this song's mixing and mastering breakdown

https://youtu.be/fWLjeQ_V7Eg <<

What are the effects that's been added to piano and strings to achieve such appealing music, And how can I get the vocals to sound like theirs without autotune?

this moved me to tears but not in a good way, it hurts my ears... 1) sounds like a pretty stock digital piano, anything will do, just try compressing the shit out of it and EQ with a lower midrange notch and and an upper midrange boost if it lacks sheen, i would start with a cut around 350hz and a boost at 6khz maybe and tweak until it sat. then maybe compress it some more, no, defintiely comrpess some more, its really compressed.... strings? compress the life out of some ROMpler strings, its one fo the msot irritating soudns I've ever heard. EQ with peaks, not shelves so the vocals have more 'air' and sound clsoer than the isntruments

2) vocals? get a group of guys who sing decently together in abrbershop ahrmony and then autotube the shit out of them to the point of stealing their humanity? Youa ren't doing this wthout multiple singers and lots of antares or similar tuning software. The real key is the 4 distinct voices in well-developed harmonies. If you do it on your own without auto tune software at best you will get Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody with lto of the same guy in ahrmony. at worst you will get mush. You aren't known for your singing.

I really am not sure why you would want to replicate anything n this... it is so artificial sounding it made a trickle of blood come ut of my ears. I got a minute in to hear the other soudns you asked about and started to cry.

also, compress the shit out of everything and then compress the music ina group, the vocals in a gorup and then use a tone of bus compression, this is compressed until all the dynamic range has been squeezed way probably with layers of gentle and reasonable comrpssion as I suggested... oh, and after you put some VCA bus comrpession on the mix whack any remaining dyanamics off with L2 ultramaximizer to make it extra flat and lifeless. This is everything I hate about modern music. OH! mastering? send your finished song that's over compressed and over-tuned to a coke-head new york amstering engineer and tell him to make it the loudest song without rums on the radio and pay top dollar to ehar him destroy all the nuance with brickwall limiting over your already lifeless and soulless music. If Iw ant soulless music I'll listen to real amchine music like kraftwerk or soemthing.

I am tempted to say soemthing really cruel right now but I won't since i have a track record of getting in your face when you say things thata re way outside of my worldview. if you like this go look for a studio itnernship in india and learn all the modern pop tricks, your Baliwood (spelling?) has this sort of 'production' down.

haha 😂 that was hilarious. Thanks for helping me out, btw. After seeing your replyl I'll try not to replicate this on my songs. I'm thinking to buy a focusrite scarlett solo interface next month. I have a budget of $250. I finally earned it by making a website. Thinking to buy a good low budget mic. Just let me know if you know any good ones.

I find most stuff to be equal in the sub 500 range of capacitor mics, I like audio technica myself... its not a popular statement amongst nerds, but the AT stuff is low noise and very open sounding, evne the cheap ones.. Rhode mics make some nice stuff, the NT2 is a solid multipattern and affordable. Very low self noise and pretty ersatile inthe U87 sense. I like shure SM7s, used they go for 300 USD. EV RE20 is a great mic, good for ltos of things... never hurts to have an audix i5, like a 57 if a 57 was a microphone! the Beta57 is a great hypercard dynamic for anything but vocals. Cascade fathead, great ribbon, open and modern not like an old RCA at all. Warm audio just cloned the AKG 414 and U87 recently and theya re affordable too. haven't tried them, hoping tog et some review units in soon though. I don't know if you ca still get Oktava mics out of russia but I liked every Oktava model except the tube mic. The ribons had an inviting warmth and subdued top and the 3 main condensers really sounded great. Really their own thing. Very cheap. The pencil small diaphragm codnenser with the screw off capsules, the mc02 I think? total winner

Buy an RNC or an alesis 3632 for peak limiting when recording if the focusrite interface has inserts. I'm not real familiar with the I/O on this prosumer stuff so look on the back. The modern pop vocal sound you want will generally have some compression right into the recorder.

