Okay, so I've made quite a few songs, but one thing I have never done is mix down a finished track from scratch, i.e. export all tracks as audio and adjust the levels/freq/panning another time to actually have a decent mix. Since I haven't done this, all my tracks sound pretty boring as the drop doesn't really pop, you can hear some distortion at times, and other stuff like that.
Before I begin, there are some detail questions I have that I was hoping some of you kind people could help me out with:
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Most of my tracks contain some sort of volume automation that is essential to the arrangement of the song. If it turns out that I need to boost the overall level of a track in the mix, what are some common practices of going about this? Is it alright to simply turn up the fader if only a few additional dB are required?
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Around what level should the master volume stay at for the mix? If you want to keep it right around 0 dB, is it alright to use a limiter on the master to catch peaks that are 1-2 dB above?
These are my two main questions. I'm sure I will have more once I begin the mixing, but I feel like knowing the answer to these will help my strategy for approaching this process a lot.
Any and all help, advice, thoughts, opinions, etc. are welcome! Let me know if I'm completely dumb, I want to learn!
Cheers
edit: Here is a link to my latest track where you can easily tell that the drop is basically turned to poop upon boosting the level. The verses sound pretty good in my opinion, but the more hectic parts of the song are ruined to be quite honest.
Submitted January 29, 2017 at 12:48PM by cgo435 https://www.reddit.com/r/edmproduction/comments/5quce7/some_detail_questions_on_mixing_a_song_after_its/?utm_source=ifttt