Etherealurtz

Thanks for the replies so far guys, Imma give your ideas a read as soon as I have the time and go get started again on working on a song - hopefully I can get organized this time!

Hi guys! I've been tinkering around in FL Studio with mixing and music production, trying to refine my music making. I've watched tutorials on using VST's properly and mixing and others, but I just need some tips on this one question. What is the best start when making music? I can't seem to get started on a music track simply because of this question. The idea comes in my mind and I try putting it in notes first, but then I realize when the bass and other instruments come in, they all sound too muddy (they overwhelm each other, I don't get the sound I like) and I start thinking "Maybe I should've started fixing the mixing first." But then if I try starting mixing on a song by assigning tracks to channels, etc., I'm stuck with mixers and plugins ready to mix but no notes to translate. When I do start putting in notes, if they don't sound too well I go back to tweaking the mixer and I end up getting nothing done. The thing is, I can't seem to get organized because I seem to go back and forth between putting notes, thinking of the notes, mixing it, fixing it, etc. so much that I never finish anything. So long story short, can you guys share some advice on how to organize oneself to complete a song from conception to completion? I use FL Studio by the way, along with several VST's, such as Sylenth for synths, Kontakt 5 plugins for guitars and drums, etc. Oh, and the kind of songs I like to make are pure instrumentals.

Awesome in-depth analysis! Thanks! I will be taking SnappleMan's and your advice once I'm done with my exams and stuff to do this week. I'll upload the results of EQ editing for this same track. Essential Information: I just noticed recently, while mixing, I leave my laptop's Dolby Advanced Audio v2 feature on. Its default setting is just a flat EQ, but Dolby enhances the sound by making it louder, I'm not sure if it's compression or not. If anybody's familiar with it, do you recommend leaving it be or turning it off completely when mixing, leaving only Windows 7's default audio settings on while making music in FL Studio?

Thanks for the tips so far, gonna work on mixing Addictive Drums properly. Meanwhile, does anybody know how to make Shreddage more realistic? Shreddage, as far as I know, does not have keyswitches, so I can only rely on the modwheel and velocities as well as patches in achieving realism.

Hi there! Just wanted some tips and feedback on my original track, Final Audition: Origins (If anybody's familiar with the Pump it Up Dance games, it's my own prequel song to the Final Audition series) Do criticize any aspects of the song that are lacking, but please focus more on the mixing at the moment, because that is one particular part of the music making process that I seriously lack skill in. Here is the track: http://www.mediafire.com/?044s495ef9howp1 Info: Addictive Drums for Intro Drums Vengeance Essential Club Sounds for Other Drum Samples REFX Nexus 2 for almost every other instrument Instrument Reference: 0:00 Strings - Nexus 2 StringChoir Ensemble - No Mixing Done 0:19 Drums - Addictive Drums - Left as is, meant to sound like that 0:45 Bells - Nexus 2 Poppy Bells - No Mixing Done 0:56 Pad - Nexus 2 Beauty Combi - EQ'd with a filter that passes from 150Hz, climbs to 2936 Hz and ends at 11,924 Hz 0:56 Bass Drum - VEC Bass Drum Sample - EQ'd with a low pass filter from 60 to 405Hz, added Fruity Multiband Compressor in Default Preset 1:07 Synth Bass - Nexus 2 BA Basic Pulse - EQ'd with a filter that cuts off at 42Hz, boosts at 91 Hz, falls at 305Hz, slight boost at 837Hz and falls to 6972 Hz. General Hats and Snares: VEC2 Samples, no EQ'ing done. 1:30 Piano - Nexus 2 PN Powerful and Bright - EQ'd with high pass filter from 172 Hz, peaks at 504 Hz till 2862 Hz and falls to 8172 Hz. Added a Fruity Multiband Compressor at default settings. I know it's a mixing nightmare, because I just EQ'd here and there, added a compressor here and there, so please just tell me what I need to fix and how to do it - specifically using FL Studio as my DAW. Thanks everyone! Looking forward to your responses. P.S. The last bit is a sample from a separate mp3 song I did not make, so don't include that when you point out parts to fix.

