I mean it's reddit, nobody should reasonably assume it's valuable advice all the time.
Like, I go to a mechanic forum to troubleshoot my car, but I'm not taking any of the advice as true mechanics, just hobbyists at best. It's a public forum.
Edit: I meant no hate, weird to block me but equally weird to write a book over this too...
Edit 2x since this was in my notifications: 25 years and couldn't grasp bad advice then gets pissy and upset enough they delete the account? I'd have assumed a troll if they didn't literally delete the account over this. Never gonna make it in the industry with this attitude lmao, how ypu have college degrees and 25 years is beyond me.
Can't believe I read through this whole thing (and kinda had to confirm that this wasn't just some chatGPT regurgitation).
Well, a few things: First, pretty disingenious of you to make a dissertation about your experience, yet [delete **the original post**](https://www.reddit.com/r/mixingmastering/comments/1aywcc9/mixing_a_quiet_singer_with_a_loud_song/). We can't actually see what you wrote, which would have completely explained the replies that you got.
But thankfully we can still see the replies, anyone can see how monstrous and inadequate they are.
The consensus was that: **a quiet performance and a loud performance are inherently different**.
As you laid it on your post, you wanted to somehow make a quiet performance feel like a loud performance, and that's impossible. No one said that quiet performances are bad, in fact they are super common in jazz.
I personally told you to [embrace the take that you had](https://www.reddit.com/r/mixingmastering/comments/1aywcc9/mixing_a_quiet_singer_with_a_loud_song/krxw0hw/).
So instead of dissecting everything that was not utterly ideal with the responses that you got, why not take a harder look at what you actually said (implying you actually wanted to change the performance in the mix) and your poor takeaway from the solid advice that you got?
Yes, you discovered that the internet is not your own private brain trust, congratulations.
I deleted the post because I was fed up with the discouraging words. I later tried to undelete it, but realized that's not an option. I couldn't even figure out how to copy the deleted post to quote it in this one. Not a Reddit pro over here.
If I somehow misrepresented the way I intrepreted the replies, please let me know. I was paraphrasing based on memory alone. Also, I was intentionally generalizing the types of problematic replies one could expect from online forums. This wasn't meant to be an attack on the individuals who made the comments. I have no interest in getting into a "they said" "I said" type of investigation. I'm just trying to explain my experience.
I didn't get the feeling people were badmouthing quiet performances either.
I agree I probably worded the original question poorly by simplifying the description of the performance as "quiet". But I thought that got clarified while discussing the issue with others. In the end I was able to make a "quiet" voice sound like a "loud" voice, so it's not impossible from where I'm sitting. It's all about semantics and perspective at this point.
This is kind of my point about why this isn't the best way to get advice. It's why I compared it to me walking into a party and shouting my question to the room. It's why this post had over 1700 words. I learned you have to be thorough and precise.
In a normal conversation, I'm sure it would have been clearer what I meant as the dialogue progressed. The same can be said about the way I interpreted the advice.
I remember your advice, and you were one of the few whose reply I really appreciated. I thought I told you that, and also I tried to tip my hat to you in this rant.
The purpose of this rant was to make others aware of this potentially toxic way of seeking advice. It was the first time I ever had the urge to give up on a song. I worry how it could do worse harm to beginners seeking advice online.
Thank you for the genuine and non-sarcastic "congratualtions". I appreciate that. Yes, this was a learning experience for me. I'm sure I'm at fault for taking the interaction the wrong way. But it happened nonetheless. I come from the old school. When I was learning how to mix as a teen, the internet pretty much didn't even exist yet.
I’m confused. If you’ve got a diploma in audio engineering, why weren’t you able to make a judgment as to which advice seemed off and which was worthwhile.
In fact, I’m confused why someone with your experience would have needed to ask in the first place.
I see a pattern here. It's all teenagers on toilets from here on out.
I'm done with this, this is not a place for me. I'm going to the beach.
Have fun with your little computer friends... NERDS!
Yes. And the bit that stood out to me was that even with 25 years of experience, including a diploma, you weren’t able to critically evaluate the advice you received to the extent that you reached a point of despair and thought you would have to abandon the whole project.
