One thing I noticed with my productions is that they lack punch compared to already mastered tracks, such as those released on beatport. When I lay out the waveforms for a side-by-side comparison, the “professional” tracks seem to have thicker (in width) wave forms, such as the kick drum hits etc… I spend a lot of time on my mixdowns and eq’ing because I know how important this step is. I usually do minute eq’ing on the master chain with a limiter on the end to bring the levels back up. I’ll put in a multipressor to bring out some inconsistencies, but mainly very subtle tweaks.
Is it possible to achieve industry loudness and punchiness without having to send the track to a professional mastering studio?
Pretty much what home boy said. Just remember, this is a marathon, not a sprint. Just take your time, learn as much as you can and eventually it will start to click before you know it.
I would suggest trying to do as little as possible in the mastering phase if you’re just learning. If you hear an area you think needs more punch, go back to the mix and try and fix it at the source first if you can.
Totally agree. Much better to adjust while mixing before you get to mastering. A lot of punch is achieved by properly Eq-ing in the mid range and effective compression. You’d be surprised by how little you sometimes have to do to achieve a proper mix. If you balance everything out nicely and keep it dynamically interesting, then you’re on the right track. Do not rely on mastering to bring the excitement out of your track.
Depends what you mean by punchiness, but im gonna say that that a lot of that comes from the higher frequencies of your kick drum. Don’t underestimate that effect on your tracks, same with bass lines. If all you have is the low end its going to sound muddy. If you are layering kicks, make sure you have a “top” kick in there and EQ it so its coming through with the punch you want. I even do this with my bass lines sometimes if the sound im using has too much low end. I’ll octave up the line and blend it in to add some punch, kind of like a reverse sub bass.
It really takes a lot of time and a huge amount of experimenting with your plug-ins to find the sound you are looking for.
Pretty much all mastering studios use a lot of outboard gear (and software) which can add a lot of colour and punch to tracks.. Espacially on the low end. Compressors, limiters, amps and EQ’s etc. Combined with years of experience! It’s very hard to replicate mastering studio results in your home studio
Try experimenting with some parallel compression on your drums if you want to gain some punch, or try swapping out your kicks for some different ones with a bit more oomph.
Side chain compression can add some punch too, allowing the kick to cut through the bass and give your track more of a swing.
Right on! I keep forgetting those EDM mixing tricks 'cause I haven’t mixed tracks like that in a while. Side-chain compression is where it’s at. If you’re serious about producing any kind of EDM be sure to get a handle on side-chaining.
For everything else, already a lot of good advice here.
One thing I always do in a mastering pass is roll off <30Hz and >20,000 Hz. I’m always amazed how much signal is going on outside of that range when I look at the track in a spectral analyzer (you are using a spectral analyzer right?). That signal is bringing down the overall loudness or pushing hotter into the limiter for no real gain since it’s basically outside of human hearing.
Another trick I always tell people is to run search peak on the pre-mastered wave form (if your DAW has this). If you are seeing a peak way above the general visible limit of the track, it can be easier to fix in the mix rather than fighting with the limiter on a single errant peak.
