These are some older tracks that barely anyone has heard. I can only mix with headphones at my home machine, so im thinking about handing them to a professional studio to have them mixed/mastered for not just headphones. The synthesizer sounds are all mine from scratch.
TBH it’d be better experience-wise to learn to mix down yourself. (Mastering is only at the very backend once you really plan on putting the tune out there, like a release or as a dubplate for djs…)
What you need to do is a series of A/B tests, listening on different playback systems (headphones, car stereo, home speakers, PA system) to get it so it sounds as much the same on all systems as possible.
This is why it’s helpful to have more than one monitoring system in your studio too - like near field monitors and good cans, although some ppl manage it with only one or the other (I have no idea how honestly lol. My mixes are still .)
So yeah in conclusion, don’t pay anyone to polish your shit. It will only color it differently from what you had in mind usually.
thats one of the things i worry about… to kinda lose the soul i put into it by giving the tracks to someone else - even if he/she will polish it for different systems, they will add their own “color” as you said to it too, or cut mine out in places that are important to me for the feel i put into it. i made some progress in compression, sidechaining and overall clarity of my mixdown since i made the tracks, but i still want to learn a bit more before i overdo these older tracks. and sadly it might take even more time till i found a place where i can put up proper production speakers once i can afford them for proper A/B.
but im still curious if theres people who would even like to hear this kind of dubstep in better quality, who think the essence is worth purifying. i havent had alot of listeners and it would def encourage me to rework these projects if i found out theres others that like it. i went into the bassline genre again and im a bit sad when thinking that i will just leave these as learning projects, because i really enjoy them on my headphones.
well anyway, thanks for your post! it helped me make my mind up about finding the right person to polish them, or as i planned when i started music production, to keep teaching my ears till i can do it myself
You don’t need studio monitors. It’s nice to have some, but you’re better off investing in a good pair of headphones.
Also, monitors won’t do anything for you if you don’t have enough mixing experience.
I’ve been at this stage before. My advice to you would be to forget about these older tracks, and just continue producing. It’s the only way you’ll grow as a producer. You should save your money until you figure out what you should invest in for the type of music you want to make.
One last thing. Even if you get extremely better at mixing, and you go back to try to properly mix and master one of these tracks, you’ll find that it’s going to start sounding a lot different, and usually it won’t sound different in a positive way. So, don’t stress about these and just continue learning.
i did these with sony mdr-v150 s ^^ and got sennheiser hd600s by now since they were the best i can afford right now, but i still have trouble hearing the dimensions of reverbs/expanders with them, so some elements sound louder and bigger on other soundsystems. is that something that will rule itself out if i get more experienced with these new headphones by your experience or are those 300euro headphones of which i heard they have very neutral freq spectrum response still not good enough? i was happy to hear the freq spectrum far more differenciated and to hear more low and high end.
i once mixed on old stereo speakers in another place for a year once, but i didnt really like the mixes i made on them afterwards, they all have peaks in certain frequency ranges that i didnt notice when writing music on them, but i think stereo speakers usually give good response regarding the reverbs and expanders… hmm i might maybe just setup another cheap pair and then A/B between the stereo hifi and the hd600s in which i differenciate frequencies better. if it sounds similar on these two it cant be so much worse/different on a third or fourth system, right?
regarding the tracks i guess ill let them be for now and one day maybe give them a chilled remix shot and see how it turns out.
only problem with your advice, i can imagine that ill never stop throwing different genres together, so i might have a hard one finding that crossover gear i need once i can afford it.
.)