My attempt to make a fat house song
My attempt to make a fat house song Posted on: 26.12.2010 by Lizeth Jaya This is the first time I've ever tried to "master" a track...I was kinda going for the deadmou5 sound, what do you believe?(about the mastering/eq) http://soundcloud.com/dr-violent/master-trancer | |
| Carli Halsall 04.01.2011 |
Originally Posted by Filterkat
Now you can do this in the mixdown naturally, but I still find sometimes multiband can be quite handy, that is when you know 100% what you are doing though. It just depends a lot on the track also. Most of the time a Waves SSL triggered very lightly is enough already for me but some tunes just have different needs of course. |
| Lizeth Jaya 26.12.2010 | This is the first time I've ever tried to "master" a track... I was kinda going for the deadmou5 sound, what do you believe?(about the mastering/eq) http://soundcloud.com/dr-violent/master-trancer |
| Lynnette Titel 04.01.2011 | I really enjoyed 'Neva too Much'. The first link however ain't working anymore. |
| Carli Halsall 03.01.2011 | Indeed, smooth crossover bends are definitely something you need when working with multibands. That is also why I find only the top ones usable at all. But enough multiband talk, for the topic started it is, like you said, better to use a standard compressor. Another appliance of sidechaining by the way, which can be quite pleasing from time to time, is to apply it very lightly on percussion channels. If you have an open hat for example that has enough decay to make it almost constantly audible, giving it just the right amount of sidechaining can make it swing a lot more, even when using perfectly quantized notes. & to the topic starter: I believe some elements of the track sound really dry. Try to send a few of the channels, like the snare, to a bus and give that a little bit of reverb. This can make it all a lot more lively. |
| Janyce Jardon 03.01.2011 | i agree, multiband has its place, but personally i havent had the need to use it for any of my tracks. i will have to say that multiband does mess with the dynamics of a sound a lot more than regular compression, especially multibands without a "soft crossover" between frequency bands, which most multibands are. sometimes this can be a good thing, depending on what sound your going for, but more times than others, it proves to be a hassel ive found. i believe i have used one once in the studio i worked at (on demand) and maybe once or twice in a project i made. i dont believe its all that necessary, but it does have its advantages. it just comes down to personal prefference i believe. One guy in the studio used to LOVE multiband compressors, and the tracks he was mixing down and mastering sounded great. however, he was doing all RnB and rap tracks. like you said, it comes down to the style and sound you are going for in a track. personally though, if i want to compress a certain frequency band or several bands, ill use a parametic EQ as a cutoff filter and bus that specific frequency band or bands to different sends and compress them seperately. i just find it compresses things more smoothly without having kind of a concrete frequency split. With most multiband compressors you have the different frequency bands with a harsh split, so say the bands are split at 350hz, the sound at 340hz is being compressed completely differently to the sound at 360hz without any smooth crossover between the frequency bands, which is the main reason i dont like multiband anythings. but thats just what they taught us at college Mutibands exist, so why not use them if you like them, and know how to use them, but personally its not really my thing. Also like you said, you have to know what your doing, i mean theres no point in going nuts with a multiband compressor if you barely understand how a normal compressor works. because a multiband is a compressor X 4, with frequency isolators, so sure, if you know what your doing, and get good results, i dont see why not, but if someone is having problems getting something to sound how they want it to, i wouldnt reccomend them a multiband. its like if you were having problems teaching your kid how to ride a pushbike. your not going to go out and buy him a ducati superbike with 6 gears and a twin turbo and tell him to go for it. All im saying is, sure, there are advantages to multibands, and they do have their place, however, for what this guy is asking, multiband isnt really necessary. If i understand correctly, he just wants to "brickwall" his tracks, which you can acheive quite easily with a normal compressor if you know what your doing. sure you can brickwall with a multiband, but if your not sure what your doing, chances are youll spend hours trying to do it and it will mess up the whole sound/dynamics of the track. |
| Carli Halsall 04.01.2011 |
Originally Posted by Filterkat
