How to sound like a real track?
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How to sound like a real track?
Fri, 11/13/2009 - 10:21
Hi everyone!
As a starting producer i discovered that it's very difficult to produce a track that sounds like a real track. I mean, my tracks sound a bit empty. Many tracks have some sounds included that you don't notice when you're listning. Only when you remove the sounds, you hear that something is gone in the track. So my question is, wich techniques do you use to fill up your track/loop?
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- by plenker
Hi plenker,
There are many tools for getting your tracks sound huge/real. It all starts with the choice of your initial sounds. Things become much more easy if all sounds have their own distinguished place in frequency and time and if they have unique characteristics. The "real" sound you are referring to can be accomplished by well done compression most of the time. For instance, if you use a compressor with a tight attack and a long release on a beat-loop, you will hear the background noises (the sounds without a strong attack) get beefed up and they will cover up the silent parts. You can even let it "breath" with the tempo of the song if you tweak some with the threshold, ratio and release and even more if you do some side-chaining on the kick. And don't forget about insert/send effects. Reverb/delay can also do a great job in covering up spaces in between.
Also well done mastering or a good mastering-chain on your end-bus can improve the "realness" of your mix. It makes all sounds get some sort of cohesion with each other and pushes the dynamics of your track to the max.
Grtz,
RAF
note:
You talk about the "real" sound, but in fact it's not the "real" sound at all.. Since the use of compression (and especially radio compression) our ears are getting used to the compressed sound and we now think everything has to sound like that to be "real"... ;)
Hi plenker,
What i like to use to make a track more dynamic is big side chain compression on the hi hats, it makes them bounce way more and together with a nice quantize setting this can really sound amazing. Another trick is to use side chaining on your reverb, this can really help keeping the noise from the reverb down but still having that "wet" feel. Have fun :)
Yeah same thing goes for the white noise!
Side chaining on the white noise, this can really help keeping the noise from the reverb down but still having that "wet" feel. ;) Exactly what you say JP!