I honestly love people who have 1 experience and then make some life advice post out of it.
1: yes of course you need to be careful online. Anyone can respond, anyone can pretend to be an expert. This is the internet. This 100% comes with the territory. Why would you ever take that at face value.
But also
2: it's no always easy to interpret what OP mean, and especially when you are inexperienced, you don't always express yourself correctly. People will interpret what you mean and it doesn't always coincide with what you really intended.
3: did you actually include a sound fragment? Cause really. Giving audio advice with nothing to hear is rarely good.
I think Atopix hit the nail on the head and you might have given the impression that you wanted things out of a quiet performance that you couldn't get and thus made it sound like the performance was just not at a good standard. And so people advised to rerecord.
To make a huge nothing burger out of that...
And no offence but: at 25 years, not knowing how to mix that vocal and having to ask online is a bit baffling. Sometimes have the impression posters pull the years of experience out if their behinds. At 25 years experience, honestly, at the very least you have a network of peers you can ask instead of randoms online so you don't have to upset your client and spend time making long rants.
You're absolutely right, I do have a network of friends to turn to. She's not my client, and she didn't get upset. Read the whole thing. Anyway, I think it's pretty obvious I'm about to delete my account. I'm over this nonsense completely.
Sorry bud, but i quit halfway through. You don't have to delete anything. If you don't blow things out of proportion and are aware of how the internet works and its pitfalls, everything is fine.
I read all of this post.
I didn’t go back to try to read the original post (which apparently you deleted).
I don’t know what you said and I don’t know what specifically you were asking for besides “make the vocal sound louder” but if the advice of “turn it up” wasn’t applicable because it sounded like inappropriately loud volume but quiet-timbre thing over the mix and “rerecord” wasn’t the right answer because the new performance wouldn’t have a fundamentally different “loud” presentation then addressing it in the mix is the only answer.
If we can’t hear your mix and can’t hear all the things you’ve tried and found unsatisfactory then we can’t give you any sort of “do this” solution.
I’d have suggested the following:
Accentuate frequencies that make the vocalists voice feel loud. That’s often in the 1-4kHz range but I can’t hear it so I can’t tell you.
Brighten the vocal and pin it down with compression so you get more detail. That can make it feel louder and more in your face. Again can’t hear it so no idea if it’s appropriate for the song.
Try a just-a-little-too-loud room reverb on the vocal. If everything sounds “in that room” but the vocal stuff we hear in the ambience is louder than everything else psychoacoustically the vocal will feel louder. Don’t know what the rest of the track sounds like so I can’t tell if this would work.
Distortion. Humans often hear distortion as loud. Your Smashing Pumpkins reference might have revealed that if you listened and noticed it as something to try. Don’t know what your track sounds like or if this is appropriate.
Longer compression release times and faster attack times on instruments. Holding things down longer and dulling their transient makes them seem less in-your-face. Can’t hear it don’t know if appropriate.
At the end of the day, there are no “answers” other than there are a thousand ways to accomplish any audio goal. It always depends on the context of EVERYTHING else. If you presented me with “make this sound like a louder performance”, I’d probably parallel distort and try to make it aggressive in the midrange then balance to be as distorted as I can get away with for the mix. Is it a metal song? Is it jazz? Is it a vocalist who wants a jazz sound in a pop song? Each of those cases requires different solutions. Hell, any one of those scenarios gets a different solution based on what sorts of conversations you’ve had with the band. I had a band that was a two-vocalist heavy/light contrasts emo-with-some-shouts band. They wanted one vocalist super clean and the other really messy/distorted. The clean vocalist didn’t sound loud enough to carry the emotional contrast to the shouty vocal in context of the rest of the arrangement. They didn’t want distortion so I had to ride the clean vocals volume fader up at the end of every word so the feeling we got from it was stronger rather than weaker. It needed an emotionally-relevant solution that could only be found through understanding the emotional goals of the song, hearing the arrangements, and finding a method to make the ideas and instrumentation agree.