Thanks man! All right then, I'm gonna take this one step at a time and use whatever I learn from mixing this unfinished rock track as a stepping stone for future rock tracks. Okay then, so first step would be, routing drums out individual channels right? Are you familiar with using Addictive Drums? If so, could you give me a step by step on routing the parts out individual channels and disabling its built in compressor so it doesn't affect the individually separated tracks? P.S. Do you know any good alternatives to Shreddage for Rhythm Electric Guitars, SnappleMan?

May I hear all your recommendations for everything about my rock track?

Nope. Also, like I said, my guitar skills are not yet sufficient to play some of the riffs in my head. But anyway, I'll deal with that another time, my focus right now is proper mixing - whether real guitar or VST, either method will pass through FL Studio and Guitar Rig 5, and so, while for realism the real guitar method is a no brainer, quality for both methods will depend on how well I mix the track.

I do play real guitar with decent skill. Unfortunately, my laptop does not have a line in track, which is necessary for properly recording guitar, and the distortion pedals I use are not mine, so I can only use it from time to time. As such, for lack of a better alternative, and simply because there are some of the riffs I compose that I cannot play properly or with enough skill yet, I resort to using VST's. And, yeah of course I didn't mean a literal copy pasting of the riff. It would be dull. I still go for that realism factor. Thanks for the tip!

Thanks! But the guitar riff is not recorded live. It happens to be the awesome Shreddage VST in conjunction with Guitar Rig 5. Completely virtual. But I will take that suggestion and make it double tracked like you say. ^^ Hope the volume doesn't get too loud though! Thanks! I guess the amateur EQing I did served me well. The only thing I added was the "Soundgoodizer" VST of FL Studio. THat must be it, it's a quick compressor tool. As for any other compression, I'm not sure if Addictive Drums has its built in compressor or if it's the limiter. Yeah, sure! I'll see what I can do. I haven't added the lead yet, because I'm still having trouble making a realistic sounding lead using Evolution Electric Guitar Strawberry.

Oh, here's something I was working on for everybody's reference: An Instrumental Rock Track. http://www.mediafire.com/?783t20xdaadeid8 - The original track. Everything just slapped together. No volume, panning, EQ or whatever. http://www.mediafire.com/?0eutr4w41q0ptas - The modified track. Here are some of the modifications. The rhythms are untouched. Bass: Drums:

Oh my, the great Snappleman of Malicious Fingers fame is here! Thanks so much for the reply! Thanks also everybody else! Am in a bit of a rush right now so will read and reply later.

Well in that case I will post some partially completed work once I'm done. Till then, are there no, well, basic, general starter tips for a rock composition? Particular genre in mind is the general pop rock sound, like Green Day, My Chemical Romance or Simple Plan.

Hi everybody! Etherealurtz here, amateur music maker. I have been making amateur rock tracks via FL Studio for a long time now, with an awesome combination of Shreddage X for Rhythm Guitar, Evolution Electric Guitar Strawberry for Lead Guitar, Scarbee Jay Bass for Bass and Addictive Drums for Drums. However, up to now I still have one barrier that prevents me from crossing the bridge from amateur to being on the way to professional. See, I can imagine the sounds well, like for example I listen to a simple rock track with basic muted guitar for the verses along with a bass line. So I go put these tracks in FL Studio and individually, they sound fine - I begin to picture the whole track coming together nicely. However, once I do, it comes out horribly! I can either not hear the bass at all or hear it muddled and overwhelmed once rhythm guitars come. And the lead lacks presence! I've been messing around with EQ but since I don't really know how to effectively use Parametric EQ 2 it just ends up a garbled, mixing nightmare. And I lose the motivation to continue. I've googled and googled but up to now I haven't been able to find an effective tutorial for mixing rock tracks, specifically via FL Studio. As such, can anybody help me out? Maybe a step by step tutorial on how I should approach mixing rock tracks? For the record, like I said, I can compose rock tracks well in my mind but do horribly when actually mixing T_T Help!

