Advice for someone that's messing around?

[aruigus808]

So, I've posted here before but that was when I wasn't really doing music very much. I'm a graphic designer/artists at heart but I figured I should just take a break from that right now, since I'm not happy with my art as of recently, and venture onto a new art form: music.

For the past couple of days, I've been messing around with a song and I just want to get some personal opinions on it. I'm trying to go for house music but I know that I might be far off from that...I tend to do that, aim for one genre and then land up in a different genre altogether. I'm just looking for some advice mainly in what I'm missing(in a GENERAL sense, since I know that each song/genre has its own basics and there's no real outline), what should be added, if the melody/rhythm/whatever is okay, anything else that you guys think of.

Anyways, here's the song:
http://soundcloud.com/aruigus808/piez-pinks-v4
Any advice/comments would help.
~aruigus808
PS: I still need to master this, which I don't really know how to do, so that's why some parts are either too soft or whatever.

[vladnuke]

First off, welcome to MLR.
Secondly: omgomgomg can you do album art for my new EP please???

For mastering, I suggest putting all the tracks on the mixer and EQing them individualy. Try to carve out frequency bands for each sound. Or (because this sounds like you're using the default FL drums) drop a soundgoodenizer on the master mixer channel. Although this is quite a faux pas, with some clever EQ work, good pads and effects work, you can make it sound good. But only turn the soundgoodenizer up a quarter. Anymore and it stops being subtle. Mastering is all about subtly bringing every element of a track to the stage, and getting them to work together.

But before doing that, I'd add some soft pads to make the track a little more full.

[Artimeus]

For mastering, I suggest putting all the tracks on the mixer and EQing them individualy.

^ This!

I can't tell you enough how helpful this is. I drop a PEQ2 onto every channel in the mixer (which I just learned was a bright idea on my latest track, which should be complete in a couple hours), cut out the lows (20Hz-ish) and ultra-highs (20Khz-ish) and then mess with the settings to ensure everything has a nice little nook in the frequency spectrum so I don't have sounds fighting each other.

Additionally, you would be amazed at what a simple low-pass filter can do for your sounds. It's one of my favorite tools for creating rises and falls. Plus, if you automate the resonance along with the LP filter, you can get some really cool 'bending' effects.

Hah, before I go too far off topic, when I absolutely MUST master a final mix because I didn't sub-mix it well enough, I export the entire project as a 320kbps, 32-bit float-depth .wav file (32-bit float cuts out any issues you might have with clipping), then either use Audacity to normalize it or open a new FL project file, drop the .wav into the playlist, assign it to a mixer track, and normalize it in Edison, while adding a fade-in or fade-out effect. Once it's normalized, I save it using the same settings, then re-open another new project, drop the .wav onto the playlist and assign it a mixer track.

From here, I use a PEQ2 to cut out any remaining unwanted frequencies first, then a compressor to balance out the dynamic range, another PEQ2 if any frequencies need some boosting, and finally a limiter, to maximize the volume.

That's just MY method though; believe me, everyone does something different. It's all about personal style at this point. Of course if you're a mastering tech, you already know what you're doing XD

(P.S. I may talk like I know what I'm doing but I have no idea what I'm doing )

[aruigus808]

First off, thank you guys for the advice! When I did the mastering and such(well, put an PEQ2 on every channel I had) the song turned out a bit better(or at least in my opinion). I'm hoping to make this the final release but since I'm still new to music, I still need to know what could be improved upon. Unless I'm really forgetting anything important then I'll just make this the final version. Here's the song:
http://soundcloud.com/aruigus808/piez-pinks-v4-1

Secondly: omgomgomg can you do album art for my new EP please???

Yeah, I could do album art for your EP if you really wanted to. Just go to my DeviantArt page and send me a note. Let me know what you want and how big to make the size and such. Here's the page: http://www.aruigus808.deviantart.com
~aruigus808