Mixdown, Dynamics & EQ (and related) Topic

[Cardioid]

Hmm that´s bad. I just checked my new song and the master fader is at around -10dB. It sounds quite clean now but probably I am doing some mistakes, otherwise I could move it up to -3dB. Except for the kick channel the other channels don´t clip tough. And the kick doesn´t sound as if it was clipped digitally, when I lower it´s volume it is just less loud so probably it doesn´t clip a lot. I have no clue what I am doing wrong..

Let me get this straight.. You've got your FADER at -10 dB? Point is that you should have your overall level at -3 dB.. Not just adjusting the fader to -10 Db. When mixing down you cannot have things clipping because you will leave no headroom for mastering and sounds will be masked in the mix.

[Stereotypes]

thank you @shrapnel and @cardioid

We'll now I realy wanna focus on mixdown because mixdown is one of the main resons I get stuck at making a track
and it's most of the time the lead I can't mixdown right to make it sound 'full' loud and wide
and this it what I find weird
listen to this first
well this is a lead I made and the mixer for this lead is
EQ for cutting
EQ for Boosting
Delay
Reverb
and now the weird part comes in I use a Izotope ozone
and I use the Stereo imaging - LOUDNESSMAXIMER and the EQ that is included in this VST
but the thing it the lead is very dry without the Loudness maximer on
listen
and I feel like this is not the right way to do it the maximer also makes the lead sound very over compressed or something or am I wrong?
I Realy wanna know how to get that fuller and wider sound the right way ( if this isn't the right way)

[Black Elision]

thank you @shrapnel and @cardioid

We'll now I realy wanna focus on mixdown because mixdown is one of the main resons I get stuck at making a track
and it's most of the time the lead I can't mixdown right to make it sound 'full' loud and wide
and this it what I find weird
listen to this first
well this is a lead I made and the mixer for this lead is
EQ for cutting
EQ for Boosting
Delay
Reverb
and now the weird part comes in I use a Izotope ozone
and I use the Stereo imaging - LOUDNESSMAXIMER and the EQ that is included in this VST
but the thing it the lead is very dry without the Loudness maximer on
listen
and I feel like this is not the right way to do it the maximer also makes the lead sound very over compressed or something or am I wrong?
I Realy wanna know how to get that fuller and wider sound the right way ( if this isn't the right way)

Try putting the Reverb on the Turn/Send channel and use something to shape that Reverb, like an eq and peak limiter or something like that. Also try layering your lead a little bit more, cause even dry it sounds very thin.

[Shrapnel]

if you want a wide sounding lead, why dont you bus the lead to to seperate aux channels and pan them equally to the respective sides?
do not use a maximizer on your leads, they fuck up mixes
heres an example i've just made:


the first bit is a bare lead, the second is with it panned! you should hear the difference!

[Neko]

@ Stereotypes:
Well I guess your problem is layering. The lead sounds quite thin because (I assume) you only got on layer. Add another, quieter, synth for your midrange and maybe two more, one for the left and one for the right side (just pan them equally). There you go, you got your highs, your mids, and your stereofeel.
This should do it. And maybe lenghten all of your tones, all in all it sounds a bit stacchato.

AND: don't use the maximizer on the lead, cause it works like a limiter, and when you go over your threshold it fucks up quite everything (because a limiter is a compressor with an infinite ratio, so no signal is let over the threshold, so you got overcompression in your case).
Hope I could help.

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I wanted to give my few cents to this topic too, but what I am going to make is a bit larger so I thought I start a new topic which can be found here:
http://harderstate.com/post419285.html#p419285

[ProspectOfficial]

I hate the fact compressors fuck with ur soundquality, even peaks can be eq'ed, try to use as less compressors in your mix, the only thing i use them for is sidechaining and indeed for kicks, to get that punchy sound,
My opinion..

Its not the compressor messing with the sound quality, its the user not knowing how to use a compressor properly!

I've said it a million times before, compressors are essential in all areas of music production & sound engineering. They are not a drag and drop, preset bashing units. Compressors will hold an unstable fader in place during the mix, tighten up drums, synths as well as providing the classic side chain and other compression effects.

This.

And if your compressor fucks up your sound, you've got bad settings. Or just a shitty compressor, which i think isn't the case.

Problem with huge peaks is that it's probably there because it gives the sound its original character. Like resonant screeches for instance. They can have a huge + 10 or +15 dB peak at some points. If you're going to eq that, your screech will sound shit because it had lost its characteristics, so in this case i'll use a compressor or the sonnox Oxford SurPressor which is a frequency dependant compressor.. And when you notice the compressor fucks up your sound, tweak your compressor over, because you've probably squashed the sound too much...

At this point i only talked about compressing leads and stuff, where i still prefer eq. Compressors have a wide range of possibilities so that cases i use sidechain for kicks, sidechain and sometimes a little bit of compressing on the master. To stay on topic, i think the biggest part of mixing your leads can be done by only eq'ing and thats why i prefer to only use o (soft) compressor in the hardest cases.

[Starkast]

Question, do you pan your snares, claps, percussions in the mix so you can give more room for the kicks,leads and etc.?

[ljk32]

That is entirely up to you. It'd depend on the section of the track and the way you'd carry it out (there may be times where you can be very creative with this stuff and times where it may be more 'appropriate', like if you were to have a breakbeat in your track, for example). Generally, Hardstyle doesn't require excessive panning of percussive elements, and it mostly comes down to personal taste. There isn't a right or wrong way to do it, but a snare panned noticeably to the right wouldn't sound ideal in a track.

[SCH]

Big Dnb/crossbreed snares in Stereo, otherwise I pan them 4-7% either left or right.
I always pan percussion to leave extra room for the kick seeing that my kicks often are quite cenetered since there's no big crunchy tail in 9/10 tracks that I make, so the kicks can't fill out that part of the stereo spectrum.

[Echidna]

I put claps down the middle with a 5-7ms delay on them, snares panned out very slightly, 5-7%