So I've made a couple songs in FL Studio, but they were always distorted and really quiet. I decided to make a new one using only my computer speakers and it turned out okay, but I'd like some tips on how to make it sound better.
[url]http://soundcloud.com/monsieurangry/in-theory[/url]
Synths were made with 3xOsc and Sytrus.
Ya, I second this, need some tips as well. Especially confuses me when I mix something on my headphone monitors, and then play it back on cheap/standard everyday speakers, and it sounds completely different. Makes me wonder how people make a recording sound consistent across all speaker configurations a listener might have.
Mastering and mixing method vary a lot and also depends on the way the producer wants or considers the track to sound like.
Fl studio is quite tricky some time when you start to master since it usually uses the Asio Driver inside the program but once it is out (as mp3, wav, etc) your computer will use it's normal driver and soundcard to play it, sometime it makes me say "hey, this isn't half bad" but once i exported...totally different.
I'm no expert on mastering tracks but found a few things helpful and hope it will also work for you.
-You can play your track in different speakers and analyze it since not all sound equally. I try to run it trough normal computer speakers, stereo component, cheap headphones and good headphones as well. It gives me a clearer picture of how it actually sound. This itself, I've found really helpful and beneficial to the whole mastering process.
-Try to run each thing in a different mixer track, personally i send practically all elements of my song to a mixer track and group similar or same type of sounds to one (all snares in one mixer track, all fx and reverse swooshes in another, etc). After they are in their each mixer track, i tend to get rid of unwanted frequencies. Frequencies that are there, eat up space in the mix and make a mess of a sound. This usually are really low and sub frequencies barely noticeable sometimes but are definitively not needed in most sounds (i tend to roll them off almost completely in high pitched sounds like snares, hi hats, cymbals, leads, etc)
-Panning and working with volumes help out a lot. I throw the stereo shaper plugin sometimes to mold a specific sound more upfront or more spread, reeverb to make some sound more full, and real rather than dry and weak.
-Rest those ears. What I mean by this is to take frequent rests between working sessions, reducing auditory fatigue. If you spend too many time on a track, the ear looses sensitivity and can't notice changes on sounds and frequencies. Taking good breaks will avoid this, i tend to take a whole afternoon off if I've been way too many hours on a project. It's very helpful, will help sort the mastering out, most of the time you will find what was sounding bad, off, and so on.
Hope this is useful and to your advantage!!
Get it to sound as badass as possible before mastering, and use as little compression as you can durring the initial mix to avoid having the muddy, overcompressed sound that can occur once you do global compression and limiting while mastering.
Thanks guys, I'll try these things next time I make a song.
My tip would be to play around a bunch with the FL Paragraphic Equalizer 2 plugin. It comes with the FL package, I believe.
Also have a look at FL's Compressor plugin.
Another thing to look at would be the FL Stereo Enhancer plugin, which will help you fill out your stereo space using stereo separation.
I use FL too, and I usually end up using an equalizer on every mixer track, just about. Almost each instrument I use will be assigned to their own mixer track.
I also have an equalizer and a compressor on the master track.
Anyway, just play around with these things and with time you'll have something that sounds much better than what you have now, even though the track you posted is not bad in any means!
Making sure you fill the entire spectrum by cutting away unecessary frequencies and boosting the ones that are needed is half the work really. It helps to maintain the characteristics of every instrument without it getting drowned in the mix. Stereo imaging is also very important to me, and so is reverb as it is particularly useful to determine the presence of your instruments in the mix. Give it a good thought and decide what really needs to stand out in your song and go from there.
Mastering shouldn't be a cure-all for a track. Make sure to fix all problems in your mix, and get it to how you want it to sound before mastering.
Well, first of all, I think you might be confusing mixing and mastering. Mixing is the process of making every element of the song and making them fit together and sound nice. This usually is half-creative process and usually includes adding eq, compression, reverb and other such effects.
Mastering is when you have an almost finished song and you do the final tweaks to it. Quite often people send their tracks to an experienced mastering engineer to do this.
For you, I would really not worry about mastering too much since your mixing is most obviously the problem. Like people said here, try eqing and using other effects to make your song sound good and just stick a limiter plugin on the master.
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