DRUM TECHNIQUES 4 DA MPC

Danoc wrote:YES SIR!!!!!!

The key to a great mix is great room treatment and or flat frequency headphones.
I use Sennheiser 600 HD to mix.
I use ATH 50X headphones to make the track.

What many are missing from the most important technique of all when mixing is GAIN STAGING! The BUSSING technique , once you learn that technique you will hear a big difference.

I don't use any compression. Im inside the box my sounds won't have noise floor that's one of the reasons l have no outboard gear. My sounds are easy to mix. I heard a pro say "COMPRESSION IS THE WORSE THING INVENTED FOR MUSIC". Im going to do a complete gain staging video one day. I have ine up on YT but lve learned more and giving the proper way to EQ.

My room is the worst. I work in the living room of my 30m2 appartement. Most of your bathrooms are probably bigger than my living room. My desk is in a corner otherwise it wouldn't fit. Got the ATH 40X headphones, picked them up two years ago. Chose them by ear after spending a whole afternoon testing headphones. Later I found out quite a lot of pro's and guys here in the forums I respect also use ATH's, boosting my confidence in trusting my ears.

Gain staging is the next thing I'm starting to get in to, don't know that much about it yet. Step by step I'm getting there.

When it comes to mixing with headphones OPEN BACK ones with the best flat frequency response is best. Never use closed back. Open back gives a better response to balance in the high, mid and lower frequencies. The ATH 50X concentrates on the lows well and to crispy on the highs.

Sennheiser 600 - 650 flat response chart.


Gain staging and bussing helps glue the sounds together.

Another thing to worry about is EAR FATIGUE!
Do your mix no more than 20 minutes, take off the head phones and give your ears a rest for at least 15 minutes then go back to mixing.

Menco wrote:
My room is the worst. I work in the living room of my 30m2 appartement. Most of your bathrooms are probably bigger than my living room. My desk is in a corner otherwise it wouldn't fit. Got the ATH 40X headphones, picked them up two years ago. Chose them by ear after spending a whole afternoon testing headphones. Later I found out quite a lot of pro's and guys here in the forums I respect also use ATH's, boosting my confidence in trusting my ears.

Gain staging is the next thing I'm starting to get in to, don't know that much about it yet. Step by step I'm getting there.

Your graph also shows a few things that may not be obvious to folks.

This is why it is important to not mix to hard, but especially not mix bass to hard in headphones. If you look at that graph, anything below roughly 200-250khz drops off, while everything over that space is accentuated. So if you try and mix bass or kicks with a lot of content below where it trails off, it is going to be overwhelming on a lot of other gear, especially when you consider that most of the mid range in that graph is over accentuated so you'll tend to make the mid range lower. Imagine trying to mix Drum n Bass in that setup!

If you know what you are doing and how your headphones or other reference monitors behave you can absolutely work around this, however, this is an area where I tend to suggest to others that you can absolutely compose a song in headphones, and it is worth doing some small mixing tweaks in headphones as well, but the vast majority of mixing and mastering really needs to be done in an environment where you can trust your ears more.

That said, if you're just doing this in your bedroom, and learning the trade, there is nothing wrong with it, just don't be upset when you drop that fire mix tape and nobody gets too excited. They are probably hearing something different than you.

The two pieces of advice I got a couple of decades ago that has stuck with me is first to listen to your music on as many different speakers as possible so you can get a sense what others might hear, and second when you want to get a reaction from somebody on your new music do it in person so you can hear what they are hearing. You *want* to be surprised when somebody plays your track on their busted out home theater and it sounds like ass. That feedback right there keeps it real, and this is not the time to tell your audience how much their audio equipment sucks, this is the time for you to internalize that maybe your music needs some work, because in all likelihood that is what half your audience is going to hear.

Menco wrote:
My room is the worst. I work in the living room of my 30m2 appartement. Most of your bathrooms are probably bigger than my living room. My desk is in a corner otherwise it wouldn't fit. Got the ATH 40X headphones, picked them up two years ago. Chose them by ear after spending a whole afternoon testing headphones. Later I found out quite a lot of pro's and guys here in the forums I respect also use ATH's, boosting my confidence in trusting my ears.

