Empty mixes

[do_androids_dream]

Your track has that almost signature sound that a lot of electronica has these days - shrill and lifeless - to be blunt. It's mostly to do with high frequencies. Be ruthless with the low pass filter and carve away the high end on everything except one or two elements that you think should be the 'excitement' part of the track. This will create depth - remember that, in the real world, as you move away from a sound source the first thing to start disappearing (lowering in spl) is the high frequencies - so if you take high frequencies away from a few things they will seem further back in the mix. Of course, you still have to create a space for them otherwise it's going to start sounding muddy but high frequencies is the thing to pay attention to here. If everything has that 3 - 5K presence the whole track is going to have that in-yer-face unpleasantness.

[dewgong]

Your track has that almost signature sound that a lot of electronica has these days - shrill and lifeless - to be blunt. It's mostly to do with high frequencies. Be ruthless with the low pass filter and carve away the high end on everything except one or two elements that you think should be the 'excitement' part of the track. This will create depth - remember that, in the real world, as you move away from a sound source the first thing to start disappearing (lowering in spl) is the high frequencies - so if you take high frequencies away from a few things they will seem further back in the mix. Of course, you still have to create a space for them otherwise it's going to start sounding muddy but high frequencies is the thing to pay attention to here. If everything has that 3 - 5K presence the whole track is going to have that in-yer-face unpleasantness.

I agree to a point. Listening to the track again after a few months what jumps out at me is the harsh EQ'ing. I went through a phase where I took the notion of "mixing hygiene" to an extreme. All my synths and effects were EQ'd to death and so everything just sounded lifeless. Then there are the massive transient shocks in the middle. I think that rather than rolling off the entire high end its worth just having a few sounds which occupy that space at times.

I think the best way to mix is to just throw stuff together that sounds good. At least thats how I work best. It sounds like a slapdash approach but really thats all that counts. Knowing the theory is extremely useful but I feel that it should enhance rather than becoming a rulebook

[Sendy]

Get some midrange cut on those shimmering chords. They're too in-your-face and it's just a sustainer/harmony part so shouldn't be. Push it back into the mix. An alternative is to use a phaser to cut moving holes into the sound - that'll push it back in the mix AND make it more organic. I use a free VST called Proximity, in was an entry in the KVR Developer's Challenge a year or so ago. It adds cues to a sound to make it sound farther away, via air absorption, delay, etc. Subtle but very cool.

Pitch is vital. Pitch variations. Detune instruments slightly. Add subtle pitch envelopes. Newbies NEVER think to do this (pitch envelope? that's for kicks and zaps!). When I discovered it it was like I'd hit the motherlode for making synths more energetic. Just use it subtle. When every instrument's harmonics are all ligned up perfectly, it's like there's no space between them. Literally and figuratively. You want some sounds to have slightly wandering pitch, some to have stretched octaves or to be ever-so-slightly out of tune.

Play with the background. Instead of silence as a backdrop, you want stuff going on just under the mix, barely perceptible but there. People use white noise rhythms, heavily effected versions of the entire mixdown work well. Mix it so you can just about hear the difference if you turn it on and of and you're listening for it. The listener won't be listening for it, it will go in subconsciously and add depth, but obviously you have to experiment to find what's right.

I thought the track started really well. It caught my attention, it was different, it had a mood and some interesting sound design. I just felt it didn't really go anywhere. I know this is a horrible cliche, but there was no "story", no progression. I was waiting for something to contrast the stuff that was in the intro. A slow pounding beat, a peculiar reharmonization, some kind of change or switchout. It just sort of ambles along, changes at the end, then ends. In all honesty the arrangement is the weakest part of the track to me.

But I only listened twice and a lot of this is subjective. So follow my advice only if it feels right

[dewgong]

Get some midrange cut on those shimmering chords. They're too in-your-face and it's just a sustainer/harmony part so shouldn't be. Push it back into the mix. An alternative is to use a phaser to cut moving holes into the sound - that'll push it back in the mix AND make it more organic. I use a free VST called Proximity, in was an entry in the KVR Developer's Challenge a year or so ago. It adds cues to a sound to make it sound farther away, via air absorption, delay, etc. Subtle but very cool.

