Your mixing is obviously failing
I tried so hard not torespond with dumb sarcasm... I think I did a pretty good job of that.
Learn to mix first.
Thats kinda why I'm here buddy...
I don't even know what to take from that response, I mean... I know I've been a humble dude, I read more than I post, but I still cant see how to benefit from that respsonse...its like you're telling a drowning man to stop drowning...
Dac you kinda gave me some more to work with, but still left me a lil confused...
I am not asking you guys to teach me how to mix, the tutorials are everywhere...
I am basically asking if what I am trying to do can be done the way I am trying to do it or even at all...
Is the difficulty I am having mostly my weak mix skills, or is it mostly the task I've chosen?
Strange, now that I phrase the question like that it seems like I would already know the answer, but I dont...
Dac, since you played some of my work, do you think I need to go play with some canned sounds, or should I continue to bang my head on this?
Btw, thanks for checkin out my shit...
What Formant said about headroom was very VERY IMPORTANT.
Headroom is the amount of space in your musical playground(track).
Headroom has its limits, there is only so much frequency range and only so many volumes for each frequency.
I think your problem lies in the equing of the bass and kick. Because they both lie around a pretty tight region 50hz>95hz they can very easily clash.
There are also sounds in the sub bass region that you cannot hear but they will distort your mix(causing clipping), and you will be left wondering why the track is disorting when the volume isnt really loud. Its just that its loud in the frequency range you cannot hear or when it combines with the same frequencies of the kick the combined result is a peak.
Firstly to try and solve this particular problem....
First and foremost check is to see if any of the tracks are peaking at any point. Make sure no track peaks(EVER), make sure that the master output also never peaks(EVER). When applying the following methods always make sure that neither the master output or track output peaks at all. If you have to drop the volumes on all the tracks to prevent peaks then do so, thats what the mixer is for. Final output settings can be finalised after equing and compression, during the "Maximization/Limiting" stage.
So..
Put an eq on the bass track.
Try to cut below 30>40hz completely, depends on what eq you use to how easy this is to do (ie brick wall high pass filter being very easy, or rolloff band slightly trickier)
That should completely eliminate the sounds you cannot hear, allowing you to get more out of what you want to hear.(More Headroom)
To make the bass sound phatter boost slightly in the 50hz-65hz region, take away some muddiness at 300hz.
If it is still clashing with the kick you might have to put a little tight dip in at around 85 hz.
But you will also want to eq the drum track.
Apply the same cut off filtering as you did with bassline, but this time the cut off frequency is a little higher in the frequency range from around 50hz-60hz(variable to taste)...this stops some of the frequency clash and creates more headroom for the bassline.
You can boost slightly in the 85-95hz region to make the kick more defined, you can also remove muddiness around 300hz.
There is also sidechaining compression to consider at this point, which would drop the bass line for the kick to shine through. But thats a much more complicated technique.
I will say at this point that mixing is a very complicated subject, it really does take good monitors, a good mixing environment and ears that have been trained through years of practice to know what exactly it is they are hearing out for. Im just a traveller taking the same path as you are starting out on now. I still have shitloads to learn Im no expert by any means, but if there was anyone Id listen to about mixing and mastering Formant would be one of my prime go to people. Its what he does, and hes good at it. Dac also knows what hes talking about. I dont think Formant was being rude, and I think the very word headroom should have gotten you googling "audio headroom".
There is a lot of good material out there, including video tutorials for mixing and mastering. It really is one of those subjects that is so deep and technical, that there really is no quick way to learn, as the ears develop over time. You will be very surprised to go back over old material just to hate the way it was mixed, when your trained ears can hear what is wrong.
Is it worth learning to mix well?, fuck yeah, in this day and age, to be competetive and stand out you need high quality music(near radio ready at least). And it has opened some doors for me personally.
Is it easy, fuck no. Personally I have found it to be one of the most complicated parts of music production.
First step on the path to learning how to mix is effective use of eqing and mixer.
The EQ is the most basic tool for mixing after the mixer itself.
This is the foundation for everything else.
Learn about frequency ranges, and what sounds sit in what freq ranges. There used to be a couple charts flying around here at ill, it was a long time ago though, so might have to dig for them.
I learned a lot from those charts, you also have to understand how instruments sit in the stereo field, and how the stereo placement allows you to play sounds of of each other from left to right. And what sounds generally sit where.
ie Bass is mono so comes out of left and right equally.
hi hats generally sit more to the left, snares can have some panning applied, but it has also been said that they should be centered, thats up to you to decide.
I normally pan my strings to the left and the brass to the right, but there really is no set rules, just some guidelines, based on orchestral seating arrangements. And common sense with regard to the frequency of the sound being panned ( you really dont want pan a low freq bassline) basses are mono due to the nature of low freq(long bandwidth) sound)
Whereas panning of higher frequencies is very effective, as the higher frequency(tighter bandwidth) is much easier to percieve in the stereo field.
After the Mixer & EQ you have:
Filter (Much like an eq)
Reverb
Delays/Echos
Gates
Distortion
Compression/Limiting (Dynamics)
Expansion (Dynamics)
Those are the most fundamental tools for mixing, there are many other tools for many other things like noise reduction/cancellation, hiss filters, hum filters, as well as many other things. But to a beginner the fundamental tools is where to start.
I would also like to mention ADSR(Attack, Delay, Sustain, Release) as they are fundamental in sound design/engineering with synths. Sometimes they can be used to get a track to fit right into the mix, so are also valuable tools that can be used to get the ultimate final result.
I tried to be as helpful as a could off the top of my head, I would have liked to have used some images to help show what im trying to say, but i dont have any, sorry.
Dac has some great tutorials on compression, you really should check those out too.
I know you didnt want a mixing tutorial, but achieving distortion through a bad mix is not the way to go, distortion is achieved through distortion plugins.
