Share & Talk About Your Music

Another old track I’d like to still use by merit of mood, but I’m not sure how well it carries being largely instrumental (smithed for lyrics in two large verse blocks that haven’t quite gelled yet).

Imagery = scrapped together ruff draft.

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I’m finally mixing this damn album I’ve been working on for years. Doing it on a real analog mixing board with outboard compressors and EQ and stuff… Even using a fairly nice 1176 clone. Analog mixing is so so so much better than doing shit in the box. I’m never going in the box again. Not a final mix but I’m super pumped about how it’s sounding.

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Yeah, sounds really great! I do a lot of mixing in the box and there are ways I have found to make it sound pretty good but it is so much easier to get a good sound at a real desk.

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Bass guitar could come up a lil bit

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that’s pretty much my only note for this mix, that and the drums might be a little too loud. which is kind of hilarious to me tbh.

mixing in the box I can never get the drums to cut in a nice sounding way without over compressing them to death. it’s really hard. it’s amazing how easy it is mixing analog though. it’s just like push the fader up lol. being able to clip the board as a cheap limiter helps a lot too, and works wonders on kick drum.

I’m also mixing into a nice SSL-style bus compressor that creates an “infinite headroom” kind of feeling which makes it a lot easier to just make stuff louder if you want it louder.

I feel like this experience is giving me some insight on how to improve my in the box mixing style too but I also hope I never have to do that ever again. I’m gonna buy a relatively cheap 16 channel mixer on ebay and do all my soundtrack work through that thing from now on.

You know, I felt the same way at some point. What I changed about my mixing in the box that kind of fixed my problem was actually mixing quieter. Like peak out at -3 and don’t use any effects on the master buss. Then either master it later or use a service (I use LANDR) to either get your master or master it myself so it matches loudness. Dunno if this would work for soundtracks but I’ve been happy with this arrangement.

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I have definitely found that the less processing you use the better, but when recording live music it ironically means you really honestly HAVE to get it as right as possible at the source. analog is way more forgiving. digital gives you the ability to save your settings and tweak as much as possible but you hit diminishing returns quickly

next time I mix in the box:

  • I will start by building a mix entirely by using faders – no plugins at all
  • There will be one reverb bus in parallel and everything that needs reverb will be sent there
  • Other effects will be added to this mix
  • Only apply compression and EQ after the basic mix is built and sounds as good as possible without.

I’m also beginning to realize that plugins sound better with analog summing too. so I almost wonder if it might be a good practice to print certain plugins or effects instead of running dozens of plugins live.

LANDR looks insane. I had never heard of it before. I’m really curious to try it out on one of these mixes just to see… I’m definitely still hiring a mastering engineer for this album but it will be fun to compare his work to what LANDR puts out. But if i’m doing soundtrack work that sounds like a cool resource and definitely better than trying to master myself.

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Can’t believe toewps wasn’t doing all that basic shit already :shermiesteppin:

Landr blows, avoid. Just steal Ozone 8 and do its autothing, you’ll get the same result or better lol

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I used to do the dumbest shit when I started out. Still learning everything the hard way.

This guy has a pretty good video on mastering with websites vs real

Also, I joined LANDR really early on and got grandfathered in for $150 a year for unlimited everything including digital distribution . If you want to try it out and here the HD wavs I’d be happy to run it through when you are ready. Pm if you like.

LANDR does not sound good on a lot of stuff. When I do ruffs though I kind of mix for it and it does fine. It sounds decent in their cars on the way home from the session and I don’t get emails saying it sounds quiet. It can also point out issues in my mix like vocals or bass being to loud. It has it’s uses is what I’m trying to say and it is worth $150 a year for me.

I tried the demo and it did not sound that good to my ears? Like I might as well have just put my mix through an L2.

Fair enough. For me the insta-master, cloud storage, and unlimited distro is worth it for what I pay (again, half of the current price last I checked). Also, it’s at least as good as an L3 :slight_smile:

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is it worth it for their online distribution stuff? are there better alternatives if I already have mastering taken care of?

Maybe. Again, I’m grandfathered into $150 a year which I believe is a ridiculous deal. There are pure distro only plans but I don’t know the details. The statistics and back-end is good and stuff goes up quick and painlessly. I run a label and get all the info I need to payout my artists. They only keep monies spent converting currencies so I get more of it than I get from The Orchard, which is the service I was using previously. It is also less of a hassle, they take care of barcodes too. Your experience may differ as I have there highest level plan so caveat emptor.

I’ll pm you a referral link which could save you $10

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It’s really cold and windy outside, so I stayed home and plugged a bunch of things into each other.

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i did a jersey club seinfeld remix

Working with a few things fresh off Vagrant Story, dug this piece up. Still worth a new shine maybe rewriting some solid verse I had over the top. High concentrate character raps. Mix is meh, straight forward beat but done up better could slap some souls. :47 is where things actually take shape

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