Pitch is vital. Pitch variations. Detune instruments slightly. Add subtle pitch envelopes. Newbies NEVER think to do this (pitch envelope? that's for kicks and zaps!). When I discovered it it was like I'd hit the motherlode for making synths more energetic. Just use it subtle. When every instrument's harmonics are all ligned up perfectly, it's like there's no space between them. Literally and figuratively. You want some sounds to have slightly wandering pitch, some to have stretched octaves or to be ever-so-slightly out of tune.

Play with the background. Instead of silence as a backdrop, you want stuff going on just under the mix, barely perceptible but there. People use white noise rhythms, heavily effected versions of the entire mixdown work well. Mix it so you can just about hear the difference if you turn it on and of and you're listening for it. The listener won't be listening for it, it will go in subconsciously and add depth, but obviously you have to experiment to find what's right.

I thought the track started really well. It caught my attention, it was different, it had a mood and some interesting sound design. I just felt it didn't really go anywhere. I know this is a horrible cliche, but there was no "story", no progression. I was waiting for something to contrast the stuff that was in the intro. A slow pounding beat, a peculiar reharmonization, some kind of change or switchout. It just sort of ambles along, changes at the end, then ends. In all honesty the arrangement is the weakest part of the track to me.

But I only listened twice and a lot of this is subjective. So follow my advice only if it feels right

Wow that amazing advice thanks! I add pitch envelopes to everything now.. Ive just discovered how powerful subtractive synthesis can be too. Once you figure out how to get a dynamic frequency response from a sawtooth wave so many possibilities open up. The key is modulation you're absolutely right!!!

I think that that mix sounds really flat and 2d because of the unnatural frequency behaviour. Youve picked up on this with the mids and high end. I think the low end needs to be depeened and given some air too. I'll return to it once ive finished my current project I think

The section in bold is very very interesting too. My mix is overcompressed so there is no background. I find that this is a problem with quite a bit of music unfortunately.

https://soundcloud.com/heliope/green-hill-zone/s-Cdtdu

A sample

[Sendy]

Glad you found it helpful. The background of a mix is the most overlooked part. I love to experiment with it. I think it was Boards of Canada that really clued me in. You'll listen to one of their tracks for the 100th time and notice some little detail in the background, which is part of a broader background texture you can barely hear. I like to think of it as "flavoured silence". I think you're onto something with the music so keep it up.

[BURN-ADDiCT]

I need to invest in proper stereo imaging tools! Ableton live doesnt seem to have a stereo imager for some reason.

Nooo, stop it! Will you?! I can see what you're doing there. Throwing money on problems. Don't. Really. Don't! Ableton's stereo tools: chorus, flanger, phaser, reverb, frequency shifter, filter.... Aaaaaand: the panning knob.

A stereo imager btw is included with the Utility. As in stereo width control.

I think OP had the same problem as I did; when I started out, I had a specific idea of what chorus, flanger and stereo imaging effects sound like, but the problem was that I could never get that sound from Live 9's stock FX.

If I'm right about that, then the problem here is that at this point in your learning curve, you don't have a lot of things to reference to. You probably need to start out with plugins that have nice sounding presets by default, then learn what differences they produce in your mix... tweak them to hell and back, and then come back and use those gained skills on Ableton's stock FX.


this is the sound I'm able to produce nowadays: https://m.soundcloud.com/burn-addict/cr ... wn-preview

I'm still hazy on vocal processing, but I feel confident in my production mixing because I've learnt how to make the best out of the stock FX.


if you're interested, go and experiment with the following free plugins:

Multiply by Acorn Digital (free chorus plugin with presets that can take it to the extreme)
TAL Flanger (free flanger that I use mostly for metallic sound)
Phasis by Native Instruments.

Learn the ways of the effects, then you'll realize that Ableton's stock FX are the best. They just need a bit of know-how because their presets aren't really that much of a guide.