Why does my mix sound unprofessional?

Now I have a smoke filled ass and muddy pads.

well definitely stick with that.... nice functioning page with a decently appealing visual layout

Now I have a smoke filled ass and muddy pads.

those gas station ladies are more to blame than I am!

This is true. At least with you it is a metaphor.

y'know, I think I failed again at my goal to respond to the OP in a constructively clinical way. As I read back, my internet 'voice' is just way more subtley snide than I intend it to be when the truth is when I am being sarcastic or condescending I am anything but subtle.

So sorry to the OP if I am coming off like a dick, I don't intend to, I am just trying to answer your querries in a thorough way from my point of view based on a lot of music experience and lots of musicological knowledge (being something of an amature historian).

It's obvious that I would collect gear...I like to know more and more about things and try out new stuff. When I get a decent job. I will definitely do that

It makes me so happy to hear that! I am studying too... no money.. I hear you

hey, you didn't fail at your goal. The way you answered me was very good. I liked the way to tell the right things. You don't have to be sorry for anything. As I'm enjoying the conversation and learning new stuff. It's good time to do these things though :)

Ohh, that pain when you want a new gear or instrument but no money...hehe I know that xD

:wink

Edit: Hey, These emoji's aren't working :/ Edit2: nvrmind I figured it out 😄

Yea I get that. If you know any cheap books please suggest me. I like researching, so I can go into deep analysis of anything I research provided a right material and guidance. As I'm pursuing my engineering I mostly can get idea of how sounds and other things work. The only problem is I don't know where to get such depth content. I will delete the previous file and start form beginning. So wish me luck. 😄 :)

🎸

start on the internet, there are good free articles online via the popular trade rags so check SoundOnSound, Mix, Attack, ComputerMusic, FutureMusic etc... there used to be a lot of introductoryinfo on all aspects of music creation.... reading interviews with established names is a good way to get ideas on how to adjust your working methods for this consult the songwriting trades, Attack Magazine and subscribe to Tape Op (www.tapeop.com - its free and amazing)

the handbook of acoustics is a great reference but also a ponderous, technical and very broad read that can be hard to apply for beginners but is worth having around

as a computer science major you may be up to reading about how the electronic aspect works in addition to the Newtonian physics covered by the handbook of acoustics.... there are a lot of cheap handbooks on analog music electronics specifically geared towards musicians, synthesists, guitarists ets (plugins are mainly modelled on earlier analog circuits at least loosely).... having a working idea of how all this music is translated to voltage and how each component contacting the signal changes it evne when set neutrally (there's a digital angle to this too with digital slew rates, nyquist filtering, latency and the accompanying phase shift across discrete portions f bandwidth) can really help you lock down what the source of unwanted artifacts may be or to find creative and musical ways to exploit singal degradation as a mix tool

there's also a field called psychoacoustics that most of us apply creatively to our recordings and mixes that exploits the ear's non-linear functionality and the human brain's subconscious interpretation of auditory cues in various frequencies to determine distance, direction etc

anyway, lots to learn even just from a recording/mixing angle.... its a relatively young artistic medium, recorded music, but the rate of scientific progress alone gives it a daunting history to absorb so get reading when you have free time

starting from the beginning.... don't hit record until you sit on the song for a few days... you might want to block out a few MIDI sketches for bass and percussion, just a rough guide to experiment over since you probably haven't developed your 'inner ear' to the point where ideas come into your head and you just execute them on an instrument or by programming them as a sequence.... just sit witht eh song and get next to it..... try keeping the melody and bassline and then experiment with different chords around them, try knocking it into a minor key and change one or 2 notes in the melody by a semi-tone or whole tone, then try putting those reharmonized variations together in new and exciting ways.... then try changing the cadence of the melody notes and see what you get over the same backing track..... if you can't imagine it, try it and ehar it and decide for yourself but take the music you are excited about and try to make it even more exciting (broadly, I know this is mellow stuff, but excitement comes in many forms)... also, try it at a bunch of different tempos, usually the only way to figure out an ideal tempo is to try it, its not an inner ear thing.... the correct tempo to highlight all of your musical dieas will be glaringly obvious and sometimes a single BPM or elss can make a huge difference in feel depending on how you are approaching your 8th notes (the ands between 1, 2 , 3, and 4 in common time which can lead or lag to the point where a shuffle can feel like its in 3/4 or 6/8 waltz meter - on that topic, not all the instruments have to respect he 8th notes the same, soemtiems they should lock and sometimes a real groove is generated by maybe bass pushing n the ANDS while the drums lag a little on some hihat whacks which can be funk,,,, or in the case of Indian classical you hear this in the polyrhythms between a great sitar player and the guy playing table etc)..... think about diatonic harmonies to a top melody instead of chords.... try doubling with dissimilar isntruments and also creating coutner melodies in a higher or lower register that highlight different aspects of your melodic statements

get excited, but not overexcited.... feel it out, then stop and analyze it so you know why its exciting you and you know what the weaknesses of that intuitive musical decision may be.... this is a weird mix of art, science, craft and instinct that you need to hone into good balance a little more each song

I subscribed to the tapeop magazine. And found out that Izotope is offering free course for mixing eqing etc...check it out on their website...let me know your opinion

go for it, anything is worth trying.... just don't take anything in the class as gospel! the other thing I have not told you about the mixing end is that while its the least import ant stage it is on the whole almost as nebulous as writing music.... an act of pure creativity that employs a lot of science and a lot of ideas about commonly held aesthetics BUT there are always a dozen ways to go about getting similar results and then on any song there's no one correct mix.... 5 guys might make different mixes of the same song and all 5 will have some core aesthetic decisions in common but be completely different otherwise and all 5 might be good, suit the song, draw the ear and be generally fun to listen to

so learn from the isotope class, sure, just remember that the only wrong way to do it is to make a track that turns people off.... if its appealing to people then its good despite any guideline that people like me might give you.... just don't try to get the feedback you're looking for from frinds and family unless you are going to disregard their kind words and watch their eyes while the song is playing ;-) mom's and girlfriends always blow smoke up your ass.... well, my mom didn't, but my parents are blunt and opinionated in the ebst possible way. The make you cry when you're little way!