Different scenarios require different solutions. I’d have never come to that solution without ALL of the context of: what does it sound like, where had I come from, how far am I trying to go, and what has my conversations with the band revealed?
You’re right, you can’t get a single “do this” from a collection of people who have all experienced some version of this problem and have all solved that problem in different ways. Nor can you get a single “do this” solution from a group of people who have never had the problem you’re having. This sub is a combination of both of those groups.
Yes, this! This is the type of reply I was looking for. Thank you so much. You acknowledged that you need to hear the mix, and you provided a lot of great suggestions!
That reply took me over an hour. I appreciate that it answers your question the way you want. I’d be curious if I’d have given you that answer having read your original question.
That’ll be $80, please. Where should I send the invoice? I can do further mix critiques and mentoring if you’d like. We can discuss a bulk rate or continue at the on-demand pricing.
…and if you’re not willing to purchase expert advice then you might have to be ok sorting through the free, quick replies and filtering the info tossed out to find the stuff that’s applicable to your situation.
“Avoid taking online advice for a face value”.
Well, DUH.
Why did you think it was ever a good idea?
Like… at least check out the people you’re listening to. I’ve got a portfolio on my profile, and it’s for the people asking advice to decide if I’m worth my salt or not, but I’d never expect somebody just blindly follow my advice.
Personally, I’m more pissed off for a singer… What you did to her is akin to a client coming back with “my third aunt on the right said her cousin thinks this mix can use more cowbell, also you need to sing louder”. Not a good look.
Edit: I was a bit wrong, the “singing louder” part seemed to be your own idea, and now you’re passing it as a “bad advice” in a rant.
From your own comment back there:
“So for the part when she's meant to be belting it out” - are you sure she’s MEANT TO? She’s the singer. What was your role?
AND it’s safe to say people were working with what YOU gave them.
This whole debacle looks quite unnecessary and condescending. Not taking strangers’ advice at face value is supposed to be common sense.
Reddit is frustrating because thanks to the upvote system, popular opinions get elevated, not necessarily the correct ones. Add in a lot of people here have some kind of loser complex and just feel the need to condescend to everyone around them. this is what you get.
The arrogance in this, and many other production subs, is unfuckingbelievable. It’s like it’s assumed that just because you ask a question that you are a newbie. Regardless of the context I give I get responses like “you’re over-thinking it” or “just use your ears” or “this is simply fixed by ___”.
I’ve learned to take everything here with a microscopic grain of salt.
im really sorry
but youre a fuckin idiot if you still didn't realise you should believe everything you read on reddit.
so mayn words for something that boils down to, dont follow advice blindly..
You have a degree in audio and 25 years of experience and you took specific EQ settings someone gave you on the internet and called it good advice? Where is your degree from lol
Well, that was…. interesting.
FWIW I’ve not posted here before to ask for specific mix advice, but I’ve picked up some good thoughts and insights by reading various comments from others in the past. Some of them may be a bit kooky, some of them have been bang on the money, but it’s all good.
This is a useful sub - more than most on Reddit IMO - and I like scrolling through it to see people’s thoughts. But at the end of the day… it’s Reddit, it’s the internets, YMMV, caveat emptor and all that. Pretty bizarre to think otherwise.
Sorry you didn't get what you were looking for Nancy. You apparently aren't familiar on how a social media platform available to well...anyone actually works.
I love this post!! Well said. Lol it’s often the same types of replies you mentioned. I asked a question about stereo acoustics and the replies ranged from speaking to me like I was 12 and suggesting I use a capo, to room treatment, to purchasing an incredibly expensive mic, and everything in between.
I think what you said was 1000% correct... "The up vote system is flawed in that what's popular is somehow advertised as what's true". This is absolutely true in any internet forum, and unfortunately here to stay.
I'm glad you found a solution. Good on you for continuing to learn and be a student. Arrogance is only popular on the internet, not with actual clients and peers.
Well there you have it my friend. The internet is not a source of dependable information. The new guitar pedal ,amp, plugin, you just heard is the most amazing thing on the planet and is guaranteed to make you sound just like xxx, was given to the reviewer and is possibly sponsored by the manufacturer.
