you recon ?

i personaly listen to all the tracks that come though our inbox! and the ones that are mastered stand out far more in quality of sound and production, un-masterd tracks hammerd through a big club sound system sound raw and harsh which wouldn't be such a bad thing for hard dance scouse house or hardcore but trance is all about smoothness of sound and clarity and it makes all the diffrence in  the world

Originally posted by brandedDIGITAL

you recon ?

i personaly listen to all the tracks that come though our inbox! and the ones that are mastered stand out far more in quality of sound and production, un-masterd tracks hammerd through a big club sound system sound raw and harsh which wouldn't be such a bad thing for hard dance scouse house or hardcore but trance is all about smoothness of sound and clarity and it makes all the diffrence in  the world

But it could be the result of poor mixing, too.

Originally posted by Nick

But it could be the result of poor mixing, too.

Exactly my point.

Originally posted by KiKSU

Exactly my point.

no offence but surely the polite thing to do would be to Make your point not just shout "Bullshit"! bad mixing on a track is an obvious mistake, but a mastered track still out class's an unmastered for quality of sound !
my point didn't have anything to do with the mixing of a track.  my hint was spacifically aimed around the mastering point as MvH had touched on the key of good mixing in his post

Originally posted by brandedDIGITAL

no offence but surely the polite thing to do would be to Make your point not just shout "Bullshit"! bad mixing on a track is an obvious mistake, but a mastered track still out class's an unmastered for quality of sound !
my point didn't have anything to do with the mixing of a track.  my hint was spacifically aimed around the mastering point as MvH had touched on the key of good mixing in his post

Yeah bullshit was a hard word. Sorry. But, in 90% of the cases the mastering is ordered/done by the label. If you want the producer to do all the stuff then why should he sign a contract with you? If you want a quality overall you should hire a pro audio engineer. A good producer doesen't have to be a good at mastering. The reason why these small digital labels have no success is because they release tracks "mastered" by the producers. What you said it's optional, but I don't recommend it. It's the labels job to do that. I have discussed this with a lot of people, including a great, famous producers (Airbase, Marninx, Milan Lieskovsky, Carl B...) and their opinion is the same.

fair point but my tip was to help budding producers stand out from the crowd when sending potential tracks to label. your talking about professional producers here with labels that have rediculous amounts of money to through at artists your in a totally diffrent thread here! my tip is for the budding bedroom Producers  to help get them noticed above all the other tracks plus i think it's good experience for the producer to learn and know the mastering process

BTW we pay for our tracks to be mastered by our in house studio engineer before any general release just as a note as per ref to your this is why these small digital labels fail we at branded are commited to the pushing of new talent with the support of such producers as Tom Colontonio, paul miller and manuel le saux on remix duties so please don't hold us in the same light as some on-line labels out to make a quick buck !

Sidechain compression works wonders when the pad is too loud

If you want a loud pad, its gonna take some intense mixing to get it in just right so that it doesnt crowd out certain sounds, especially the kick.  So to solve this problem, it may be best to sidechain it so that the kick and the pad play seperately, hearing the best of both sounds.  Sometimes a track sounds better with sidechained pads, others dont, its a gamble but you may get lucky.

yeah.. i listened to my Beautiful Disaster on a club system today w/ no monitor so im not sure of the quality... sounded decent and the crowd loved it...

i may master it a bit more, bring the kick line up a bit in volume!!!

LISTEN TO YOUR OWN TRACKS!!!

Take good care of your hearing. Lower your dB intake. While it may be sometimes fun to listen to your own tracks in a high amplitude, make sure to lower your dBs when listening to tracks. Even during mixing, sometimes a loud volume is not necessary, or even unhelpful. A lower volume may even help you better assess your bass levels on your track. To make sure that you can trust your ears, stay away from areas with high noise pollution, and if you have to listen to something loud, don't do it for extended periods of time. If you are a producer, your ears are valuable. If your ears get screwed up, you're going to be a lame racehorse. They'll have to shoot you dead (hahaha j/k). Nothing like hearing impairment to ruin your career! (The Beethoven argument doesn't work here because I doubt that you'd want to listen to floorboard vibrations for the rest of your life.)

I had to share this because I just spent two days hearing three jackhammers chugging away just outside all day long.

lol it even says that on the manual to my ZUNE.  According to it, it says "Within 15 minutes or less, music played at full blast can permanately cause damage to your hearing."

Time for a little science lesson.  Everyone has tiny hairs in their ears that sense vibration, which is then converted to sounds.  What loud music does is severely damage those hairs so that they can't do their job.

and to add to what I have mentioned earlier. A teacher once told me in high school that it takes 3 days for your hearing to recover from a ringing phone. Now, think about how loud you've been hearing things. I don't really know where that came from, but it's nice to keep in mind. Better safe than sorry.

Melody is key.

A good melody will be catchy, emotional and interesting. A boring change between notes is not going to excite people, but a complex one that conveys different emotions through the use of chords and different notes is key to a good track. Compare the breakdowns of Deadmau5 tracks and Mike Foyle for example.

have atleast 4-5 variations in snare's/claps and about 3-5 different hat pattern sequences.  I've notices that a lot of novice producers don't understand that in order to keep a song interesting that after every 32 kicks you need to change up the snare (but make sure its fitting for the direction your taking the song).  also when it comes to hat patters, kick-hat-kick-hat is not the way to go for the entire song.  Spend time coming up with 3-5 hat patterns that actually have some sort of groove and swing too them to compliment to beat, making it something you can actually dance too.  Sometimes you can layer the different patterns on top of each other to make an ever more interesting sound.  But use discretion.

Originally posted by VitaminDLW

have atleast 4-5 variations in snare's/claps and about 3-5 different hat pattern sequences.  I've notices that a lot of novice producers don't understand that in order to keep a song interesting that after every 32 kicks you need to change up the snare (but make sure its fitting for the direction your taking the song).  also when it comes to hat patters, kick-hat-kick-hat is not the way to go for the entire song.  Spend time coming up with 3-5 hat patterns that actually have some sort of groove and swing too them to compliment to beat, making it something you can actually dance too.  Sometimes you can layer the different patterns on top of each other to make an ever more interesting sound.  But use discretion.

great advice!!!

Originally posted by VitaminDLW

have atleast 4-5 variations in snare's/claps and about 3-5 different hat pattern sequences.  I've notices that a lot of novice producers don't understand that in order to keep a song interesting that after every 32 kicks you need to change up the snare (but make sure its fitting for the direction your taking the song).  also when it comes to hat patters, kick-hat-kick-hat is not the way to go for the entire song.  Spend time coming up with 3-5 hat patterns that actually have some sort of groove and swing too them to compliment to beat, making it something you can actually dance too.  Sometimes you can layer the different patterns on top of each other to make an ever more interesting sound.  But use discretion.

I will try to make the most boring dance song ever.