I want to know how can i achieve a front and back sound effect, like piano at front and some other instrument like guitar on back, and the stereo on vocals too, can you please spread some light on it

with virtual music that GENERALLY has to do with a good arrangement favoring the front to back effect, use of top end above 8kh (boostingfront channels and cutting back channels using sheving EQ a well as straight-up resonant low pass filters when needed to really key things up a few notches in a complex mix, reverb and early reflections from reverb)... it starts with an arrangement favoring the effect, the more complex/busy the part is the more up front it will want to be, so reduce and refine to the core essence before ulling a part into the background with EQ nd ambience

be careful, without decent speakers its easy to overdo this and create a dull and muddy mix.. and working strictly on headphones. even high end studio cans? it should not remotely be attempted.... the space rom woofer, tweeter and ear is WHAT you are exploiting and while headphones will reproduce it to an extent for end listener, it has to be generated by moving air.... anyone on EB telling you otherwise is a club DJ and not a traditional musician or engineer and they are confused

control of how the room sound closes down (real or virtual reflections) is essential here and gating or expansion along with sidechain detection from critical rhythmic tracks will help you even more... riding the fader on the reerb send never hurts either.... just record a virtual knob move while adding thr amount of reverb each part of the song needs (if any, muting in some sections is a great option, dry is in your face when that' the sound you need for a few bars).... what you don't know is a lot and this is stuf one should not think much about, you jut do it and its sounds great... 5minutes work, all instinct, get the job done right quickly and effectively

being unhapy with what you are currently doing is step1, step 2 thru 23 is involves critical listening, learning, internalization and intentional forgetfulness

another note on reverb, I usually set up 3 to 5 related reverb sends... in a basic mix I do 3, one thatis bright-ish and gated for percussive sounds, one that is long and VERY dark (EQed after the reverb to emphasize the lower mids that I generally cut from instruments for clarity) and send for early reflections only.... generally I also setup echo busses too fith tempo synced echoes that are either NOT in the output buss or ones that are very low but both can get lots of reverb... I also set the various busses of delay to be reverse stereo or ping pong and sue various tempo based delay times, I might also do this with a filtered multitap delay panning different timed echoes different ways in different narrow bands with varying feedback and resonance to created panning/rigin qualities that only feed the reverb and are low in the mix.. the type of reverb will be consistent on all the sends, even the early reflection send will use the same room type and similar high/low shelving and dampening... are you following any of this, dude?

there's also brian eno's 'shimmer verb' that involves pitch shift (generally an octave up or vlose to it within -20 cents) before the reverb and it can be done 100% or less depending on how shimmery you want the effect and if you have other non-pitch shifted reverb sends for sounds that won't like shimmer, lke drums.... then there's switly verb where ou use a sereo modulation in front of the reverb like flanging or phasing, even chorus can do a bit of magic to add motion to artificuial ambience, particularly on heavily verbed sustaining sounds like string-type synth pads or guitar solos with lots of sustain

a note on buss compression... I favor parallel compression across either the mix buss, groups of similar istruments bussed together as a group tos tereo OR better still across frequencies ranges in hgigh/mid/low configuration, parallel means ther is some dry signal as well as compressed signal hitting the speakers blnded together in phase... this can glue disparate sounds together, particularly drum machine and sampled percussive sounds but also parts doubled across intsruments with disparate timbres.... it also can add an indefineable zazz factor to a good arrangement when all the existing mix elements are already kickin'

it will add density if executed well

none of these bussing techniques are rules though, if I can do mkore with less I will and do.... its a make it sound good rule.... if it sounds great with just level and maybe a little gentle room sound on percussion> GREAT, the less proessing I do the better, every process potentially degrades the quality of the source material and induces phase shift across certain frequency bands that may or may not be musical and pleasing... good speakers and critical listening are king here... the ultimate goal is to have sounds that gel together in the right way with only a level balance, but the key there is a great arrangement that works well and perfectly (sympathetic to the music, pefrect is a variable and hypothetical proposition determined by each song) recorded or 'generated' timbres....

if you are 'getting me' please regurgitate what I just told you in the last 2 posts so I can see if you need more explanation... its easier to show you and elt you hear results by listening while I mix but india's far away for that and since you are broke you can't pay my $35/hr engineering fee or let alone the travel expense to come and teach you... I feel like a bad capitalist for not chargin you for all this so far.... then again I've always been a pinko at heart

Hail Jeebus!

did your head explode, bud?

hey I din get any notification about this in my gmail so din look up. I'm sorry for that...reading your post now...yesterday night I slept after I typed that hehe, 2:00AM 😁

okay, read and ask pertinent questions on what I told you about mixing techniques.... we can go from there... just be prompt I am really busy this weekend and won't be free to use my brin again on your behalf until Monday.... but today I am 100% free, playing with my son and waitin for my new sofa to be delivered (he destroyed the last one, kids, ugh)