Me vs. ableton (aka my second production)

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1

hi guys,

so i made the jump from pro tools to ableton and the difference is enormous.



this is my next track. it’s a remix of red goodbye’s nothing to come back to (my band)



i would appreciate feedback on

  • arrangement
  • vocal sounds/processing
  • overall sound quality
  • balance between all the frequencies/instruments
  • vocal chopping (3:20)



    i’m noticing that the track sounds full - i have 20 something tracks, so i guess that makes sense, but you can kinda hear the layering. i was listening to avicii and wolfgang gartner this morning and i noticed that their sounds feel different, mostly in the sense that my ears are only hearing one or two individual instruments (mostly synth and drums) but the sound is still very full. i’m sure they also have a ton more layers in their tracks, so it seems kinda paradoxical. i’m not explaining it well but hopefully someone can understand what i’m saying and elaborate for me.



    Ntcbt remix 7-21-11 mix b by planetzalex


2

arrangement is cool.



I think your main prob is that a lot of your sounds have too much weight in the 200-800Hz range. its like they are all on top of each other.



try putting hipass filters on all your pads and synths and slopping off around the 500-600hz mark… this will give you a less muddy sound.



try to think that you only want one sound prominent in each frequency area… not to say you should take this to extremes but if you cut holes in some of you sounds with eq to leave space for other you will get a more open sounding mix.

3

thanks for the fast reply phil. should i put the high pass on before or after my effects chain for each instrument? or should i group them altogether as a send and use only one instance of the filter?

4

put them before the fx and you can use one on each channel the filter is very light on CPu… you could do the same thing with an EQ i just seem to always use a filter… both do the same job.

5

[quote]phil johnston (21/07/2011)[hr]put them before the fx and you can use one on each channel the filter is very light on CPu… you could do the same thing with an EQ i just seem to always use a filter… both do the same job.

[/quote]



ok the high pass was a very helpful tip, thank you. it sounds so much better now. maybe i took a bit too much of the highs away, thoughts?



Ntcbt remix 7-22-11 mix b by planetzalex