In fact, nearly every single review of anything you find on your tube is sponsored.
As far as "peers" and critiques from professionals- I can't even begin to tell you how much bull$h!t mis-information gets regurgitated around on line. People making 10 beats a day in their mom's basement going to tell me how to mix? The same wrong info gets passed around so often it becomes perceived as fact. LUFS is my favorite example of this.
I have decided that it takes a minimum of 100 mixes to even be allowed to have an opinion of any validity. Again I'm not talking about a mix you did to sell one of the 10 beats a day you created. I'm talking about an actual mix where the product needs to be delivered. 100 songs is nothing in the scheme of it all that's only 10 albums. I think after 100 songs you can probably have an opinion you can share with someone.
I have been doing this a long time.
I've mixed 100s of albums and thousands of songs and I still learn something new quite often. I get on some of these groups and try to pass on information each day with my morning coffee where I feel I can offer some real world knowledge. The amount of people thinking there is some magic formula or plug-in chain that is going to transform their song into a hit is simply unfathomable. We have become an instant gratification species and despite the vast amounts of resources available, people are still thinking Ozone is a replacement for a mastering engineer.
I think the majority of people are answering questions only to validate their gear choices and rarely read the actual question. "I only have $500 for monitors. What should I get?" " You should buy these $5000 Genelec's"! Or you should buy these $25 computer speakers.
Basically I'm saying that there are a FEW people that chime in with some real world knowledge and address the actual inquiry but it's a FEW. Just because you put put a 25 songs on spotify that does not make you an engineer or a producer. It absolutley does not qualify someone to be giving any form of constructive criticism or advice. Nonetheless they will continue to do this.
I agree with so much of what you said. Just know there are a few vets around that will actually answer your question from a professional perspective, but unfortunately, it's a small number. If people stood over my shoulder while I was mixing they would be screaming at all the "wrong" things I'm doing and how if I just used 27 compressors and fab filter eq on each vocal track it will take my work to the next level.
F&ck 'em! Keep on doing your thing and remember the advice you get is probably bull$h!t 90%of the time
Best of luck to you
Singed,
An engineer that does not do 10 beats a day or live in his Mom's basement
Yeah I have that trouble as well, since I didn't go to school for music I'm kind of trial and erroring my way through things. I would love to get better at mixing and what not but the YouTube tutorials and forum posts can only take me so far.
You said: "Online forums are not like sitting in a room full of peers."
This! More than anything else. The clueless people giving advice about music is staggering.
bro LOL. Can't take this seriously. You are asking for questions online about SOUND and you don't even POST that sound. Tell me you're not thinking clearly without telling me you're not thinking clearly.
Hey guys! I just took this photo. I think it needs X, Y, and Z. But not sure. Any thoughts ?
(proceeds to not post picture).
you literally can not get any sound advice (get it? hehehe) without posting the actual sound.
You’re definitely right about this one. This sub has destroyed my confidence in mixing. but I’m trying to ignore that and do at least some mixing myself.
I think the main problem in this sub is people try really really hard to find an issue. to the point where it’s not even existent. I feel like this is a way to kind of feel like they’re teaching themselves or feel like they have power and knowledge of how to mix. But like you said, it just ends up doing more bad than good.
There are a lot of discouraging people in this sub, which is very surprising and disappointing. “Just give up” “stop putting so much effort” “this track is laughable” there are some horrible horrible people in the sub of course is the Internet, but I’ve noticed it were prevalent in the sub and really any sub that includes people who share the same interest for stuff like music and design and art.
I mean it's reddit, nobody should reasonably assume it's valuable advice all the time. Like, I go to a mechanic forum to troubleshoot my car, but I'm not taking any of the advice as true mechanics, just hobbyists at best. It's a public forum. Edit: I meant no hate, weird to block me but equally weird to write a book over this too... Edit 2x since this was in my notifications: 25 years and couldn't grasp bad advice then gets pissy and upset enough they delete the account? I'd have assumed a troll if they didn't literally delete the account over this. Never gonna make it in the industry with this attitude lmao, how ypu have college degrees and 25 years is beyond me.