Now you can do this in the mixdown naturally, but I still find sometimes multiband can be quite handy, that is when you know 100% what you are doing though. It just depends a lot on the track also. Most of the time a Waves SSL triggered very lightly is enough already for me but some tunes just have different needs of course. |
| Janyce Jardon 03.01.2011 | definately better than the first one "fatness wise", but still a lot of transients, you can see them in the waveform. Transients arent a bad thing... thats sorta what my tracks look like BEFORE mastering them. go to google and look up something called "brickwall compression" a lot of audio engineers i know hate on "brickwalling" especially the old school guys, but for dance/house music... its really the only good way to get the most out of your track. well... brickwalling to a certain extent. you dont want to brickwall too much and lose the dynamics, but enough to fatten the track up. i believe thats what u mean by that "big chunky waveform" in traktor. chances are, they brickwalled it. id say at least 90% of your house tracks have been brickwalled to some extent. |
| Lizeth Jaya 02.01.2011 | Well I figured how to get that fat waveform in a different song but I ran it through traktor at the end, I guess that's cheating. But traktor seems to be able to gain my song better then ableton. Not really a house song http://soundcloud.com/cloudspills/neva-too-much |
| Janyce Jardon 28.12.2010 | dunno dude, im not too familiar with ableton, i use logic and reason mainly, but ive heard good things come out of ableton. Ill ask one of the guys on my label what he uses in ableton, his tracks sound pretty fat, usually when i master them i barely have to do anything to his tracks, just a slight EQ tweak and very minimal compression. |
| Janyce Jardon 27.12.2010 | thats what sidechaining is for, not to muddle the kicks and the bass. thats really the only reason i know of to use sidechaining. That, or to get the extreme benni benassi "satisfaction" style sound, but thats extreme sidechaining. I dont particularly mean frequencies... different tones, sounds, contrast stuff like "organic" and "synthetic" sounds, like have a synth for one sound, and compliment it with maybe a wood drum or a piano or something. Or something that sounds really harsh and metallic, and contrast it with something soft and smooth. Kind of like ying and yang... now im getting all philosophical and shit. your kick and your bass track should be in a slightly different frequency bands anyway... your kick should be down in the lower Hz like boost it from say 30 to 60 or 75Hz, and boost your bass track up from say 80-90 up to around 150-200ish, depending on the bass. |
| Lizeth Jaya 27.12.2010 | Well by harmonically mixing I meant that they compliment each others frequencies and I tried to make them not mud each other out with peaks in the wrong areas. I believe I get your analogy...if by colors you mean frequencies? I'm trying to make the song blend, but only the kicks and bass. I figured that if they contrasted so much it would sound muddy? Maybe I'm wrong.. I'll fiddle around with changing up the kicks and bass as well as increasing their levels and see whats up. |
| Janyce Jardon 27.12.2010 | I just thought of a good analogy while smoking a cigarette. Think of your music like a painting. if most of your "painting" is blue, if you "paint" the kick or the bass blue aswel, its not going to stand out from the painting. To make a "fat" track, you need things to stand out, your not going to make things stand out by "painting" them all the same colour. Contrast makes things stand out. Otherwise if everything sounds too simmilar and matched together, it just sounds boring. A perfect (extreme) example of this is Skrillex. If you havent heard of him go check him out on soundcloud. He uses heaps of different "contrasting" samples, but because all the samples differ so much in tone and sound, it makes them stand out from each other. |
| Janyce Jardon 27.12.2010 | dunno dude, im not too familiar with ableton, i use logic and reason mainly, but ive heard good things come out of ableton. Ill ask one of the guys on my label what he uses in ableton, his tracks sound pretty fat, usually when i master them i barely have to do anything to his tracks, just a slight EQ tweak and very minimal compression. After listening to your track again, id probably bring the bass up a lot more, its too far in the backround and you need to push up the low end on the EQ of the bass, and the kick is a bit thin. Sounds like a kick id use for the intro of a track personally. compression wont fix that, have you tried maybe using another "fatter" kick? as for harmonic mixing of the kick, its pointless. you can harmonically mix a kick to a certain extent, but really, your just changing the dynamics of the kick and people dont really tend to notice that shit. Kicks are generally "toneless" or dont have a particular note or key to them. Plus if you harmonically mix your kick, it can make it hard to distinguish from the bass or the other "harmonic" parts of the track, since youve basically got the kick going at almost the same "note" its less distinguishable. Its like if you played two different sounding guitars but the same notes, maybe an acoustic, and an electric, sure, you can tell theres 2 guitars playing on the track, but its sorta hard to distinguish them from each other because they sound simmilar. Contrast is what makes tracks sound "big" and dynamic. |
