Why do my mixes sound flat?

[Dee-J]

Hi, I was wondering if I could get any input on this.

So recently I've been doing some A-B comparisons between the music that I make with Mixcraft and professionally made music (specifically the music that I have in my digital music collection/general downloaded music). From several trials I have come to notice a subtle, yet significant difference between the fidelity of the music I made with Mixcraft vs other music.

To begin, the thing here is that the quality of my music sounds good when I listen to it. It just really sounds like there's nothing wrong with it by casual listening and you'd too probably be like "Ooookay, what's the issue??". But it immediately becomes apparent that something is a bit "off" once I test it side by side against other music. It seems that my music sounds "flat" by comparison whereas the other music sounds "fuller" and with more hi-end fidelity. It doesn't matter whether I'm doing the sound comparison on my laptop using my audio player (I usually use Winamp for instance), my DAP/MP3 player, or my home or car stereo - the difference is the same across all medium used, so that's not the issue.

I do understand that professional music is sent off to be mastered, which usually takes care of that by adding polish to the music and other things such as loudness and cohesiveness between tracks, but something just still seems missing here that I don't think that I'm quite understanding....

For a little background information in order to get some understanding of what I do on my end, when I do my mixes in Mixcraft I make the process as simple as possible. I make sure all of the individual tracks are balanced in volume and I use EQ to cut out the lows and some of the mids - I usually only apply this to the instrument/melody tracks to provide clarity in those frequency ranges. I don't even EQ my drums at all, mainly because they are samples from drum machines. I leave the bass alone entirely as I use a synthesizer VST for that, so EQ is not needed here either. Aside from adding the necessary ambient effects, that's pretty much it. The type of music I make is mostly instrumental/dub tracks with no vocals so there is literally nothing else to do.

After I'm satisfied with my mix(es) I mixdown/render them as MP3 320 kbps 44100 Hz Stereo to ensure that they are of the highest quality (for MP3 anyway). By comparison, the music that I have downloaded in my collection are usually at much lower bit rates and qualities being as they come from various sources. But still, I don't think that's the issue here.

For some reason my music just sounds more "flat" overall, as if it lacks clarity in the high end and in some cases a bit of fullness and punch in the low end. I know that this could probably be resolved by applying a boost on the Hi and Low frequency bands on the Master EQ, but then that brings another sub-question in that I wonder if this is something that all other producers do to their mixes as common practice, perhaps??? That is something I would like to know from other fellow producers here.

Is anyone else here having the same experience? I hope this doesn't sound too confusing. I would also like to state that this isn't a matter of me just simply thinking that my music sounds inferior to professional music and my ears are playing tricks on me so that I will always find something wrong with it, etc. This is not that kind of situation. Just wanted to clarify that.

Thanks in advance.

[jwarv]

From what I've read, one of the "secret sauces" is saturation. Do some online research and you'll see what I mean.

[Dee-J]

From what I've read, one of the "secret sauces" is saturation. Do some online research and you'll see what I mean.

Thanks! I will definitely check this out!

[ppayne]

A high-frequency enhancer works wonders on drums and vocal tracks. You can try out tone boosters without restrictions in demo mode.

Fresh Air or Silk are also great for vocal tracks. Fresh Air also works well on the master, if you don't overdo it.

Dynamic EQ is also very good. Instead of simply limiting everything with a static EQ, it's only used where necessary.

Patrick

[CactusMusicBC]

First mistake is mixing to MP3? They are not even a format used to distribute music anymore. It's a hold over from the days of crappy bandwidth internet. And 44.1 is another obsolete format still hanging around from CD's.
The normal standard is now 48/24 wave.
And yes a home studio set up can't really duplicate what the professionals are using to master. But a clever person can most certainly come close.

You want high fidelity? start with all your projects should be using 48kHz sample rate. Try and keep all audio at least at 24 or 32.
A lot of synths sound better when you use oversampling -- look that up.
The purchase of higher quality studio monitors and a treated room doesn't hurt either.
It's definitely a rabbit hole but it's a goal worth achieving.
I think you are on the right path and at least you are smart enough to not just start tossing a lot of crappy plug ins at your music. That never works. Keep it simple and pure. Pick instruments that sound fantastic to you and leave it alone.

PS- I don't believe in fake saturation. All digital emulations of analog gear sound worse to me. The pros are still using the real stuff and for good reasons. Another rabbit hole for sure.

[cactus-head]

I'd be curious about a side by side comparison of an excerpt of your mix vs one you are comparing to.

[Dee-J]

First mistake is mixing to MP3? They are not even a format used to distribute music anymore. It's a hold over from the days of crappy bandwidth internet. And 44.1 is another obsolete format still hanging around from CD's.
The normal standard is now 48/24 wave.
And yes a home studio set up can't really duplicate what the professionals are using to master. But a clever person can most certainly come close.