you're always copying stuff, maybe just throw out the reference book and try writing, arranging and recording as YOU and see what happens when you just elt your imagination runa way with you

also, the strings have had all the mids EQed out to make space for the pianonand vocal fundamentals but they have a high shelving EQ on them to give more of a natural bowing sound to canned stuff (and also because without drums there are no cymbals up top to eat up the dynamic range up there, just some detail in the vocal attack at 12k I think)... it might be built into the sample but I expect not, so I would look at a compressor with a long release, low threshold and low ration followed by a high shelf filter at about 10k... personally I would also put a high pass at 16k to take them abck in the mix but I they sound forward here and i suspect all their dog-frequencies are still there, tough to tell on youtube. If its still too dynamic you could put some peak limiting maybe a 5 to 1 ratio just grabbing the peaks with an attack dialed in to maybe a 32nd note or so of the song so its grabby but do a fast release time sine before EQ you have soemthing elvelling the body of the violin notes....

a lot of work went into making this so cutting and precise, seems wsted but hey, I cna guess at what they did pretty easily

I hope this makes a little sense to you, I swear mixing isn't rocket surgery and you on't need fancy stuff to do it.... lots of options are great and fany gear is great too, but you don't need it, you just need toudnerstand the medium you are mixing to, understand metering and have a sense of what is called psychoacoustics so you can mnipulte the ear of the audience a bit, though you don't seem to dig ons tuff that really fools the ear into hearing depth out of 2 speakers, you like bright and flat a lot which is easier

😅 All the mics you mentioned were above my budget. Though I would consider them in the future when I'm able to buy. But for now I have only $250 USD for both Audio Interface and Mic.

aww jeez Nikhil that's low... maybe steal something? stealing gear has a hallowed punk rock tradition? no? ummm... at 250 all in you are in a spot... maybe just get a USB mic and ski the itnerface if you are doing mostly VST instruments?

lol...no one around my area has any type of musical background or gear. I hear that usb mics give lower quality sound than xlr ones. But having an Audio Interface is always a good thing...never know when I can buy a U87...😂 I'm thinking to buy the AI because may be I can rent a mic in future...if anyone has it.

just go usb, they sound fine, people are hung up.... in your situation what you can afford is a usb mic and it will be a huge upgrde from what you have allowing you to sample weird stuff and sing a vocal. go auio technica or blue... at ths tage what else but a ic will you plug into yur bdget interface? you don't ahve access to anything and you're in the box. Embrce it. Be streamlined.

you want the most practical tools you can afford and then yo want to stop worrying about them and jut get on with it... with USB mic you can turn around and maybe buy some sftware too, you are confined to the laptop, accept it and move on

yu aren't going to make a backstreet boys song in your mom's back room unless you have thousands of dollars at your disposal, but you can still make YOUR music... I mean, why would you want to copy the backstreet boys? there's already a abckstreet boys, they're known as the backstreet boys, they're famous for doing whatever bullsgit that is I had to listen to. But you? Youa re a unique and special snowflake and no one ahs heard your music yet.

I wasn't gonna sing backstreet boys. It was the music I asked about...😁 I wanted to apply that effect to my music...but not now.

you can do it, just compress and EQ until it sounds that way... if you know what the tools do its not rocket science, nothing fancy there

fiversify your lsitening and you will ehar where all this modern production is coming from, theys tand on the shoulders of giants.... you need to lsiten to some history to get it.... joe meek productions, phil spector, goerge matin and geoff emmerik with the beatles, there's tons of stuff, these guys were either inventing gear or repurposing it to make the sounds that are the basis of what everyone does

you can't know where you're going unless you.... well, whatever

http://www.amazon.in/CAD-U37-Condenser-Recording-Microphone/dp/B001AIQGUO?tag=geniuslink0e-21 << hey is this good? I don't like blue because of it's shape.

picking a mic based on shape is downright idiotic, its a tool and if its shaped weird to you so what? does it work? ballpiene hammers look weird to me but theya re good at hammering small things versus a normal looking hammer

I don't know what CAD is up to these days, they sued to make great back electret condensers in the 90s. Had an equitek and it had a really nuetral sound for quiet sources but it sucked on vocals in my opinion. Others may like them for singers. Dunno.