Thank you for the replies everybody! I must admit that I am truly still weak in the mixing field, because I am limited to FL Studio's capabilities - I have no means to do real mixing. Still, a lot of tutorials out there talk about professional mixing on FL Studio, so I'll give that a try sometime and focus on mixing first before I release any new projects. Therefore, I might just leave this song for now, since it's actually in another PC used by my dad, the mix file I mean, and transferring it to this laptop is a bother due to the VST's associated with it. So therefore I will take all your tips, but I will put them to use on a new composition. Keep the tips and criticisms coming

I recently submitted this mix, which got rejected (though I expected that, this was an amateur mix after all, made by someone who's not ever a professional yet): http://youtu.be/FhOsDksM9gk Sources: & Here are some of the comments from the OCRemix people: 1. What I like about this track ishow you changed around the chord structure to give the melody a very different feeling. There are some arrangement ideas along with that that are pretty strong; 2:00 stands out in particular as a pretty neat area. There are some areas that don't work as well, too. The beginning is pretty harsh, I think there's something not quite in the right key, or something going on there that just doesn't sound right. I'd take a closer look at that to see if you can figure out what's going on with that. The biggest thing though; Where's the bass? There is pretty much no low end to serve as a structure for the mix, and it's really disconcerting. That's a must fix to begin with. Once that's there, I'd look pretty much at all your synths, which honestly are all very weak and thin. I'd look for some replacements that will help beef up your sound, and also look into layering some instruments to help reinforce things. This one needs some work, but there's promise in your arrangement. Use our WIP boards to get some more advice. 2. Deia hit this one pretty well. the opening definitely sounds weird, not sure exactly how to explain it, but it's awkward. there's some wonky notes in the emerald hill theme that comes in at 1:34 too. production-wise, I agree that it needs more low-end, and overall the mixing felt compressed and muddy. you can probably clear out a lot of unused frequencies in your EQ's and get a lot more clarity from your sounds, which aren't bad. pretty cool overall, and promising, but those weird off-key notes (perhaps a theory J can provide more insight into those) and the mixing needs to be addressed to make it on OCR. hope to hear from you again. 3. Oof. Disliked the lead at :01 immediately. It was such a generic sounding saw, and was just unplesant to listen to. I can't stress enough that this isn't a personal affront, but this was horrible imbalanced mixing here. This was a cluttered mess that completely underminded the energy laid out in the arrangement. There were too many generic, untreated electrosynths, a super-fake FL Slayer guitar cameo at 1:53, off-key melodies, and generally indistinct instrumentation. Mixing-wise, the saw lead (didn't like it) and rhythm guitars (good power and energy there though) were simply buried, and the only reason the background was filled out was because the cymbal crashes were steamrolling over everything else in back. None of the parts were properly EQed to seperate anything, so all of the instruments were just bleeding into each other and sound muddy and lossy. The overall levels were too low as well. I hate to be so negative, but this was a cluttered, messy production nightmare. One of the few things that sounded pleasant were the belltones, but they're supposed to just be an accent, yet they're the loudest thing in the track by far. Other parts that were too loud compared to everything else were the Emerald Hill lead at 1:28, and the screechy synth brought in at :56 & 2:20, which was just abrasive and annoying. You have some positive comments on YouTube that don't have an ear for polished work. Don't let those people with no critical ear hype you up and make you think you don't have anything left to learn. Park yourself HERE and HERE, ask a LOT of questions and get better at choosing cohesive sounds and giving your instruments an appropriate sense of space. This place isn't the be-all-end-all for creating music, but if you stick around here, you'll become a better hobbyist musician in time. You have decent ideas for this arrangement, Mark, and it's clear you're attempting to create your own approach to these themes. Although the usage of the Green Hill and Emerald Hill themes was pretty coverish and could use some more melodic interpretation, you definitely added that Generations-style rock flavor to it and tried to personalize the approach through the overall energy, the instrumentation choices and cohesively-written original sections. But none of that potential matters when the mixing is jacked up. That said, according to WillRock, you could be the next OCR all-star. That's nice coming from an all-star like Will, who ALSO used to not be able to make cohesive music, despite getting lots of praise on YouTube. So be like Will, channel this criticism towards improvement and keep at it! So I'd like to ask for some tips on improving the mix I am limited to VST's and FL Studio in the meantime, so no real instruments please >.< Do give me your opinions on how I can improve my mix, and instruments that I can use/replace to make it sound better and improve my overall skill as a music maker.