How to get a "professional" sound

[Gnarrkhaz]

You tell me.

Pretty basic questions here because i'm new to mixing. How can i achieve a distinguished sound for my various instruments (EQ)? And how can i make them meatier/crunchier sounding? My stuff always sounds a bit feeble.

[Dabrenn]

EDIT: Should have listened to your soundcloud first, I realize now what I said earlier really doesn't apply to your music. Sorry about that.

Hope you do find your answer though

Btw I think your stuff is great! Doesn't sound like it isn't "professional" to me. Keep on doing what you're doing.

[the4thImpulse]

Remeber that you will be your own worst critic and you will always find faults in your music no matter how small. Getting out of this mind set, I think, is part of becoming professional. Now getting a distinguished sound (like Daft punk or Deadmau5) is something that will take time and you will end up developing it without knowing so. To get there faster stop listening to other artists of a similar genre and listen to something very diffrent (I make house music and when I'm inbetween songs I listen to old classical stuff). This will make it hard to unintentionally copy another artists 'sound'.

Making stuff meatier can be done with synthesis skills, filtering with resonance, eq bossting (be carefull with this one), distortion. I have a plugun called CM Waveshaper and it rasies or lowers the gain of frequencies of my choice and it helps make things really heavy and in your face. Giving each sound its own space in the frequency spectrum will make them stand out more rather change the tone, that happens in the synthesis.

[Navron]

There's plenty of tutorials on both EQ techniques, and professional mastering, so I won't delve into those.

I want to double up on what 4th said regarding your own sound.

For the love of god, don't push it!

You "find" your own sound. It isn't something you create deliberately, and it encompasses everything about how you make music. The composition itself, the genre, the ways it's not in genre, the compression, the instruments, the EQ, the tempo changes, rhythm changes, vocal effects, instrument effects, filters, plugins, live instruments, the automation, the mixing, the mastering, etc.

You've grown up listening to thousands of songs, hundreds of artists, and dozens of genres that you enjoy.

What that means is, regardless of what type of sound you're aiming for, your brain will secretly mix and mash everything together from what it likes in a variety of styles, and ultimately, you have your own sound.

If you aim to sound, "just like them," you will do nothing but disappoint yourself. You don't aim for creativity. You FEED it.

How does that go into finding your own sound?

Don't listen to only the genres you enjoy now. You have to break out of that comfort zone. Hate classical? Try listening to a mix of your favorite genre w/ classical elements mixed in. Then find more artists like that, or slowly listen to songs that get more and more closer to classical.

Next thing you know, you're composing one day, and while you're sitting there making a psytrance song, all of the sudden your brain starts secretly feeding you chord progressions or motifs from those classical songs you listened to months ago, and the next thing you know you've got a psytrance song with some crazy flowing chords and structures, that sounds nothing like anybody else.

That is how you get your sound.

[Versilaryan]

You can watch mixing tutorials 'til the cows come home, but in the end, what'll help you the most is just making music. Make it, mess with the effects, learn how to make it better next time. That's how you find "your sound" -- by making so many things, that you can hear trends in your music.

Just strive to make everything sound the best it can, and it'll get there in time. Good use of compressors and EQ will help, too -- just learn the basics and maybe some more advanced techniques, and then use them. Use them until you can hear the difference between a compressed and an uncompressed sound and pinpoint what frequencies you don't like in a sound.

[Gnarrkhaz]

I should have mentioned that i only work with Audacity so i don't have all of that fancy plugins and stuff at my disposal. : P Equalization is also very impractical there. You can't just loop something and fiddle around with knobs while you're listening (or can you?).

Now getting a distinguished sound (like Daft punk or Deadmau5) is something that will take time and you will end up developing it without knowing so.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Azz-6oT08c

I knew that i was asking a bit much. After all that Twilight song was my first attempt at mixing. I just wanted to hear your opinions on the subject. So thanks for the numerous and speedy replies.

[bartekko]

Step 1.) Get a DAW
Step 2.) ???
Step 3.) Profit

[Gnarrkhaz]

Step 1.) Get a DAW
Step 2.) ???
Step 3.) Profit

[[voodoopony]]

It's all about mixing and compression. There are plenty of guides to EQing, of which I used to follow religiously, but it's not the kind of thing you can really be 'taught', as EQ is a personal thing. Eventually you gain your own confidence after familiarizing yourself with different frequencies, and hearing how they work well with each other. Basics include the general do-not-want muddiness range [150-300hz, but raising it can also provide good low end for snares], the area that normally should be shelved out [80hz and below], the 5-10khz range can be lowered to bring out the snare, or raising 10-12khz for hats. I can go on xD

One vital thing I notice that no one seems to care about is audio saturation. One of my biggest pet hates are hearing super clean, crisp midi/audio. I find the crisp DAW sound ugly, and there seems to be a lack of putting in effort to make music sound real or natural. Even little things like perfectly timed and gridded pianos, drums, etc. There's no human influence! Try using tube amps, minor bitcrush, audio hiss, etc to throw some mud in the mix.

Compression is also a big one. There's a lot to it, and I'm just popping the cherry, but it's super important, just know that. Whatever you do though, don't feel the need to plop in a compressor every track just for the helluvit. I don't know many tips; I like to flatten the crap out of vocals, though. It gets you that professional pop sound.

Good luck and keep on practicing! And don't worry about developing your own sound- it happens in time. You may think you have a sound, or try to aim for one, but it will probably lead to failure, and crush your motivation. Just... do!

