How To Make Your Songs Sound Better In 3 Easy Steps: Part 1
I wanted to post about getting better mixes. I know we all struggle with this. You've got your tracks all recorded. Everything is in tempo and on key. When you mix it your final result is not sounding good. Why not? What Happened?
3 Easy Steps to Better Sound
I'll try and give you a three step process you can use as a starting point to get better results. This is not a magic bullet. It will not make your music better than what you recorded but your overall sound should improve in three areas.
The Three Steps will be;
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Low Pass Filter - Less low noise, -this will clean up your sound and make all the parts sound out clearly
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Sweep - Find the bad sounds and cut those frequencies from your song
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High Frequencies - Control Your High end, - give some sparkle and air
There is a lot to know about mixing and being a sound engineer. I am not a sound engineer, nor I am a professional with years of work in the studio. Those professionals are part of what you pay for in the studio work. They are well worth it.
The Low Cost Demo
That being said we all do need to create demo's of our music.I don't have the money to go into a studio so my solution was to learn enough to let me do a decent job using my computer and equipment at home. How your home computer can do this and how to set that up is not what I will talk about here. I will talk about easy ways to mix your songs to get a result that will give your songs a better sound, just from these 3 steps.
Please keep in mind this is only a starting point. You should also be careful of ear fatigue, this is important, If we spend too many hours without a break tweaking our music what happens most times is that you end up having to redo the mix. We can only listen for so long before our minds stop being able to process what we are hearing.
So try to avoid this kind of work path:
Step 1, Low End EQ Filter
I'm using Mixcraft 6.0 and Fabfilters, This technique should apply to the software that you use for your EQ and mixes.
In the above Sceen: The Dark Grey Wave = Original Sound, Light Grey Shows the Current Sound, i.e. what you hear from the speakers.
In the above screen shot of a Low Cut Filter. Any sound below the 28 Hz frequency will be reduced. The 28 Hz used in the example was just a start point. The number you end up with will vary depending on what you hear as you mix.
You will use this Eq Filter on your Main Mix, this way it affects all the tracks for your song.
Once you've place your EQ filter to your main mix you will need to edit the Low Cut Filter.
Edit while your song is playing....
Move it slowly to the right to increase how much frequency you will cut. Once you can hear it, roll it back slightly to the left. You want to not be able to tell its there yet still get the benefits from the filter. Very subtle, so take your time and have some fun with it.
That's it your Done.
The goal here is to take out all of your unneeded low end. This is one of the reasons the mix can end up sounding dull and flat. With the low end frequencies taken away you should hear a nice improvement of the overall tone of your music
End of Part 1
Go to Part 2
edit: Changed the screen and added a note about that screen.
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