| Lizeth Jaya 27.12.2010 | Here's pretty much what my track looks like: Hi Kick & Low Kick harmonically mixed together Which is then harmonically mixed with a low bass and Hi bass. Some synths are grouped together, and one is sidechained. Everything is bussed. I went back and EQed up EVERY channel with gain, some with added mids etc. And as well every bus channel has EQ on it, gained up at 2db.(including the master) Then I bounce the wav file, bring it up into a new track. Bus that to A L and B R. Thats as far as I can get without destroying audio. After this I try a mixture of limiters, compressors, maximixers. Nothing.. I tried pretty much all settings you could use for a compressor. I did some google searching and even went as far as going back to the original file, and compressing every track just a tiny bit, but no, nothing I have done has given me that FAT waveform in traktor. BTW I'm using ableton. Any tips? |
| Janyce Jardon 27.12.2010 | @Garygary1 - Awesome! It was kind of intended as a track for the ladies Usually if theyre dancing, everyone else is dancing Thanks for letting me know, that made my day. @mycathasrabies - Personally i wouldnt use a multiband compressor, or a maximizer. If anything id use a standard compressor with a fairly low threshold then pump up the output gain on the compressor, and maybe use a limiter, but only on the master out, and only to JUST stop the master out from clipping, not for overkill. Yeah audio stuff is tricky sometimes. But once youve got a good method of doing things that sound good, stick to it. Personally id try and steer clear of multiband ANYTHINGS... they told us that at audio engineering college, i forget exactly why, something about destroying the dynamics though. And we never used multibands in the studio. once actually, a multiband compressor on a guitar, and it was because the guy asked for it. (Edit): so wait you say you bus your tracks to a master EQ? k thats good and all, should be doing that anyway, but are you also EQing each seperate track individually? i put an EQ on basically every channel strip and fiddle with the levels. usually the mid to highs, sometimes the lows on the kicks and bass tracks. Helps give the tracks more "width" and also helps beef it up. try putting an EQ on each seperate channel strip as well as having your master EQ |
| Chas Giraldez 27.12.2010 | Filterkat, that drop at 2:30 on your new track just made my girlfriend start dancing. Job well done |
| Lizeth Jaya 26.12.2010 | I have everything bussed separately, some EQed and compressed together, and then all compressed using a multiband compresser with range/q. I don't use any presets I just set the thresold for the low,mid, and high, and gain it up. Then I EQed the master with added mids and highs(using a paragraphic EQ). I'm messing around using limiters, multiband maximixers, even a saturator and nothing can help boost this song without kill the lows or killing the sound.. I even bus the final wav and then compress it and it still can't get as fat as I want it. |
| Janyce Jardon 26.12.2010 | hmmm dunno why it says the tracks not available. it works fine on my soundcloud |
| Janyce Jardon 26.12.2010 | how are you compressing the tracks though... thats the main thing. are you just chucking a compressor on the tracks and leaving the default values or using the presets? or are you tweaking the compressor yourself? dont use presets or leave the compressor as is. Tweak it until you get the maximum effect out of your compressor. Chuck an EQ on the master out and a compressor on the master aswel and tweak them both aswel. Heres a track i just finnished this afternoon. id say its pretty "fat" sounding. Let me know what u believe http://soundcloud.com/filterkat/selfish-girls-original-mix |
| Lizeth Jaya 26.12.2010 | I'm a little lost though... how would I go about doing that? It's already compressed AND bussed with EQ. I've tried getting it louder with a maximizer but that overkills it. It pretty much can't get any louder everything is gained up. Maybe I should go back to my original file, group everything and compress that and get it to its max, and then repeat the steps? Or Do i use equalizers or something else? Confusing sometimes.. |
| Janyce Jardon 26.12.2010 | quite like the track, kind of progressive, techy house. Nice work. needs more compression though if you want to "beef" it up a bit and make it sound "fat" |
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