's going to be quicker to change conflicting elements in the arrangement.

However, if the mix is working but you just can't get the mastering to give the same result but at a more commercial level, then what I said before gives some possible explanation.

whens that demo coming so we can get to the matter of the subject?

yup +1 to the audio demo,

and after my experience in over 80% of all cases, mainly in dance music productions, is the mistake in the attempt to make it overly "FAT" and bass heavy from the start, concentrate on the entire, the whole balance and everything else will come automatically... for most people a very hard thing to learn, but it does solve in most cases the problem of the obsession with bass and 'fatness' to begin with, that usually just ends up in either a mud or "thinness" the whole picture and balance is what counts and the 'fatness' will follow automatically.

Agreed, most people end up with a dull and flat sound because they're trying too hard to make it fat, and end up overdoing all the dynamics processing.