I am postive the at2020USB is a solid little USB gadget. I would get that. I have one. I use it all the time even though i don't need to. I only mentioned BLUE because their mics tend to have pads and that can be ahdny recording loud sounds, the 2020 has no pad and can distort the itnernal preamp if you put it close to a guitar or abss amp or something making it a limited ONLY MICROPHONE for rock and stuff with live amplified stuff

buy some fucking yamaha speakers too

http://www.amazon.in/Focusrite-Scarlett-Studio-Recording-Bundle/dp/B01E6T54E2/ref=sr_1_1?s=musical-instruments&ie=UTF8&qid=1498203762&sr=1-1&keywords=focusrite+scarlett+studio

I totally forgot about this...Reviews were positive for this though

It already includes headphones so no need of buying yamaha speakers which cost way more than the mic

headphones and speakers do not do the same job, buy some monitors... if anyone tells you I am wrong they're full of shit, like most people you talk to about any technical subject

or just forget it and do whatever,what do I know? just do your thing and be happy, embrace whatever comes out and be proud like evryone is whenever they sneeze tehse days

lol, I didn't talk to anyone I just saw reviews on the internet and amazon...Because I don't get to buy gear all the time and I don't get projects so often. I have to really dig deep and search the stuff I really need & should use for a long time. So I was kinda curious about that scarlett studio pack which include everything I don't have just for right budget. I didn't yet decide anything I'm just seeing all the options

mean sure, do that, but work on the music, egar is not going to make miracles be it budget gear or magic holy grail shit.... as longas you can get stuff to work well for your needs? eh, whatever. I have stuff I am piky about but less with recording and mixing stuff then with guitars amps and keybeds. I feel really picky about keybaord weighting and aftertouch feeling normal to me and I like certain guitars and pickups and can't get on with 90% of stuff inthat vein and I am pickier about amplifiers. But that's not you. I am really picky about using speakers to mix but everything else its just whatever is handy. If I just hand a shitty mackie desk and some RNCs it would e fine as longas I ahd some Ns10Ms or old tannoys to lsiten thourhg because that's normal to me. I guess whatever feels normal to you is okay, if that's headphones, why not, just know most headphones have a specific soundto themselves and aren't like sltieningin acar or on your hoe stereo or whatever, its very specific and you need to elarn it if that's all you plan to use. I just ahte headphones in general, man. I wanna feel it and ehar it and the feel it is about moving air with some bass drivers getting power, evne if you lsiten really quiet, which you sould. Its like why I feel weird about amp modelling, it never moves any air. If am playing I want t feel the air vibrating. even on sytnhesizers I am really fond of hitting a guitar amp with it for the feel it factor. Air is always vibrating around you in the modern world and your whole body si aware of music and soemtimes good music is good because it feels good against your chest and ehadphones don't do that.

maybe MXL mics to start?

I had an MXL 'mogami edition' tube mic, lots of self noise... I repalced the 12at7 with a vintage one tested for low noise and it stillw as kidna hissy. Never use 'em again. It did sound pretty ncie for a 300 dollar microphone though, just noisy. I talked to MXL about it and they were like "what? tube mics hiss" and Iw as like, no they don't. So fed up with thse assholes. But it did have a solid C12 kidna sound if you could toelrate the nosie and wanted to take it all out with soundsoap or steinberg denoiser.

maybe the solid state ones are better... iw as totally stoked about he tube one when i got it. It just came out and like no... wound up switching to an ADK when they first came out and was happier.

hey what do you say about this: http://www.amazon.in/CAD-U37-Condenser-Recording-Microphone/dp/B001AIQGUO?tag=geniuslink0e-21 CADU37 mic And https://support.image-line.com/jshop/shop.php?_ga=2.229480539.615482342.1498231186-396668848.1498143301 FL Studio 12 Producer which has lifetime free updates

I don't have a fully fledged daw right now. What do you guys say?