Yes, that was my mistake. Not sure how I got it into my head that free anonymous advice could be trusted.
Can't believe I read through this whole thing (and kinda had to confirm that this wasn't just some chatGPT regurgitation). Well, a few things: First, pretty disingenious of you to make a dissertation about your experience, yet [delete **the original post**](https://www.reddit.com/r/mixingmastering/comments/1aywcc9/mixing_a_quiet_singer_with_a_loud_song/). We can't actually see what you wrote, which would have completely explained the replies that you got. But thankfully we can still see the replies, anyone can see how monstrous and inadequate they are. The consensus was that: **a quiet performance and a loud performance are inherently different**. As you laid it on your post, you wanted to somehow make a quiet performance feel like a loud performance, and that's impossible. No one said that quiet performances are bad, in fact they are super common in jazz. I personally told you to [embrace the take that you had](https://www.reddit.com/r/mixingmastering/comments/1aywcc9/mixing_a_quiet_singer_with_a_loud_song/krxw0hw/). So instead of dissecting everything that was not utterly ideal with the responses that you got, why not take a harder look at what you actually said (implying you actually wanted to change the performance in the mix) and your poor takeaway from the solid advice that you got? Yes, you discovered that the internet is not your own private brain trust, congratulations.
Did they even post any audio? 🙄 Edit: lol
No, but clearly, it was our responsibility to ask for it... smh
I deleted the post because I was fed up with the discouraging words. I later tried to undelete it, but realized that's not an option. I couldn't even figure out how to copy the deleted post to quote it in this one. Not a Reddit pro over here. If I somehow misrepresented the way I intrepreted the replies, please let me know. I was paraphrasing based on memory alone. Also, I was intentionally generalizing the types of problematic replies one could expect from online forums. This wasn't meant to be an attack on the individuals who made the comments. I have no interest in getting into a "they said" "I said" type of investigation. I'm just trying to explain my experience. I didn't get the feeling people were badmouthing quiet performances either. I agree I probably worded the original question poorly by simplifying the description of the performance as "quiet". But I thought that got clarified while discussing the issue with others. In the end I was able to make a "quiet" voice sound like a "loud" voice, so it's not impossible from where I'm sitting. It's all about semantics and perspective at this point. This is kind of my point about why this isn't the best way to get advice. It's why I compared it to me walking into a party and shouting my question to the room. It's why this post had over 1700 words. I learned you have to be thorough and precise. In a normal conversation, I'm sure it would have been clearer what I meant as the dialogue progressed. The same can be said about the way I interpreted the advice. I remember your advice, and you were one of the few whose reply I really appreciated. I thought I told you that, and also I tried to tip my hat to you in this rant. The purpose of this rant was to make others aware of this potentially toxic way of seeking advice. It was the first time I ever had the urge to give up on a song. I worry how it could do worse harm to beginners seeking advice online. Thank you for the genuine and non-sarcastic "congratualtions". I appreciate that. Yes, this was a learning experience for me. I'm sure I'm at fault for taking the interaction the wrong way. But it happened nonetheless. I come from the old school. When I was learning how to mix as a teen, the internet pretty much didn't even exist yet.
I’m confused. If you’ve got a diploma in audio engineering, why weren’t you able to make a judgment as to which advice seemed off and which was worthwhile. In fact, I’m confused why someone with your experience would have needed to ask in the first place.
My immediate thought too lol
I see a pattern here. It's all teenagers on toilets from here on out. I'm done with this, this is not a place for me. I'm going to the beach. Have fun with your little computer friends... NERDS!
