10Ways to BEEF up your sound

In todays times music, can be made on a whim from your mind straight into the box(computer) yet you find it difficult to get your sound as close as possible to all the urban music tracks around or even as close as possible to the pros , here is couple of tips to help you along the way to get that sound as phat as possible.

Treat Your Room

Bare walls in a room create a monitoring problem when you trying to produce the right sound best thing to do is to treat your room , if you quite the handy man  pick up some tips on the internet and build some of your own bass traps for corners and deflection panels for the walls, otherwise utilize hanging blankets and carpets to absorb the sound around your room.

Brighten up your Sound With EQ

You might be finding that your sound is not being heard properly or that every things sound to muddy, this could be that your sounds are clashing and are sharing to much of the same frequency , especially in the low- mid frequencies ,tidy up your track a bit by eq’ing some of the sounds into the frequency range if its to muddy clean up a bit in 30hz – 50hz range you’ll find that cleaning up sounds that don’t belong in this range by cutting away their 30hz – 50hz will clear away some of the rumble in your track.

When too many frequencies are overlapping in a mix, the result is also “muddy”. To prevent mud, you must consciously keep in mind what range of frequencies you are adding with each new part. Inevitably, frequencies will overlap, no matter what instruments you choose. For example, two bassy sounds on top of each other will interfere, resulting in weird phasing issues. If you want to use two instruments that use up the same frequency spectrum, you’ll want to carve out the highs on one and carve out the lows on the other (through the use of EQ, you will eliminate too many overlapping frequencies and clear up your mix).

Watch the verb(the reverb that is)

A common mistake made by the amateur producer is to add to much effects, to much effects unless added in a creative and calculated way can end up creating a confusion in your sounds nowhere is this more prelevant than in the delay’s and reverb.

To much reverb tends to create a very amateur sound , and tends to create a very dreamy soft & thin sounding track loosing much of the transients of your production.

Tighten Up Your Timing

Another major issue some amateur producers aren’t very good at keeping time when they play in there rhythms , and some times due to latency issues you might find your rhythms  and instruments being slightly out of sync with each other, use our great friend the quantize to get all your midi parts in sync and then add  a little swing to the more rhythmic parts of your song … it works wonders to sound in time but yet keeping it sounding alive

Avoid using to much loops

Loops have become the norm in today’s production chain of events but try avoid using to much loops as this can make your track sound a little to robotic, try keep it to the subtle rhythms sounds like your shakers and the odd percussions ,try to steer away from using to musically loops unless it’s a loop that really brings life to your song, and if you feel you want to use a loops from the beginning to end of your track try create variation my slicing it up, reversing , effecting it to give it a little life.

 Over-Limiting tread carefully

The big mistake most producers make is to over kill the master output by over compressing and then throwing  in the limiter  to limit the peaks , very common in what is known as the “loudness war” where producers and labels are pushing mastering engineers to push the song as loud as possible through compression in order to compete with the next track played on the different media streams , the best thing to do is to try and create a good balance between your compression and limiting , over compression and limiting sound as loud as F#*$ but this creates an unnatural sound to the brain which just doesn’t sit well remember  music a set of frequencies which vibrate and your hearing and body respond to these vibrations not leaving enough dynamics in your vibrations will just make it totally unnatural.

Learn Home Mastering Basics

Try to learn the basics of mastering in order to get a decent  rough master of your track do this either by surfing the net or simply taking  up short courses, this will play and important role when needing to test your tracks first before you send your final mix to master, and yes it is always to send out your final mix to a mastering engineer as you will get a better finished master  which will firstly receive a fresh pair of ears for a process based more on technical than a creative ability.

Learn Different Compression Techniques

Compression plays an important role on the way your track comes out in the final mix , knowing how much to use it and on what parts to use it , is vital using to much compression on all parts will certainly kill the depth and natural sound to your tracks , do some research through the net or take some short course on this subject as it is quite an important step

Test,Test & Test Again A/B

Testing is an important part of bettering your production, this involves a method called A/B’ing where you are constantly switching between different settings saying for example on a compressor you set compress one way at the A setting then change over to the B setting  and then bounce between the two to decide which sounds better, another form of testing is referencing your master track against another track that you feel your track should sound like, and finally just playing it out if you Dj or have a friend that Dj’s get them to play it in their set and see how this plays up against the other in the mix

 Become the Master of what you use.

We live in a fast paced world and there are constantly upgrades new software’s  & hardware’s are introduced into the industry , this creates a certain WANT to always try to be ahead of the pack through getting the latest software’s and hardware’s … reality is the latest is not going to break it for you , what is going to better your production is to work and for you to master the tools you have already, tweaking and finding new ways to use what you  will make you a better producer , chasing after the latest technology will just get lost in a  mixture of uneasiness which affects your work flow and creativity & confidence ,there  is nothing better for creativity than knowing what you want to do and knowing how you going to do it.