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Why must quality be such a thing on this site...


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seriously... I know quality does matter, but a good piece of music is a good piece of music.

I've been into this for about 7 months now, and, everytime I touch an equalizer, or a compressor, I destroy my music. :(

i wish, they didn't exists, i want to throw all equalizers, compressors, multiband parametic blahs into a river and sacrafice them to the gods.

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Well a good piece of music can definitely be conveyed through means of simple General Midi, but it will never reach the potential it has without rendering it to an MP3.

The key to understanding those equalizers and compressors is not thinking about them as necessary tools, but rather as effects to improve the quality of the sound, similarly to how you would put reverb on a track to give it a more organic feel.

If you say that whenever you touch EQ or a compressor, it destroys your music, maybe you shouldn't use them at all in this context. It really depends on what genre of music you're writing.

Generally any acoustic/ orchestral instruments can do with very loose compressing, or even without compression at all ( Since it flattens out the dynamics and makes it sound more mechanical), and usually EQ should be applied only very subtly, if at all. It's not like Mozart, Stravinsky, etc. etc. had access to multiband compressors and the like =D

Now generally the hardest section of the EQing and Compressing thingy is the drum sequencing, and the way they blend in with the bass, so yes, you'll need to have a fair understanding of compression and EQ before you can make these two sound effectively without masking each other, but there's enough guides on the internet to point you in the right direction.

As a bottom line, I'd say that if your mix seems to sound perfect already, there's no masking, no boomy bass, not too much sizzly treble and no overly loud parts, why compress and EQ at all then?

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I used to have massive problems with eq, compressors etc until I stopped overusing them. Similar to what Tensei-San said, depending on the style or even instrument, you may not need to use any eq at all, perhaps just add a little reverb and that's it. I hardly boost with eq, most of it is cutting. As you keep developing your ear, you will find that some parts will need just a touch of a particular effect. My mixing is ok now, but it has taken me years, I would say don't get disheartened and keep practising.

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seriously... I know quality does matter, but a good piece of music is a good piece of music.

Quality matters because otherwise you get a shit-ton of crap.

I've been into this for about 7 months now, and, everytime I touch an equalizer, or a compressor, I destroy my music. :(

i wish, they didn't exists, i want to throw all equalizers, compressors, multiband parametic blahs into a river and sacrafice them to the gods.

They're there to help you. If two instruments occupy the same frequency space, you use the equalizer to trim then down a bit and remove the flabs. If you can't help them occupying the same space, you use a compressor to tone 'm down.

Cut, not boost. Don't dump a comp on every channel unless it needs one. In a lot of cases, it's polish - but it can't save a crappy mix.

The "I'm looking to create music like X" doesn't help. EQ and compressors have settings that depend on the type (clean or smearing), instrument, personal preferences of the producer and a crapton of other factors that mean you can't carbon-copy their settings and be done with it.

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Two reasons you're probably having trouble:

1. EQ and compression are just plain difficult to master (ok I haven't mastered it, but it's difficult to get to even where I am :P). It takes practice, and often help from a more experienced ear when you're stuck.

2. You're probably being bitten by problems in the arrangement itself. It's great to say "only arrangement and musical ideas should matter", but is your arrangement *really* that airtight? Because good arrangement is even harder to master than compression or EQ :P You won't get a full sound by EQ'ing if your arrangement is lacking in certain registers. You won't get a clean, sparkly sound if you've crammed in too many instruments.

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are you trying to say, that i suck at arrangement brah? i dont' take to kindly to such tounge.

I honestly have no idea :P But it is a common mistake to try to fix things with processing that should be fixed by changing the arrangement. I've done it myself, and I've seen a lot of other people do it.

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are you trying to say, that i suck at arrangement brah? i dont' take to kindly to such tounge.

When we tell you you suck at something [hint: nobody did!] in the ReMixing or WIP forums we're not telling you because we want you to feel bad, we're telling you so you can improve.

Your harsh reaction to Fray's hypothetical criticism is pretty funny though. PROTIP: Nobody takes you seriously when you call someone "brah"

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Or when you misspell "tongue."

..Or when you threaten people who are trying to help you =P

But anyway, Nicholestien, you SHOULD take a look at the arrangement, if you've tried just about everything in terms of EQing and Compression, and still get a cluttered result, maybe it's just best to scrap one or two tracks. Doesn't the saying go something like "Sometimes less is more"?

Of course going crazy with polyphony is fun, when you're in the midi stage, but it's going to bite you back HARD when you get down to mixing, so sometimes you can do nothing else than to scrap some of the redundant melody lines.

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you LIER i said no such thing!

you LIER i said no such thing!

but, i have such a hard time letting go of those little sound effects i made.... WHY GOD !!!

WHYYYY!?

When we tell you you suck at something [hint: nobody did!] in the ReMixing or WIP forums we're not telling you because we want you to feel bad, we're telling you so you can improve.

Your harsh reaction to Fray's hypothetical criticism is pretty funny though. PROTIP: Nobody takes you seriously when you call someone "brah"

exactly why i said brah in the first place. =P
Or when you misspell "tongue."

I did that on purpose!

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Music and recorded music are not the same. If you get together with a few people in a band and start playing live, there's a natural quality to the sound that can sound perfectly fine on its own. But with recorded music, you really need to make sure that it's mixed well and everything is coming through well. A good arrangement can very easily be ruined by a bad mix, and conversely, a mediocre arrangement can be saved by a good mix (see SnappleMan's songs on OCremix for an example of the latter).

You can write a great arrangement using nothing but pure sine waves, and if it truly is a great arrangement, it'll get accepted. But the chances of you or most any of us writing a great arrangement for sine waves, are slim.

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Its called practice. You're not going to master music in 7 months. Listening to midi-style music is just annoying and most people wont listen to it other than once... OCRemix is about music people enjoy listening to over and over. If it truly is an amazing arrangement, then its worth the shitty quality just so you can listen to an interesting arrangement. Hell, how else do you expect Amon Tobin to get famous... His early stuff was horribly mastered but the arrangement was great and the ideas were interesting.

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Quality is a "thing" on this site because people want to listen to good sounding music. We don't care how you make the music, how expensive your plugins are are or how talented of a musician you are. Just make good sounding music.

Also... just stop posting.

Get out of my topic you little cunt rag, Every new forum I visit has a few of you smart assholes on it that will go over the top if I mispell a word or do something like this. I asked a question, just answer it, you want to say some smart shit then you contact me by aim instead of being a faggot here on the boards.

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Get out of my topic you little cunt rag, Every new forum I visit has a few of you smart assholes on it that will go over the top if I mispell a word or do something like this. I asked a question, just answer it, you want to say some smart shit then you contact me by aim instead of being a faggot here on the boards.

Tip # 1 on the remixing and WIP forums: Accept all criticism. Do not lash out at those who criticize your work.

So far in this topic, you have demonstrated a complete lack of maturity and ability to listen to others criticism. Criticism is how you get better; when somebody says "you suck," the correct response isn't "fuck you," it's "how can I improve so that I don't suck anymore?"

And before you flame me for saying all this, please give it some honest consideration (and also consider the fact that you will be proving my point if you respond by flaming me).

Now to answer the original question.

There are other sites on which production quality is not such an issue: remix.thasauce, vgmix (if it ever comes back up), and OLRemix. If you want a site that is more willing to accept mixes with low production quality, try going there.

I need to leave, but I'll give a more complete response later.

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