Gain staging is the next thing I'm starting to get in to, don't know that much about it yet. Step by step I'm getting there.

What is your setup?

NearTao wrote:You *want* to be surprised when somebody plays your track on their busted out home theater and it sounds like ass. That feedback right there keeps it real, and this is not the time to tell your audience how much their audio equipment sucks, this is the time for you to internalize that maybe your music needs some work, because in all likelihood that is what half your audience is going to hear.

You'll be surprised alright and you'll drive yourself insane. There are just too many variances, to deal with. Everything from a person hearing ability, listening environment, playback system, audio settings, and style of music. I send pre-released music to people who ears, I can trust. If it can gets pass them, then it's a go.

Most of the time, they send it back with, the first two things that stick out, with max 2 playbacks. The reason we choose 2 is because, if I listen to anything long enough, my bias kicks in.

I've been mixing in headphones for years and l take my track to the big stoo and l get that excited nod. Just like someone asked how did l make Charles sample drums sound nice.

This is why l gave the steps to mixing. You mix the kick, snare and bass first. EQ, level the bass so its not killing the kick then mix everything around it. Gotta get use to the headphones also.

NearTao wrote:Your graph also shows a few things that may not be obvious to folks.

This is why it is important to not mix to hard, but especially not mix bass to hard in headphones. If you look at that graph, anything below roughly 200-250khz drops off, while everything over that space is accentuated. So if you try and mix bass or kicks with a lot of content below where it trails off, it is going to be overwhelming on a lot of other gear, especially when you consider that most of the mid range in that graph is over accentuated so you'll tend to make the mid range lower. Imagine trying to mix Drum n Bass in that setup!

If you know what you are doing and how your headphones or other reference monitors behave you can absolutely work around this, however, this is an area where I tend to suggest to others that you can absolutely compose a song in headphones, and it is worth doing some small mixing tweaks in headphones as well, but the vast majority of mixing and mastering really needs to be done in an environment where you can trust your ears more.

That said, if you're just doing this in your bedroom, and learning the trade, there is nothing wrong with it, just don't be upset when you drop that fire mix tape and nobody gets too excited. They are probably hearing something different than you.

The two pieces of advice I got a couple of decades ago that has stuck with me is first to listen to your music on as many different speakers as possible so you can get a sense what others might hear, and second when you want to get a reaction from somebody on your new music do it in person so you can hear what they are hearing. You *want* to be surprised when somebody plays your track on their busted out home theater and it sounds like ass. That feedback right there keeps it real, and this is not the time to tell your audience how much their audio equipment sucks, this is the time for you to internalize that maybe your music needs some work, because in all likelihood that is what half your audience is going to hear.

CharlesRandolph wrote:

Menco wrote:
My room is the worst. I work in the living room of my 30m2 appartement. Most of your bathrooms are probably bigger than my living room. My desk is in a corner otherwise it wouldn't fit. Got the ATH 40X headphones, picked them up two years ago. Chose them by ear after spending a whole afternoon testing headphones. Later I found out quite a lot of pro's and guys here in the forums I respect also use ATH's, boosting my confidence in trusting my ears.

Gain staging is the next thing I'm starting to get in to, don't know that much about it yet. Step by step I'm getting there.

What is your setup?

Temporarliy using a Behringer U-Phoria UMC202HD interface. Had a MOTU firewire interface for years, but had to switch because the new Macbooks don’t have firewire ports anymore. Have some Edirol monitors, don’t know the type. Logic as DAW, mostly stock plugins. Don’t record through my interface, I import all my MPC parts and use Logics virtual instruments once the beat is in Logic in case I want to add more instruments.

