When one piece of music seems outstanding next to the mediocrity of another it is commonly not because of the melodies involved. Instead, one track sounds better than another because it has a balanced and sweetened mix while the other has been patched together with in an amateur and guesswork fashion. The list below gives some tips to consider when mixing a piece of music that has professional aspirations.
1. Always use the very best and cleanest recordings or samples to create your music track. Terrible recordings will only muddy up the mix and make it sound amateur and dull.
2. Use EQ to cull out spaces for each instrument. For example, cut the bass drum at 80Hz so that it doesn't interfere with the bass guitar and cut cymbals around 1KHz to keep their noise from interfering with lower instruments.
3. Create a nice stereo field by panning some instruments. While the bass drum and guitar should stay in the center to give the track stability, other elements such as cymbals and strings can be panned to add depth and sonic intrigue.
4. Understand and use compression to give clout to presence to each instrument. Tracks sound weak and lame without compression and is often a main difference between professional and amateur sounding tracks.
5. Compare the overall sound of your track next to favorite CDs in the same genre before you master. Make sure your track sounds as close to possible as the professionally made track and if it doesn't, then figure out why and correct.
6. Let your track achieve maximum loudness by employing a limiter on the final mix which smushes down the highest peaks and allows you bring up the whole mix.
After you've mixed down to CD, play your fresh new track in a variety of speaker systems to make sure it holds up in all listening environments. - 15359
1. Always use the very best and cleanest recordings or samples to create your music track. Terrible recordings will only muddy up the mix and make it sound amateur and dull.
2. Use EQ to cull out spaces for each instrument. For example, cut the bass drum at 80Hz so that it doesn't interfere with the bass guitar and cut cymbals around 1KHz to keep their noise from interfering with lower instruments.
3. Create a nice stereo field by panning some instruments. While the bass drum and guitar should stay in the center to give the track stability, other elements such as cymbals and strings can be panned to add depth and sonic intrigue.
4. Understand and use compression to give clout to presence to each instrument. Tracks sound weak and lame without compression and is often a main difference between professional and amateur sounding tracks.
5. Compare the overall sound of your track next to favorite CDs in the same genre before you master. Make sure your track sounds as close to possible as the professionally made track and if it doesn't, then figure out why and correct.
6. Let your track achieve maximum loudness by employing a limiter on the final mix which smushes down the highest peaks and allows you bring up the whole mix.
After you've mixed down to CD, play your fresh new track in a variety of speaker systems to make sure it holds up in all listening environments. - 15359
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