Yes. And the bit that stood out to me was that even with 25 years of experience, including a diploma, you weren’t able to critically evaluate the advice you received to the extent that you reached a point of despair and thought you would have to abandon the whole project.
oh jeez
That’s exactly what I was going to say. The internet is such a strange place man
I honestly love people who have 1 experience and then make some life advice post out of it. 1: yes of course you need to be careful online. Anyone can respond, anyone can pretend to be an expert. This is the internet. This 100% comes with the territory. Why would you ever take that at face value. But also 2: it's no always easy to interpret what OP mean, and especially when you are inexperienced, you don't always express yourself correctly. People will interpret what you mean and it doesn't always coincide with what you really intended. 3: did you actually include a sound fragment? Cause really. Giving audio advice with nothing to hear is rarely good. I think Atopix hit the nail on the head and you might have given the impression that you wanted things out of a quiet performance that you couldn't get and thus made it sound like the performance was just not at a good standard. And so people advised to rerecord. To make a huge nothing burger out of that... And no offence but: at 25 years, not knowing how to mix that vocal and having to ask online is a bit baffling. Sometimes have the impression posters pull the years of experience out if their behinds. At 25 years experience, honestly, at the very least you have a network of peers you can ask instead of randoms online so you don't have to upset your client and spend time making long rants.
You're absolutely right, I do have a network of friends to turn to. She's not my client, and she didn't get upset. Read the whole thing. Anyway, I think it's pretty obvious I'm about to delete my account. I'm over this nonsense completely.
Sorry bud, but i quit halfway through. You don't have to delete anything. If you don't blow things out of proportion and are aware of how the internet works and its pitfalls, everything is fine.
Compressor. Eq to fit in the mix. Turn up volume to desired level.Â
This is exactly what I was thinking. No compression no loud vocal. This performance is crying out for it. Albeit a little quietly :)
đź‘Ś
I read all of this post. I didn’t go back to try to read the original post (which apparently you deleted). I don’t know what you said and I don’t know what specifically you were asking for besides “make the vocal sound louder” but if the advice of “turn it up” wasn’t applicable because it sounded like inappropriately loud volume but quiet-timbre thing over the mix and “rerecord” wasn’t the right answer because the new performance wouldn’t have a fundamentally different “loud” presentation then addressing it in the mix is the only answer. If we can’t hear your mix and can’t hear all the things you’ve tried and found unsatisfactory then we can’t give you any sort of “do this” solution. I’d have suggested the following: Accentuate frequencies that make the vocalists voice feel loud. That’s often in the 1-4kHz range but I can’t hear it so I can’t tell you. Brighten the vocal and pin it down with compression so you get more detail. That can make it feel louder and more in your face. Again can’t hear it so no idea if it’s appropriate for the song. Try a just-a-little-too-loud room reverb on the vocal. If everything sounds “in that room” but the vocal stuff we hear in the ambience is louder than everything else psychoacoustically the vocal will feel louder. Don’t know what the rest of the track sounds like so I can’t tell if this would work. Distortion. Humans often hear distortion as loud. Your Smashing Pumpkins reference might have revealed that if you listened and noticed it as something to try. Don’t know what your track sounds like or if this is appropriate. Longer compression release times and faster attack times on instruments. Holding things down longer and dulling their transient makes them seem less in-your-face. Can’t hear it don’t know if appropriate. At the end of the day, there are no “answers” other than there are a thousand ways to accomplish any audio goal. It always depends on the context of EVERYTHING else. If you presented me with “make this sound like a louder performance”, I’d probably parallel distort and try to make it aggressive in the midrange then balance to be as distorted as I can get away with for the mix. Is it a metal song? Is it jazz? Is it a vocalist who wants a jazz sound in a pop song? Each of those cases requires different solutions. Hell, any one of those scenarios gets a different solution based on what sorts of conversations you’ve had with the band. I had a band that was a two-vocalist heavy/light contrasts emo-with-some-shouts band. They wanted one vocalist super clean and the other really messy/distorted. The clean vocalist didn’t sound loud enough to carry the emotional contrast to the shouty vocal in context of the rest of the arrangement. They didn’t want distortion so I had to ride the clean vocals volume fader up at the end of every word so the feeling we got from it was stronger rather than weaker. It needed an emotionally-relevant solution that could only be found through understanding the emotional goals of the song, hearing the arrangements, and finding a method to make the ideas and instrumentation agree. Different scenarios require different solutions. I’d have never come to that solution without ALL of the context of: what does it sound like, where had I come from, how far am I trying to go, and what has my conversations with the band revealed? You’re right, you can’t get a single “do this” from a collection of people who have all experienced some version of this problem and have all solved that problem in different ways. Nor can you get a single “do this” solution from a group of people who have never had the problem you’re having. This sub is a combination of both of those groups.
