I'm an aspiring mixing/mastering engineer (not sure which route I want to go) as well as a beat maker, and I cannot for the life of me figure out how the pros get their tracks to loud RMS levels without the low end distorting and sounding good at the same time. I've been stuck on this mix for three weeks because I cannot figure it out.
I'm working on a hip hop beat I made, and have been struggling to find a good balance. It's very light on the midrange to leave room for vocals, but the low end is driving me insane. I've been using "No Limit" by Usher as a reference mix, and somehow the mixing or mastering engineer was able to make the low end really powerful without distorting in a distasteful way.
Normally I am unable to REALLY hear how bad my low end is because all of my monitoring options handle bass pretty well. That was until I had a mini revelation.. I always check my mixes on a bunch of different speakers, but every time I check on my $99 Sony soundbar, it highlights ANY low end imperfection immediately. This soundbar has a little wannabe subwoofer in it, but it quickly lets you know when the bass is too much to handle. Since it is the only monitoring item I have that lets me know there is a real problem in the low end, I took it away from the TV and put it in my mixing area.
So now I'm A/Bing my mix, and the Usher song, and somehow the Usher song is able to be really loud and powerful in the low end without making the subwoofer sound like it's clipping, but when I put my mix on, the speaker sounds like it's clipping but doesn't even sound like there is that much low end in it! HOW?!?!
I've tried everything I know to match the Usher song.. the only thing that gets it stop sounding flabby is if I nearly cut ALL the low end out under 150hz or so. This clearly isn't an option because then the song has no low end. But the thing that has me even more confused, is if I low pass the Usher song, it starts to sound flabby and clippy like mine does in full range. But as you bring the frequency cutoff higher and higher the clipping/flabby noise from the Usher song goes away until I turn the volume up again then it gets flabby sounding again. I know that filter resonances will give a boost the cutoff frequency, but I can get the Usher song to sound flabby low passed at 1000hz, then bypass the eq and it doesn't sound flabby. Can the filter resonance at 1000hz really make speakers clip, but then bypass the eq and it doesn't? I didn't think 1000hz would have enough energy to affect the little subwoofer in a soundbar.
Anyway, I posted the most recent mix I've done of this beat.. It's labeled with a 22 at the end because that's how many times I've gone back and made changes to try and figure out what I'm doing wrong. If you have the time could you see if you can identify where you think the main issue is? I know it may be difficult because you can't see what I've done in the mix, but I'll be more than happy to answer any questions about that. I'm stubborn, so I'm not able to allow myself to move on until I make some headway with this. Thanks in advance for your input.
I'm working on a hip hop beat I made, and have been struggling to find a good balance. It's very light on the midrange to leave room for vocals, but the low end is driving me insane. I've been using "No Limit" by Usher as a reference mix, and somehow the mixing or mastering engineer was able to make the low end really powerful without distorting in a distasteful way.
Normally I am unable to REALLY hear how bad my low end is because all of my monitoring options handle bass pretty well. That was until I had a mini revelation.. I always check my mixes on a bunch of different speakers, but every time I check on my $99 Sony soundbar, it highlights ANY low end imperfection immediately. This soundbar has a little wannabe subwoofer in it, but it quickly lets you know when the bass is too much to handle. Since it is the only monitoring item I have that lets me know there is a real problem in the low end, I took it away from the TV and put it in my mixing area.
So now I'm A/Bing my mix, and the Usher song, and somehow the Usher song is able to be really loud and powerful in the low end without making the subwoofer sound like it's clipping, but when I put my mix on, the speaker sounds like it's clipping but doesn't even sound like there is that much low end in it! HOW?!?!
I've tried everything I know to match the Usher song.. the only thing that gets it stop sounding flabby is if I nearly cut ALL the low end out under 150hz or so. This clearly isn't an option because then the song has no low end. But the thing that has me even more confused, is if I low pass the Usher song, it starts to sound flabby and clippy like mine does in full range. But as you bring the frequency cutoff higher and higher the clipping/flabby noise from the Usher song goes away until I turn the volume up again then it gets flabby sounding again. I know that filter resonances will give a boost the cutoff frequency, but I can get the Usher song to sound flabby low passed at 1000hz, then bypass the eq and it doesn't sound flabby. Can the filter resonance at 1000hz really make speakers clip, but then bypass the eq and it doesn't? I didn't think 1000hz would have enough energy to affect the little subwoofer in a soundbar.
Anyway, I posted the most recent mix I've done of this beat.. It's labeled with a 22 at the end because that's how many times I've gone back and made changes to try and figure out what I'm doing wrong. If you have the time could you see if you can identify where you think the main issue is? I know it may be difficult because you can't see what I've done in the mix, but I'll be more than happy to answer any questions about that. I'm stubborn, so I'm not able to allow myself to move on until I make some headway with this. Thanks in advance for your input.