You want high fidelity? start with all your projects should be using 48kHz sample rate. Try and keep all audio at least at 24 or 32.
A lot of synths sound better when you use oversampling -- look that up.
The purchase of higher quality studio monitors and a treated room doesn't hurt either.
It's definitely a rabbit hole but it's a goal worth achieving.
I think you are on the right path and at least you are smart enough to not just start tossing a lot of crappy plug ins at your music. That never works. Keep it simple and pure. Pick instruments that sound fantastic to you and leave it alone.

PS- I don't believe in fake saturation. All digital emulations of analog gear sound worse to me. The pros are still using the real stuff and for good reasons. Another rabbit hole for sure.

I definitely appreciate your input here and it is noted!

I used to mixdown to WAV initially but that was taking up a lot of space, so I switched to MP3 instead. I'm a hobbyist so there is no need for using WAV anyway as I have no need to send my songs off for mastering. I mostly showcase my music on YouTube for a niche audience.

I think at one point I was playing around with the various sample rates and I did find that the sound quality was way better at 48kHz but I just stuck with 44100kHz for whatever reason.

[Dee-J]

Nice suggestion guys! I really appreciate the input from each and every one of you.

I was doing some more A-B comparisons today between some of my own tracks and some of my downloaded music, specifically songs that came from my favorite producers, being as I regularly use those as references.

So here is what I did…….

As a trial, I took 5 of my song files that I already had rendered/mixdown and opened up a blank project in Mixcraft, then loaded the songs up. On the Master EQ I applied a boost at 3db on both the Hi and Lo EQ knobs. I then did a mixdown of each individual song file.

After this I opened my Winamp player, loaded these files up as well as a few select songs to compare them to. When I did the comparisons I noticed that my mixdowns (with the newly applied EQ boosts) matched the same hi-end clarity and the lo-end fullness as the songs I was comparing them to.

So this tells me that’s maybe what I needed to do all along. I guess maybe I can go back and do the same to the rest of my songs now.

Again, this is what kinda made me question if all producers do this as a common practice or what.

[ppayne]

I'm not a professional, whatever that means, but to judge why your songs sound flat, you'd have to hear it.

The basic prerequisite for mixing something well is, of course, to have selected the right instruments or sounds beforehand. You naturally choose these so that the frequency ranges are covered accordingly.

Flat can also mean that all dynamics are missing because you're simply using too much compression.

If all the desired frequencies are occupied by instruments, then it obviously depends on how loud each instrument is in the mix. Of course, it's no use if, for example, the hi-hats are too quiet and I therefore have to boost all the higher frequencies on the master. The corrective measure here would, of course, be to turn up the hi-hats.

The recommended plugins can, of course, only help to a limited extent. A high-frequency enhancer can't logically do anything where there's nothing there. Normally, with the right sound, only a few adjustments are necessary.

For example: If I can't make the hi-hats louder because it sounds wrong, and I don't want to add another instrument in the high frequency range or replace the hi-hats, then I use the enhancer on the hi-hats. This adds additional frequencies to the hi-hat sound.

But I think that's logical. You don't have to be a professional for that knowledge.

BTW. I simply use a plugin like true:balance to see if my frequencies, dynamics, and volume match the overall mix. You can also add a reference song here if you want. The advantage is that I can easily see visually whether everything is correct, and I don't have to compare different songs against each other.

Let's hear an example; then maybe we could tell straight away what's missing.

(edit)
A long story short

If I don't like the result, I always adjust the individual sources first. There are almost endless possibilities for this.

1. Select a different sound or instrument.
2. Add a sound
3. Adjust the volume.
4. Adjust the sound (EQ, enhancer, etc.).
5. Adjust other distracting sounds (EQ).
...

I don't EQ on the master if I have access to the source. Because most of the time you don't want to adjust all the instruments or frequencies.

Based on your question what is missing: you are looking for more or less frequencies (enhancer, saturation) I think and not more or less volume (EQ).

But as I said, I don't consider myself a professional. This is simply the path that works for me and, in terms of frequencies, makes sense to me.

Patrick

[Dee-J]

I'm not a professional, whatever that means, but to judge why your songs sound flat, you'd have to hear it.

The basic prerequisite for mixing something well is, of course, to have selected the right instruments or sounds beforehand. You naturally choose these so that the frequency ranges are covered accordingly.

Flat can also mean that all dynamics are missing because you're simply using too much compression.

If all the desired frequencies are occupied by instruments, then it obviously depends on how loud each instrument is in the mix. Of course, it's no use if, for example, the hi-hats are too quiet and I therefore have to boost all the higher frequencies on the master. The corrective measure here would, of course, be to turn up the hi-hats.

The recommended plugins can, of course, only help to a limited extent. A high-frequency enhancer can't logically do anything where there's nothing there. Normally, with the right sound, only a few adjustments are necessary.