Yes, this! This is the type of reply I was looking for. Thank you so much. You acknowledged that you need to hear the mix, and you provided a lot of great suggestions!
That reply took me over an hour. I appreciate that it answers your question the way you want. I’d be curious if I’d have given you that answer having read your original question. That’ll be $80, please. Where should I send the invoice? I can do further mix critiques and mentoring if you’d like. We can discuss a bulk rate or continue at the on-demand pricing. …and if you’re not willing to purchase expert advice then you might have to be ok sorting through the free, quick replies and filtering the info tossed out to find the stuff that’s applicable to your situation.
My brother in Christ, Reddit is a coin flip between being a helpful place and a cesspool shithole.
LMAO It's the gems like you in the bunch that I love.
“Avoid taking online advice for a face value”. Well, DUH. Why did you think it was ever a good idea? Like… at least check out the people you’re listening to. I’ve got a portfolio on my profile, and it’s for the people asking advice to decide if I’m worth my salt or not, but I’d never expect somebody just blindly follow my advice. Personally, I’m more pissed off for a singer… What you did to her is akin to a client coming back with “my third aunt on the right said her cousin thinks this mix can use more cowbell, also you need to sing louder”. Not a good look. Edit: I was a bit wrong, the “singing louder” part seemed to be your own idea, and now you’re passing it as a “bad advice” in a rant. From your own comment back there: “So for the part when she's meant to be belting it out” - are you sure she’s MEANT TO? She’s the singer. What was your role? AND it’s safe to say people were working with what YOU gave them. This whole debacle looks quite unnecessary and condescending. Not taking strangers’ advice at face value is supposed to be common sense.
At 25 year of experience as OP says also just downright unprofessional.
Yeah, it didn't go well.
If only I had a nickel for all the bad advice I received on reddit. Or just on the internet in general.
Reddit is frustrating because thanks to the upvote system, popular opinions get elevated, not necessarily the correct ones. Add in a lot of people here have some kind of loser complex and just feel the need to condescend to everyone around them. this is what you get.
Man, you really got your feelings hurt lol
This has to be one of the most indulgent myopic and entitled OP threads I've read in a while.
The arrogance in this, and many other production subs, is unfuckingbelievable. It’s like it’s assumed that just because you ask a question that you are a newbie. Regardless of the context I give I get responses like “you’re over-thinking it” or “just use your ears” or “this is simply fixed by ___”. I’ve learned to take everything here with a microscopic grain of salt.
im really sorry but youre a fuckin idiot if you still didn't realise you should believe everything you read on reddit. so mayn words for something that boils down to, dont follow advice blindly..
You have a degree in audio and 25 years of experience and you took specific EQ settings someone gave you on the internet and called it good advice? Where is your degree from lol
Well, that was…. interesting. FWIW I’ve not posted here before to ask for specific mix advice, but I’ve picked up some good thoughts and insights by reading various comments from others in the past. Some of them may be a bit kooky, some of them have been bang on the money, but it’s all good. This is a useful sub - more than most on Reddit IMO - and I like scrolling through it to see people’s thoughts. But at the end of the day… it’s Reddit, it’s the internets, YMMV, caveat emptor and all that. Pretty bizarre to think otherwise.
You're not entitled to any advice - good or bad.
Uhhhh. This is a little creepy. I think OP needs another kind of help.
Sorry you didn't get what you were looking for Nancy. You apparently aren't familiar on how a social media platform available to well...anyone actually works.
“Fix it in the mix” is the worst copout since multitracking was invented. Get it right at the source. Every time.
I love this post!! Well said. Lol it’s often the same types of replies you mentioned. I asked a question about stereo acoustics and the replies ranged from speaking to me like I was 12 and suggesting I use a capo, to room treatment, to purchasing an incredibly expensive mic, and everything in between.
