Mixing/Mastering, Am I doing it right?

[KillerAmp]

Here's a sample I did earlier testing my mixing and mastering skill, particularly in the Progressive House genre

https://soundcloud.com/officialaristokat/waxing-berlin

basically I want to know if there's anything you guys think doesn't sit right with your ears, is too over powering, ect.

don't worry, I didn't just pick a preset in Ozone, which I learned really isn't the best way to go at it haha. (I actually didn't use any kind of all in one mastering plugin, just a multi-band compressor within Ableton, and a Saturator (but only very subtle amount))
So what do you think? Am I doing it right?

[itroitnyah]

Well, it certainly sounds fine. But you need to go more into detail with what you did. A multiband compressor is certainly one of the tools used to master, but what did you do with it? There are a few other plugins that would be beneficial to use as well. And EQ, so that you can remove any frequencies higher than ~18k, as they take up extra energy that isn't needed and the frequencies below ~25 as usually club systems don't hit that low and it's all wasted energy. A regular compressor to sorta reduce how much of a jump and fall the volume does so that there aren't extremely quiet parts and extremely loud parts, another EQ to lightly boost some areas (lightly as in +1dB boosts, no higher), mostly around the 4-6k range. I've never tried saturation in any of my songs during the mastering process. I've seen some professionals do it, but I've never really understood why they've done it, so somebody else will have to explain that to you (and me).

So yeah, we can't really tell you what you're doing wrong or right until you go into further detail.

[KillerAmp]

Here's an Updated Version of the remake/track/whatever
https://soundcloud.com/officialaristokat/taxing-berlin
wanted to fix the kick and stuff

@Itroitnya, to start, i'll just see if I can help with why I use a Saturator. Personally through experimentation, i've found that I seem to get less of a dynamic squish from the saturator than I do with a Compressor, and It just gives me this more energetic Low-End, now I tend to only go about 30-50% for the D/W on it, and in Ableton I use the Soft Sine preset with a little extra depth and width. Then I'll just play with the output till its hitting the sweetspot of no clipping

As for EQ I actually hadn't thought of that, and just did a broad EQ curve to lower the mids a tiny bit to make some room for some more movement in the highs, I'll try out what you said though, removing those super high and super low frequencies to make some more dynamic space.

With the Dynamic compressor I mainly wanted to focus on the low end since that's my center to the mix, (sometimes i'll go as far as to remove some of the sub/low frequencies that play too strongly in stereo, so that driving boom of the kicks and sub stay present in the middle) and then I'll play with the mid and high bands to try and make them sparkle without losing too much dynamic range and space.

So anything out of that sound like i'm using the tool incorrectly or whatever?

[KillerAmp]

Updated

too gud for soundcloud
It actually kept telling me I was using copyrighted material
no idea why though considering all samples were royalty free and shit *shrug*

This is the finalized thing,
Everything sound crisp and whatnot?

[Conduit]

This is sounding nice. Everything cuts through the mix well. I've never really been a fan of the repetitive house style, but from a mixing standpoint this is great. The kick is nice and punchy, and the lead is clear. Some of the secondary melodies and whatnot get buried sometimes though. Maybe try EQing some of the lead out, but using automation so that its only cutting from the lead when the other synths are playing.

I'm also really sick, so my ears might be messed up.

[ChocolateChicken]

Compression on the master channel of an EDM song will reduce low end in your kick, so I would advise you to be careful about putting compression on your master channel for that reason. If you are putting compression on your master to make your mix more punchy, you should probably take care of that in the mixing stage instead. If you need your kick to be punchier, raise the level of the transient of the kick with a high shelf EQ at about 500Hz.

But your mix and master sound fine to me. Maybe sidechain the bass to the kick so that the kick will have more clarity and you will also gain more headroom for mastering. You can hear that the original song sidechains almost every instrument to the kick, if you are open to doing the same thing.

[HMage]

Don't listen to these snobs, the really only way and right way to do mastering is to use soundgoodizer. I prefer it at 66.666% position.

[PhillyPu]

I master with a cane and a whip.

[ph00tbag]

I prefer to just use Fruity Limiter and take that little purple knob and turn it all the way to the right.

[KillerAmp]

hmage.
phillypu.

please be helpful. ;~;

I see in the few months I stepped away from the forum, things have gone rather downhill, havn't they? haha. Siphoning out the actually helpful information from the not so realistic stuff is now a part of the forums :P

I prefer to just use Fruity Limiter and take that little purple knob and turn it all the way to the right.

Jokes on you, Live 9 master race

[ph00tbag]

I'm sure there's an equivalent. Just find the thing that says like, limiter or whatever, and let that fucker go.

Of course, I don't really have anything good to add to the discussion. Pretty much everything's been said.