How to create more "cohesion" ?
How to create more "cohesion" ? Posted on: 26.04.2013 by Nereida Jasnoch Hi,I might be a bit too perfectionist about this I don't know but I can never finish tracks because towards the end it always seems as if the sounds aren't coherent and there is no cohesion. For example. I'm really pleased with the drum track and synth track etc when I solo them but all bits together sound like shit. Stuff I've tried but it didn't really help: -compression (regular and glue compressor) -moving stuff around in the stereo field -more than regular EQing Could you give me some pointers ? I'm using Ableton Live 9 standard | |
| Tera Baragan 07.05.2013 |
Originally Posted by Diodigi
Its not necessarily how many sounds you use as long as everything can fit in and be eq'ed nicely! |
| Zulma Ramji 29.04.2013 |
Originally Posted by MyUsername
Also i feel its more important to work out the notes for bass and synth so they evolve nicely together. Once notes are good, you can spend time making changes to the sound itself, EQ and space them out. Hope this helps. |
| Nikole Resende 27.04.2013 |
Originally Posted by MyUsername
Of course you can build e.g. your main lead to sound great on its own, but then you should go on by building the rest of the elements around that.
And I'll see if I find something to upload but it's all VERY WIP.
|
| Luciano Hyppolite 27.04.2013 |
Originally Posted by MyUsername
in my experience, if you get too deep within sound design while. you are composing a song, if most of the time you find yourself tweaking your assasin ninja bass, if it doesnt fit, then you will be reluctant to letting that instrument go, you will loose objectivity regarding how that instrument sits in the mix, you will try to find a way to make it fit by force because you spent so much time making it. I try to sepparate sound design from song writting. if you believe you have an awesome patch you made in your song, but it doesnt fit, thenn CTRL + G , instrument rack, throw it in your library, and have it there so as when you start a new song, you already have your library of sounds that sound great by themselves. then its just a matter of combining the ones that go togeteher! hope the advice works! |
| Nereida Jasnoch 27.04.2013 |
Originally Posted by alchemy
And I'll see if I find something to upload but it's all VERY WIP. |
| Nereida Jasnoch 26.04.2013 | Hi, I might be a bit too perfectionist about this I don't know but I can never finish tracks because towards the end it always seems as if the sounds aren't coherent and there is no cohesion. For example. I'm really pleased with the drum track and synth track etc when I solo them but all bits together sound like shit. Stuff I've tried but it didn't really help: -compression (regular and glue compressor) -moving stuff around in the stereo field -more than regular EQing Could you give me some pointers ? I'm using Ableton Live 9 standard |
| Devora Chait 17.05.2013 | What I do when I start I make sections which I call "Complete 1, Complete 2, Complete 3" "Intro 1, Intro2" Etcetera, I start with the complete one and start to compose and add sounds to it until I like the way it sounds and adding something makes it cluttered. I switch the 2 sounds which fight eachother in "Complete 2" and repeat the process. It really helps when you don't want to let go of your sounds and in addition you can switch it up in arrangement making for a more diverse track imo. |
| Syreeta Piela 10.05.2013 | Pitch everything to sound nice together, especially if you're working with samples |
| Syreeta Piela 10.05.2013 | Check everything is in the same key.... |
| Tera Baragan 07.05.2013 |
Originally Posted by Diodigi
Its not necessarily how many sounds you use as long as everything can fit in and be eq'ed nicely! |
| Anissa Glasenapp 06.05.2013 | Sounds like you need to side chain some instruments; it really allows the sounds that you made pop out when they play. Plus, depending on the sound (I really like when my pads are side chained HARD) giggity, side chaining can give you a really cool effect. Also, I generally keep a rule that no more than 4 major sounds are happening at the same time. Basically it goes: kick, bass, snare, lead. The only exception would be vocals, which imo should be above everything. Anything else like hi hats, pads, weird little noises, etc. would be at a slightly lower volume and panned. Just sharing my process a bit, hope it might give you some new ideas. |