Menco wrote:
Temporarliy using a Behringer U-Phoria UMC202HD interface. Had a MOTU firewire interface for years, but had to switch because the new Macbooks don’t have firewire ports anymore. Have some Edirol monitors, don’t know the type. Logic as DAW, mostly stock plugins. Don’t record through my interface, I import all my MPC parts and use Logics virtual instruments once the beat is in Logic in case I want to add more instruments.

In that case, your Gain stage is only on the interface. Are you sampling directly into the MPC or importing samples as well?

Danoc wrote:I've been mixing in headphones for years and l take my track to the big stoo and l get that excited nod. Just like someone asked how did l make Charles sample drums sound nice.

Pretty sure we're on the same page here. Mixing on headphones is absolutely fine... but I see a lot of people trying to mix on them without understanding the dynamics, leading to blasted out muddy crap. Been mixing with the same headphones for twenty years... and I generally know when I am mixing wrong. I imagine you know it like the back of your hand

NearTao wrote:Pretty sure we're on the same page here. Mixing on headphones is absolutely fine... but I see a lot of people trying to mix on them without understanding the dynamics, leading to blasted out muddy ****. Been mixing with the same headphones for twenty years... and I generally know when I am mixing wrong. I imagine you know it like the back of your hand

Did you mix your beat battle tracks in headphones?

Danoc wrote:

dryad-66 wrote:Back in the day late 90s ect i had some producer friends that said they did not use compression rather rode the faders in the mix.Sounds very old school and pure compared to these plug in times.....

Yep. I don't use it either. I did use it only to help the kick duck whenever the bass came in. Now l don't use it because l use a technique of EQing to do that. The bass and kick blend so sweet together.

Good for you if you dont need it

CharlesRandolph wrote:Did you mix your beat battle tracks in headphones?

I produced the track half on headphones, and half on some halfway decent (but colored) computer speakers.

But no, I didn't really bother mixing at all. If it sounds like crap it's absolutely my fault, if it sounds even halfway decent it is pure luck. I keep ear marking a timeline to work on the BBs, and I barely get to arrangement... let alone bothering with FX, mixing, or any other important step :/

NearTao wrote:Your graph also shows a few things that may not be obvious to folks.

This is why it is important to not mix to hard, but especially not mix bass to hard in headphones. If you look at that graph, anything below roughly 200-250khz drops off, while everything over that space is accentuated. So if you try and mix bass or kicks with a lot of content below where it trails off, it is going to be overwhelming on a lot of other gear, especially when you consider that most of the mid range in that graph is over accentuated so you'll tend to make the mid range lower. Imagine trying to mix Drum n Bass in that setup!

An EQ on the Master might help a bit here.

1. Import some songs you know well and like
2. listen with headphones
3. adjust the low freq range with the EQ on the master to how the song 'usually sound'
4. use this EQ with this settings on the master when you mix your own tracks
5. don't fortget to bypass the EQ when you listen without headphones

reference songs are a good chioce anyway (of course a reference track should come fromthe same genre/style of music or you might end up with some 'interesting' results and 'interesting' is not always 'good')
peace

peterpiper wrote:An EQ on the Master might help a bit here.

1. Import some songs you know well and like
2. listen with headphones
3. adjust the low freq range with the EQ on the master to how the song 'usually sound'
4. use this EQ with this settings on the master when you mix your own tracks
5. don't fortget to bypass the EQ when you listen without headphones

reference songs are a good chioce anyway (of course a reference track should come fromthe same genre/style of music or you might end up with some 'interesting' results and 'interesting' is not always 'good')
peace

3 Words: Equalization matching software.

dryad-66 wrote:Back in the day late 90s ect i had some producer friends that said they did not use compression rather rode the faders in the mix.Sounds very old school and pure compared to these plug in times.....

Danoc wrote:Yep. I don't use it either. I did use it only to help the kick duck whenever the bass came in. Now l don't use it because l use a technique of EQing to do that. The bass and kick blend so sweet together.

dryad-66 wrote:Good for you if you dont need it

Use the lightest touch of compression possible. Because it's going to run into compress, after it leaves your hands. From the audio playback devices, speakers, broadcast system, format, etc.