For example: If I can't make the hi-hats louder because it sounds wrong, and I don't want to add another instrument in the high frequency range or replace the hi-hats, then I use the enhancer on the hi-hats. This adds additional frequencies to the hi-hat sound.

But I think that's logical. You don't have to be a professional for that knowledge.

BTW. I simply use a plugin like true:balance to see if my frequencies, dynamics, and volume match the overall mix. You can also add a reference song here if you want. The advantage is that I can easily see visually whether everything is correct, and I don't have to compare different songs against each other.

Let's hear an example; then maybe we could tell straight away what's missing.

(edit)
A long story short

If I don't like the result, I always adjust the individual sources first. There are almost endless possibilities for this.

1. Select a different sound or instrument.
2. Add a sound
3. Adjust the volume.
4. Adjust the sound (EQ, enhancer, etc.).
5. Adjust other distracting sounds (EQ).
...

I don't EQ on the master if I have access to the source. Because most of the time you don't want to adjust all the instruments or frequencies.

Based on your question what is missing: you are looking for more or less frequencies (enhancer, saturation) I think and not more or less volume (EQ).

But as I said, I don't consider myself a professional. This is simply the path that works for me and, in terms of frequencies, makes sense to me.

Patrick

Great information! Thank you! I'm definitely taking bits of suggestions from you all.

I started making and mixing music in 2006-2007 and I've been at it on and off since then. It took me a long time to learn how to mix properly, especially since I was self-taught and didn't know what I was doing at first - but I knew I was gonna keep trying until I got it right. After several years I had to ultimately unlearn everything I was doing wrong then start all over again with the mindset of just keeping everything simple. I had gotten some tips from others across different forums over the years (including this one) and some said that while mixing it's best to attenuate frequencies that muddy up the mix, but never attenuate or boost frequencies if you don't have to. Ever since then that's been my common practice and my music began to come together naturally, whereas before I was overcomplicating everything by boosting this, adding that, overthinking about every element, etc. I was just doing TOO MUCH and getting nowhere.

What you offered here were some great suggestions on how the mix and the frequencies should naturally come together when all of the elements are right, which is pretty much what I learned eventually, as I just stated.

But it was just recently that I started really comparing my music to reference material and realizing that "hmmm.....something still seems missing". I was noticing that my mixes seemed to lack brightness, presence, and low end fullness, especially when played across different speakers and such whereas reference material sounded perfect (commercial-ready). This had me confused because I KNEW that I had everything right. All of the elements of my mixes were perfect, I didn't use ANY compression, and I didn't over-EQ frequencies to make it sound flat, so I was wondering what in the hell I was doing wrong!

But as I said in my last post yesterday, I think I MAY have found the solution while I was experimenting. I just think that I needed to boost some frequencies in order to get the sound that I was going after, whereas before I wasn't doing that. I think that my mixes sounded "flat" simply because I left the frequency spectrum flat, without enhancement. At least that's the current conclusion I came to.

So at this point I'll look into some high frequency enhancer plugin (like some of you mentioned here) and go back to my mixes to see what works.

I could've done this before without actually asking the question, but I just wanted to get some ideas from other producers on the forum first. I really do appreciate the valuable information from you all, once again.

[ppayne]

There aren't just enhancers. Enhancers are a subtle way to add harmonic frequencies. I posted an interesting video on the topic of Audio Illusions. It explains why a higher frequency makes a lower frequency sound even deeper.

https://forums.acoustica.com/viewtopic.php?t=30884

But also bit crushers, drives, ring modulators, reverbs, etc., change the sound and add or remove frequencies. Ultimately, anything that changes the sound. Including simply select an other sound But an EQ doesn't add any frequency. You just turn the volume up or down for the existing frequencies at a selected range.

But as I said, I'm not a professional. This is simply my logical conclusion over time, and in my opinion, it works excellently for me.

Patrick

[Maanga]

I am not sure about your style of music.
But I suggest checking YouTube for "eye candy" to make the mixes sound better.
Regards.

[Dee-J]

There aren't just enhancers. Enhancers are a subtle way to add harmonic frequencies. I posted an interesting video on the topic of Audio Illusions. It explains why a higher frequency makes a lower frequency sound even deeper.

https://forums.acoustica.com/viewtopic.php?t=30884

But also bit crushers, drives, ring modulators, reverbs, etc., change the sound and add or remove frequencies. Ultimately, anything that changes the sound. Including simply select an other sound But an EQ doesn't add any frequency. You just turn the volume up or down for the existing frequencies at a selected range.

But as I said, I'm not a professional. This is simply my logical conclusion over time, and in my opinion, it works excellently for me.

Patrick

Awesome! Will definitely check it out!

[Dee-J]

I am not sure about your style of music.
But I suggest checking YouTube for "eye candy" to make the mixes sound better.
Regards.

Noted and will definitely look into this! Thank you!