"Fleshing Out" the Song

[Habanc]

I am proportionately new to seriously producing music, as compared to other people on this site, and I've always somewhat had this problem.

What I find is that some parts of my songs feel flat, and almost two-dimensional (in a sense). It lacks depth, like everything is on the surface and nothing underneath to support it. Something is always just missing, something that would really bring the song to life.

In most genres I've tried out (I'm still trying to find a correct "place" that I feel comfortable with), it seems to happen at varying levels. Most house stuff, not too bad, probably due to the help of basslines. But this week I've been toying around with hard electro, and this problem really shone through.

The bass I am using is somewhat definitely brutal (going along with the genre), and doesn't play nice with other sounds without the use of sidechaining or simply using rests. I've tried listening to other producers to see what they do, such as Dimitry G. or Martis Kaneem (Who is only 14). I also tried using sub basses or simply playing the bass at a lower octave and a lower volume. Ultimately, however, this seems to do little. The feeling of shallowness just lingers like an annoying cough.

Anyways, I just wanted to know your thoughts/experiences/tips on this, not even for hard electro, but for producing in general. As I've said before, I really haven't found my "place", so I never know where I'll end up. If worse comes to worse, I'll just let it sit and work on something else for a few weeks and come back to it later. Sometimes things "click" that way... But I'd rather not leave it to chance.

If you have any questions to get a clearer picture, I'll be happy to answer.

Thanks.

[bartekko]

Answer these two questions:

Do you use reverb?

Do your tracks lack panning?

[Habanc]

Question 1) Yes, however I use it sparingly (And a growing feeling tells me that isn't great).

Question 2) Admittedly I am not a skilled mixer nor master-er, and therefore I'm a little hazy on how much certain instruments should be panned. So, that might be part of the problem, with all the sounds muddled towards the middle.

[bartekko]

Show us your wip so we can hear stuff

[Versilaryan]

Yeah, there isn't much we can do without hearing your stuff. If we hear it though, we can point out certain things you can do to improve your mix!

Overall, though, things you can be doing:
Pan EVERYTHING except basses. Move your drums to the left and right (except the kick), and put a stereo widener on your hi hat. Use stereo delay on things like the hi-hat and lead synths -- hard-pan that delay left and right, and then make the delay times different so one echoes slightly slower than the other one.

Use pads. A problem I hear a lot is that people don't fill out the mids. In some cases, it's done on purpose -- IE, club music, where you want sparse mids so people can talk over it -- but if it's meant to be there, it can make a song really empty if it isn't.

From a more compositional standpoint, if you repeat the same thing for a bit, the music can get stale and flat that way. Make sure that there's something moving, something that makes the musical phrases move around. All music should be leading to somewhere or coming from somewhere, so if your music isn't leading to any other point in the piece, then it falls flat.

The same happens if you have too much moving around. Sometimes, people get focused so much on making lots of moving voices that they fail to step back and notice that the cacophony of movement isn't really going anywhere, either. So make sure you find a way to lead your phrases around, whether you're automating filters or the melody to do so. Or anything else, for that matter.

[Habanc]

Your last paragraph makes too much sense, Versilaryan... Which, unfortunately would probably apply here.

Welp, I never knew an artist who painted a masterpiece on his first try either.

I only have the intro, a crappy build & drop, and just a tad into the meat of the song. Oh well. Must put my perfectionist side away and give it straight.
http://soundcloud.com/habanc/ha

Habanc is not liable for any earbleeding, loss of hearing or mental capacity.

[bartekko]

The main bass should be centered. and add some highs to it. I dunno, a high lead?

It has some very muddy harmonics.

[Habanc]

Hmm, I could see that.

Well, thanks for listening to and reviewing it for me, bartekko. I assume this stuff will eventually get easier as time progresses.

[randomblockfilms]

hmm. maybe try detuning that lead thing in the beginning. or maybe adding another oscillator to modulate it. idk.

But other than that, it actually sounds a lot better than i though it would. yay for that part!

[Versilaryan]

Small handful of things I can hear

One, if you're using a limiter on the master channel, get rid of it. Always compose without a limiter -- it should be one of the very last effects you add. What ends up happening is that you get tempted to just put everything at a loud volume, and the limiter will take care of it if it gets to loud. You end up with a saturated sound (in a bad way), and whenever your music's volume peaks, the balance gets thrown out the window.

Now, because you're no longer using the limiter, make sure you don't need it anymore. Turn down the volume on everything so that the master track never really peaks higher than around -4 or -5 db. Turn up the volume on your speakers so you can hear better. That way, you'll hear volumes as they really are, not as they are squashed by the limiter.

Secondly, I think that filtered white noise is too loud. It seems to drown everything out before the drop, and you don't want that happening. It's not really a foreground thing at all, so you might want to tone that down a bit.

Lastly, most of your sounds are in the same frequency range. I hear a lot of mid, not too much high or low. Having a more thumping bass drum would definitely do the trick -- it sounds like your kicks have a lot of mid, some high, and no low. You want some high, no mid, and lots of low. So try looking for better kick samples and layer your drums to get a better sound. Voodoopony's got a great guide on it, and I'm planning on releasing a video about it soon.
And then have different sounds going! If you're going to use that one melody synth, make it louder, center it, compress the hell out of it, and then stereo expand it. Maybe move it an octave up, and then alter it to make it more catchy. I dunno. Just some ideas.

Make that snare louder and punchier -- try layering another snare with more attack, so that you hear it more. And compress it, see if that gets you anywhere. Helps a lot if you pan it to the left or right, too. Then put a stereo widener on it. And while you're at it, stereo widen the hi-hats and put some slight delay on them, too.

Listen to some deadmau5. Moat Ghosts N Stuff is one of my favorites. In a lot of his songs, he'll have a lot of pads filling out the mids. So those pumping chords on the offbeats you hear a lot. In that particular song, he starts off with just drums, bass, and that melody, but it still sounds full. How? That lead synth is pretty interesting -- he messes with the sound through the whole thing, making it sound different every time it repeats that same melody. He has A LOT of bass, and not just bass, either -- the bass sounds he uses are crunchy and have a lot of mids and highs, too. And then to make up for the lack of instruments, the snare drum is really low-pitched, and even the kick drum has more mids than usual. Then, with the kick, lead, and hi-hat filling up the highs, you end up with a harmonically full sound.

For a first try, definitely not bad! Just needs a bit of polishing. Keep it up, and you'll be making awesome stuff in no time! ^^

[Habanc]

Listen to some deadmau5.

I have for quite awhile now, but I'll admit I listen mainly to his downbeat songs (Brazil, Strobe); maybe that's why I haven't picked up on his techniques amongst his more intense tracks.

Nevertheless, I quickly altered a few levels, mixer setting and some other stuff along with what you all recommended, and I can definitely feel the song starting to "fill out". Hard Electro isn't really popular at all, so the resources for producing it are quite limited (Especially for creating a good, complete crush bass). Right now it's down to a lot of experimentation and "guess and check" until I get some parts up to par. But, that happens alot in life, right?

Anyways, thanks for all your tips guys!

[the4thImpulse]

I have not read many of the posts in this, but heres a little tip that has recently saved my life in production and may help you.
...EQing...

What I mean is eq EVERY sound (every little hihat/noise) cut out all the frequences you dont need(especially those lower then the fundemental), when you solo the track it will sound flater but you wont notice in the full mix. This will give you plenty of room for your basslines.