Discuss the various methods you use in music production, from compressor settings to equipment type.
By Undosequence Tue May 18, 2021 9:42 pm
I know mixing and mastering music is a deep subject that can't be taught or learned in one post but I'm just looking to pick up a few tips on how to make my beats louder.

I don't take my beats seriously, it's nothing more than just something I enjoy doing for fun, I'm quite happy with how each element of my beats sits in the mix but the overall mix is always quiet compared to other entries over in the beat battle section of the forum.

I push the master in Ableton until it's just about bouncing into the red, (basically as high as it'll go without hitting red), but it still isn't loud.

Does anyone happen to know any free plugins that might help in Ableton?

For clarity, I make the beat in the mpc 1000, track out track by track as hot as possible without clipping then adjust levels/ add FX etc before exporting audio.

Thanks
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By Lampdog Tue May 18, 2021 11:03 pm
Undosequence wrote:I push the master in Ableton until it's just about bouncing into the red, (basically as high as it'll go without hitting red), but it still isn't loud.


Your are hearing a problem way before audio gets to master out.
You need a mastering chain. Gain is at pad level, all my channels on mpc x stay low to allow for processing later on in the chain. But, this is just one of many examples.


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By NearTao Wed May 19, 2021 1:02 am
Bass can consume a ton of your headroom and not even be something you can hear… you probably want a spectrum analyzer in Ableton to see where you are peaking.. often you want to do this per track so you can see where you are doubling up in frequency space and potentially muddying up your sound.

Seriously though… where you are at, you can do all that Lamp listed above in Ableton, just google for Ableton mastering and you can find how to build a chain yourself.
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By Lampdog Wed May 19, 2021 1:13 pm
On MPC X I go into filt/env page and filter each instrument individually.
I filter out frequencies I don’t need, adjust until I start hearing a difference and then I back off by a value of 3-5. I end up getting the sound I want while filtering all others. This keeps mud out, remember this is PER SAMPLE for me.

Like NT said, there are ALOT of low frequencies your gear is trying to replicate even when you can’t hear it, figure out ways to “kill dat noise”. If there is going to be mud then let it be “creative mud” (a friends term not mine) that you put there intentionally right!?
By Undosequence Wed May 19, 2021 2:03 pm
Thanks again, I just got hold of some good records to sample from my local record shop (Heavy Crates)
I'll put all the advice into practice and see if I can learn something new.
My next battle entry over in the beat battles will hopefully be somewhere near NearTao's volume. :)
By DokBrown Wed May 19, 2021 8:11 pm
If you don’t want to make ableton your thing, I suggest finding someone to master for you. There are lot of engineers out there with ableton hungry for your BIZ. After working with them with 2-3 years, you could replace them ;-)

I got overwhelmed by all that LIVE can do.
A lot of people rec a 2nd set of ears anyway . . . . . . . this will be difficult if you live in the middle of nowhere  internet file sharing

https://www.landr.com/album-mastering
has any1 used LANDR ????
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By NearTao Wed May 19, 2021 8:23 pm
Undo... that track was me being lazy (I often am)...

I just used https://www.yorgosarabatzis.space mastering suite... So all I did was mix to about -12db and then load everything into the Yorgos Arabatzis Mastering chain on MPC Live... I just tweaked the mix a tiny bit to make it feel louder... it's a good suite to check out and definitely worth the money if that's as far as you want to go to finish off a track.

Gross generalization, but I'd say it's 10% (or less) of mastering "work", with about 80% of the value.