| Augustina Zulu 30.04.2013 | Mixing is an entirely different game than writing and arranging. You have to focus on the whole and not the parts. plug a spectrum analyzer into your master and go through your tracks muting individual and groups of tracks. I know there's one in live but I forget what it's called. You'll want to play groups of tracks that are in the same frequency range together and watch listen to how they sit together. An obvious example is the bass and kick. If you have the bass and kick on the same frequency range and occuring at the same time, it's going to sound really muddy in the low end. You really have 3 choices. You can put the kick below the bass (common in techno and house) or you can put the kick above the bass (common in breaks, hip hop) or you can use a compressor so that one of the elements ducks out for the other one (common in dubstep and bass music). There's actually a 4th option to use 2 overlapping kicks, one EQed higher above the bass and gives punch and one that sits below the bass for the subby thump. I've never had great luck with this though. The same thing goes for other instruments. If you 've got a lot going on in the same range you're going to have the same thing as the kick + bass issue and your options are really the same - get them on different frequencies or have them hit at different times. Sometimes you can do this by just making the sound shorter(change the envelope or use an expander to have it decay faster). Those really compressed drum samples with really long tails like you find in Maschine presets which sound really full and awesome on their own can be a pain in the ass to make sit right in a mix. Sometimes a clean kit can be a lot easier to work with. Don't be afraid to try new patches/samples if something isnt working |
| Zulma Ramji 29.04.2013 |
Originally Posted by MyUsername
Also i feel its more important to work out the notes for bass and synth so they evolve nicely together. Once notes are good, you can spend time making changes to the sound itself, EQ and space them out. Hope this helps. |
| Berta Baie 27.04.2013 | Making sure i have the right sounds for the job takes up 90% of the time i spend starting a new track. Its very arduous, and it drives me nuts listen to the same MIDI clip looped over and over for like 30mins straight, but its worth it in the end. Without that base you are screwed. Sure i'll change sounds as i go, but usually it becomes a MASSIVE problem if i have to do this later on because then the new sound might clash with the other perfectly blending ones. If u can get this right from the get-go, or at least very close, this won't be as big of an issue. On the flip side, this could also be a mixing problem. Sounds to loud or quiet in the mix won't blend well together. Gotta find that sweet spot, and if the sweet spot doesnt exit, well, then you are clearly using the wrong sound. |
| Nikole Resende 27.04.2013 |
Originally Posted by MyUsername
Of course you can build e.g. your main lead to sound great on its own, but then you should go on by building the rest of the elements around that.
And I'll see if I find something to upload but it's all VERY WIP.
|
| Luciano Hyppolite 27.04.2013 |
Originally Posted by MyUsername
in my experience, if you get too deep within sound design while. you are composing a song, if most of the time you find yourself tweaking your assasin ninja bass, if it doesnt fit, then you will be reluctant to letting that instrument go, you will loose objectivity regarding how that instrument sits in the mix, you will try to find a way to make it fit by force because you spent so much time making it. I try to sepparate sound design from song writting. if you believe you have an awesome patch you made in your song, but it doesnt fit, thenn CTRL + G , instrument rack, throw it in your library, and have it there so as when you start a new song, you already have your library of sounds that sound great by themselves. then its just a matter of combining the ones that go togeteher! hope the advice works! |
| Nereida Jasnoch 27.04.2013 |
Originally Posted by alchemy
And I'll see if I find something to upload but it's all VERY WIP. |
| Tera Baragan 27.04.2013 | Not all sounds are going to work with each other. That's half the part of producing is finding and creating sounds that work and feed off each other. |
| Luciano Hyppolite 26.04.2013 | 5 minute rule. if the sound does not fit in the first five minutes you tweeak parameters, chances are that it wont fit in the song, just try with another sound. |
| Ronnie Kopietz 26.04.2013 | Without an example it's hard to tell exactly what's going wrong, but for me one thing I've fallen into time and time again was making each main component so full that they'd sound great alone (nice thick percussion, meaty bassline, dynamic lead), but together it would sound brutal. I believe it's because I'm afraid of having a finished track being too sparce so I'm inclined to make each element "interesting", which ends up creating a really cluttered arrangement. Whenever I find myself in this place is mute all the tracks but the kick and whatever element I consider the most important: the bass, the lead, a particularly chunky percussive groove, and I get use to hearing them alone. Then I start un-muting the other tracks one at a time. Then it's easy to see which parts are fighting with the essence of the track and change or remove them. |
| Monserrate Rupnow 26.04.2013 | Example? |
<< Back to Producer tips and DAW informationReply