Where can I find files to practice my mixing/mastering?

[Flinckie]

I really want to improve my mixing and mastering skills, and the best practice I can imagine is loading a bunch of files of unmixed and unmastered songs into my DAW and try make it sound as good as possible. I don't care if it's eurobeat, jazz or hypno-funk, I just want something I can practice on.

Any ideas?

[Lavender_Harmony]

It's best to practice with your own music, and inbetween practicing, you should read up on areas of mixing you're not sure about. Get your mixing ability up before you even begin to think about mastering. A well mixed but not so hotly mastered track will sound aeons better than a badly mixed and well mastered song.

You cannot polish a turd.

Stem's of other people's work, especially unmixed, is pretty much non existant unless you ask, and people are always going to feel wary of giving out unmixed stems. When you download a stem pack for a remix, most likely those stems are already processed and levelled corrently, maybe even mastered before you get them.

[XXDarkShadow79XX]

Idk. Contact producers and kindly ask them for unmastered version of their music. (Make sure they're already giving the song out for free) Don't be afraid to tell them it's for mastering practice. I mean, I've never done this but I don't see why you cant.

Other than that, ^^^

[Kopachris]

I disagree with Lavender somewhat. While processes that are considered "mixing" are often part of the composition process, I think the best way to practice mixing (and later, mastering) is to take composition out of the equation. When you're mixing someone else's composition, you'll face problems you probably never even considered when mixing your own work. Different points of view, ya know? She's right that a well-mixed/poorly-mastered track will sound way better than a poorly-mixed/well-mastered track and that you should make sure a track is mixed as best you can before trying to master it, though. Ideally, I think for practice mastering, you should similarly take composition and mixing out of the equation.

That said, it's probably not going to be easy to find unmixed/unmastered tracks to practice on unless you take a university class on the subject. However, I did find that Nine Inch Nails offers free multitrack downloads, all in .wav format and most in Garageband and/or Ableton Live format, at http://remix.nin.com. Since some of their final, mastered music is free to download as well, you can also compare your mix to theirs (and the many remixes published on the site). In particular, their latest album, "The Slip," is available for free download at 24-bit 96kHz quality (or 320kbps mp3--whatever), and multitracks for all the songs on the album are available as well.

Also, the Mythbusters proved you can, in fact, polish a turd.

[meletric]

Try http://www.shakingthrough.com/
Click on one of the artist profiles in the center of the page, and at the bottom of the profile will be links to download stems and raw tracks. Hope you're able to find some stuff to work with there!

[Rough Lungs]

I suppose you hit up a youtuber called "eangolden" . He does tutorials and previews , or do what I did and dabble around on my computer finding what works for you

[Sonarch]

Only somewhat related to the OP, but I have no idea what mixing really entails. What's the difference between mixing and mastering? What do you do to something when you mix it?

[Friv]

Only somewhat related to the OP, but I have no idea what mixing really entails. What's the difference between mixing and mastering? What do you do to something when you mix it?

Mixing is essentially combining your sounds together into one track. It involves EQ, effects, and other techniques that all come together to make your track sound clean and professional.. Minor EQ adjustments, normalization (making the track a consistent and commercial volume), and other effects applied to the master track (post mixing) fall into the mastering process.

Making a song is like making a sundae. Composition is picking out the different flavors of ice cream and toppings. Mixing is like adding everything together into the bowl and making sure the toppings and ice cream stay perfect and aren't just crushed into a mush of ice cream. Mastering is like adding the cherry on top.

[Sonarch]

Only somewhat related to the OP, but I have no idea what mixing really entails. What's the difference between mixing and mastering? What do you do to something when you mix it?

Mixing is essentially combining your sounds together into one track. It involves EQ, effects, and other techniques that all come together to make your track sound clean and professional.. Minor EQ adjustments, normalization (making the track a consistent and commercial volume), and other effects applied to the master track (post mixing) fall into the mastering process.

Making a song is like making a sundae. Composition is picking out the different flavors of ice cream and toppings. Mixing is like adding everything together into the bowl and making sure the toppings and ice cream stay perfect and aren't just crushed into a mush of ice cream. Mastering is like adding the cherry on top.

That is like the best explanation I have ever heard on mixing. Thank you!