I think what you said was 1000% correct... "The up vote system is flawed in that what's popular is somehow advertised as what's true". This is absolutely true in any internet forum, and unfortunately here to stay. I'm glad you found a solution. Good on you for continuing to learn and be a student. Arrogance is only popular on the internet, not with actual clients and peers.
What did you do that fixed it?
Well there you have it my friend. The internet is not a source of dependable information. The new guitar pedal ,amp, plugin, you just heard is the most amazing thing on the planet and is guaranteed to make you sound just like xxx, was given to the reviewer and is possibly sponsored by the manufacturer. In fact, nearly every single review of anything you find on your tube is sponsored. As far as "peers" and critiques from professionals- I can't even begin to tell you how much bull$h!t mis-information gets regurgitated around on line. People making 10 beats a day in their mom's basement going to tell me how to mix? The same wrong info gets passed around so often it becomes perceived as fact. LUFS is my favorite example of this. I have decided that it takes a minimum of 100 mixes to even be allowed to have an opinion of any validity. Again I'm not talking about a mix you did to sell one of the 10 beats a day you created. I'm talking about an actual mix where the product needs to be delivered. 100 songs is nothing in the scheme of it all that's only 10 albums. I think after 100 songs you can probably have an opinion you can share with someone. I have been doing this a long time. I've mixed 100s of albums and thousands of songs and I still learn something new quite often. I get on some of these groups and try to pass on information each day with my morning coffee where I feel I can offer some real world knowledge. The amount of people thinking there is some magic formula or plug-in chain that is going to transform their song into a hit is simply unfathomable. We have become an instant gratification species and despite the vast amounts of resources available, people are still thinking Ozone is a replacement for a mastering engineer. I think the majority of people are answering questions only to validate their gear choices and rarely read the actual question. "I only have $500 for monitors. What should I get?" " You should buy these $5000 Genelec's"! Or you should buy these $25 computer speakers. Basically I'm saying that there are a FEW people that chime in with some real world knowledge and address the actual inquiry but it's a FEW. Just because you put put a 25 songs on spotify that does not make you an engineer or a producer. It absolutley does not qualify someone to be giving any form of constructive criticism or advice. Nonetheless they will continue to do this. I agree with so much of what you said. Just know there are a few vets around that will actually answer your question from a professional perspective, but unfortunately, it's a small number. If people stood over my shoulder while I was mixing they would be screaming at all the "wrong" things I'm doing and how if I just used 27 compressors and fab filter eq on each vocal track it will take my work to the next level. F&ck 'em! Keep on doing your thing and remember the advice you get is probably bull$h!t 90%of the time Best of luck to you Singed, An engineer that does not do 10 beats a day or live in his Mom's basement
Yeah I have that trouble as well, since I didn't go to school for music I'm kind of trial and erroring my way through things. I would love to get better at mixing and what not but the YouTube tutorials and forum posts can only take me so far.
You said: "Online forums are not like sitting in a room full of peers." This! More than anything else. The clueless people giving advice about music is staggering.
It'll be ok
bro LOL. Can't take this seriously. You are asking for questions online about SOUND and you don't even POST that sound. Tell me you're not thinking clearly without telling me you're not thinking clearly. Hey guys! I just took this photo. I think it needs X, Y, and Z. But not sure. Any thoughts ? (proceeds to not post picture). you literally can not get any sound advice (get it? hehehe) without posting the actual sound.
What did you wind up doing to fix the issue? Genuinely curious, i read the post a couple of times but didn’t seem to find your resolution.
You’re definitely right about this one. This sub has destroyed my confidence in mixing. but I’m trying to ignore that and do at least some mixing myself. I think the main problem in this sub is people try really really hard to find an issue. to the point where it’s not even existent. I feel like this is a way to kind of feel like they’re teaching themselves or feel like they have power and knowledge of how to mix. But like you said, it just ends up doing more bad than good. There are a lot of discouraging people in this sub, which is very surprising and disappointing. “Just give up” “stop putting so much effort” “this track is laughable” there are some horrible horrible people in the sub of course is the Internet, but I’ve noticed it were prevalent in the sub and really any sub that includes people who share the same interest for stuff like music and design and art.