[PS: Deadmau5's sound? His music sounds like a DAW, and a lot of ctrl+c ctrl+v, with an unhealthy dose of sidechain. I'm sure your sound will be better.]

[BinaryBludgeon]

I like this all. Thank you kindly.

[Expy]

I should have mentioned that i only work with Audacity so i don't have all of that fancy plugins and stuff at my disposal. : P Equalization is also very impractical there. You can't just loop something and fiddle around with knobs while you're listening (or can you?).

Whoa, Audacity, really? I would have thought there were better free DAWs for producing than that. I've heard LMMS is quite good, but I haven't tried it myself.

[Expy]

Audacity is great for audio editing, but it's not really geared toward music production. I can understand if you don't have the money for a professional DAW (although I used the FL Studio demo for a few months), but I would think something like LMMS would work better... Meh, I don't know.

[Gnarrkhaz]

I can understand if you don't have the money for a professional DAW (although I used the FL Studio demo for a few months), but I would think something like LMMS would work better... Meh, I don't know.

I currently have Reaper (trial), LMMS and Audacity installed. LMMS doesn't recognize my audio input so i can't record anything. The synths don't work either. Maybe my soundcard is too trashy, who knows.

[Expy]

LMMS doesn't recognize my audio input so i can't record anything. The synths don't work either. Maybe my soundcard is too trashy, who knows.

Ah, that's a shame. You could try running Asio4All as an alternative sound card driver, it's designed for that sort of reason.

[Gnarrkhaz]

Okay, LMMS is seriously starting to annoy me. I installed that ASIO4All thingy and Reaper recognizes it. LMMS doesn't.

Thanks anyway.

[ph00tbag]

Your shit sounds fine. You're worrying too much about making it all sound like the overcompressed, sparkly pop-schmaltz that you're hearing on the radio, and you're completely ignoring the fact that you're making stuff with soul.

I would listen to this with a couple bros on a back porch late at night while we sit in flimsy fold-out lawn chairs, smoking a hookah. Smoke curls in the feeble light of the outdoor lamp as we don't say anything.

Because nothing need be said.

[Gnarrkhaz]

This is not really about how to get a prefessional sound but rather how to get a proper sound:

When i first plugged my microphone directly into my pc the recording was barely noticeable. Probably just my crappy onboard sound i thought to myself (like i always do).

Well, apparently that wasn't the source of the problem. I bought some equipment and recording the microphone via XLR now produces the exact same result: Barely noticeable and when i normalize it it obviously boosts the background noises as well making them at least as loud as the recording itself. I tried it with Audacity and Reaper as well as with 2 different dynamic microphones.

Any ideas?

[Freewave]

Well you need to make the initial recording loud enough (turn up the mic volume on your soundcard) because as you said if you do it after the fact you simply turn up the background noise along with it.

[Gnarrkhaz]

(turn up the mic volume on your soundcard)

I did that. Everything was on max regarding volume.

[Navron]

This is not really about how to get a prefessional sound but rather how to get a proper sound:

When i first plugged my microphone directly into my pc the recording was barely noticeable. Probably just my crappy onboard sound i thought to myself (like i always do).

Well, apparently that wasn't the source of the problem. I bought some equipment and recording the microphone via XLR now produces the exact same result: Barely noticeable and when i normalize it it obviously boosts the background noises as well making them at least as loud as the recording itself. I tried it with Audacity and Reaper as well as with 2 different dynamic microphones.

Any ideas?

Can't give you much advice other than you may have to consider some soundproofing and/or a separate recording location.

Whatever setup you have now is capturing background noises at the same levels as your recorded levels, which I don't think there's anything you can do besides eliminating those background noises via location and setup, or post-recording via a noise removal plugin.

[ph00tbag]

From the way he describes it, though, a noise gate might have unintended effects. His noise floor seems particularly high.

How much directionality do your mics have? If it's not highly directional, it'll pick up stuff that's from anywhere in the room, increasing the amount of noise it picks up. A really directional microphone will pretty much pick up anything that's coming from your mouth, or that is reflected off your face. You'll definitely need a depuffer if you use a mic like that, though.

[Artimeus]

Well gents, it seems everyone's covered normalizing, running through compressors, high and low equalizer cuts, and so on.

Now, I might be a bit of sellout by posting this, but I really do recommend checking out this site:
http://howtomakeelectronicmusic.com/how ... -fl-studio
http://howtomakeelectronicmusic.com/cou ... onic-music

There are some outstanding, easy to follow, well written tutorials and videos here for just about every portion of electronic music making. Petri, the guy who runs the site, is awesome, and although most of tutorials are written for FL Studio and Abelton, if you message him he'll try to make one for your DAW of choice.

But yeah, that's my 2 bits.

[Navron]

How does posting tutorials make you a sellout?

[Artimeus]

How does posting tutorials make you a sellout?

Ya know, now that you mention it, I guess it really doesn't; but I will admit I am very biased towards that site. I've spoken with Petri a good bit, he's a really great guy. Crazy that he's just an amateur.

[Gnarrkhaz]

From the way he describes it, though, a noise gate might have unintended effects. His noise floor seems particularly high.

The noise is louder than the rest, that's correct but only because everything but the noise is super quiet. You wouldn't even hear anything listening to the non-normalized recording.

Can't give you much advice other than you may have to consider some soundproofing and/or a separate recording location.

I'll do that.