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January Composition Challenge - GET WRITING


Skol303
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11 minutes ago, SH73 said:

Nice jazzy and funky sound. I'm jealous of mastering and mixing.  My songs tend to come out mushy.

A few tips:

On your master channel try and EQ curve similar to the one below:

image.png.6a0cf61e0123343647cf024681dd1472.png

Also, put a high pass EQ on any instrument that isn't needed in the bass frequencies and you'll free up room for the actual bass instruments and it'll stop that area getting too muddy.

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1 hour ago, Mornats said:

A few tips:

On your master channel try and EQ curve similar to the one below:

image.png.6a0cf61e0123343647cf024681dd1472.png

Also, put a high pass EQ on any instrument that isn't needed in the bass frequencies and you'll free up room for the actual bass instruments and it'll stop that area getting too muddy.

Cheers. Although I don't understand the master eq curve, I'll  work it out tomorrow.

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It's fairly simple. High pass around 40hz, do a broad cut around 250-350hz and boost highs a bit from 3khz up. It removes unnecessary low end, cuts out a region that's fairly muddy itself and gives some shine to the high end. The actual frequencies will depend on your track of course so play around but I have this as a preset and it's a good starting point. I sometimes dip more of the mids around 500hz if needed.

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^ Good advice.

High pass the low end anywhere from 20-40Hz and scoop out some of the 'muddiness' from the low-mids between 250-500Hz is always a good starting point for cleaning up a mix.

Be cautious of boosting the highs from 3kHz though... lots of nasty frequencies between there and 5kHz (and vocal sibilance around 7-8kHz), which you might not want to boost on your master track but instead fix individually in the mix itself.

I tend to prefer boosting a little from 10kHz and up. And when I get the chance to use outboard gear belonging to friends, even boost upwards of 20kHz in what's called the 'air' band. You won't hear anything beyond 20kHz of course - hell, I'm lucky if I can hear with any real clarity beyond 15kHz! - but the tail of air band boosts tends to roll more gently back into the audible range than steeper boosts at lower frequencies, resulting in a really nice shine without any of the harshness/brittleness. You can also do this with some digital EQs and get a similar result.

PS: these EQ tweaks can be done with any DAW software, no special plug-ins needed.

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49 minutes ago, SH73 said:

I started individually tweaking frequencies going by my ear not numbers. It sounds good to me but...

Oh yeah definitely. It's not maths class and should always be about what you hear ;) But it's useful to have some numbers as starting points.

Well actually it is sort of maths class... or specifically physics class... but I try not to think about it too much!

Edited by Skol303
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I am currently working on something , so will be in on this month's challenge hopefully. I am  trying to make the most of a week off w*rk.

Got new monitors that I am still breaking in and getting to know, so not expecting to produce a beautifully mixed track... This will also be the first one I have done which will be featuring me on .......bass!  :crazy:

 

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5 hours ago, Skol303 said:

^ Good advice.

High pass the low end anywhere from 20-40Hz and scoop out some of the 'muddiness' from the low-mids between 250-500Hz is always a good starting point for cleaning up a mix.

Be cautious of boosting the highs from 3kHz though... lots of nasty frequencies between there and 5kHz (and vocal sibilance around 7-8kHz), which you might not want to boost on your master track but instead fix individually in the mix itself.

I tend to prefer boosting a little from 10kHz and up. And when I get the chance to use outboard gear belonging to friends, even boost upwards of 20kHz in what's called the 'air' band. You won't hear anything beyond 20kHz of course - hell, I'm lucky if I can hear with any real clarity beyond 15kHz! - but the tail of air band boosts tends to roll more gently back into the audible range than steeper boosts at lower frequencies, resulting in a really nice shine without any of the harshness/brittleness. You can also do this with some digital EQs and get a similar result.

PS: these EQ tweaks can be done with any DAW software, no special plug-ins needed.

Cheers, I'll try that high end stuff. My ears are useless at 13.5khz upwards so I can't hear my mangling up there.

I actually came across that curve whilst listening to my mixes on Poweramp on my phone and I tried one of the eq presets (was just messing with them) and my mix became so much clearer so I copied the curve and saved it as a preset in Neutron.

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Got mine done. Had major fun with this one and referenced it against Hans Zimmer's Blue Planet 2 soundtrack (which is amazeballs).

Featuring Spitfire Audio's Albion V Tundra, Albion One and Orchestral Swarm. Choirs by Soundiron's Olympus and Requiem choirs.

The inspiration behind it was imagining a timelapse of the mushrooms sprouting in droves and taking over the log they're growing on. I was hearing the broomstick scene from Disney's Fantasia in my head at the time.

 

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Just a thought - i checked my track was playing ok, and after it finished, i got some random track playing straight after. How can this be stopped.

It's like its on Autoplay or something, similar to YT, but you can disable that on YT

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I did a bit of googling and its not alway been that way, apparently.  There's a few peeps on  t' interweb that are a tad peed off about it.

Seems there's no way it can be disabled, and thats by design of the Soundcloud crew

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33 minutes ago, fleabag said:

...Seems there's no way it can be disabled...

... but it can be rendered inoperative; I select 'Repeat' (an icon at lower left...). I'd rather have the current track repeat than have a random whatever spoiling the mood. Sod, 'em, I say; sod 'em all. :|

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I've uploaded a tweaked version of mine. My girlfriend commented that it was nice until the percussion came blasting in so I've toned that down somewhat but also compensated by adding in some choir chants. It's had a slight remix too, some mud and overly eager bottom-end removed and some boosting in the higher frequencies has been tamed. Added a bit more compression glue too.

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32 minutes ago, DJpullchord said:

Can I enter if all I have is an acoustic guitar and an iPhone to record with?

You can enter even if you've nothing but a kazoo and a wax cylinder..! The material used is immaterial; if you could see some of the stuff we've been cobbling up over these past years..! xD Just jump in; the water's lovely, and welcome. B|

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