Well I've finally got to the stage of mixing down and compressing my first psy trance track but am finding it a bit tricky. Can anyone give me any hints?
I'm trying to get the final mix as loud as possible.. looking at a few pro tracks I can see that the kick drum goes pretty close to 0dB with everything compressed/limited to give a very loud mix.
The problem I'm getting is that some of my hi hats and synth notes come up well over the level of the kick drum when mixed down - especially when they fall on the same beat as a bass note. I've tried compressing the mix to get rid of these peaks - and even tried just reducing the volume of the offending parts. But this makes them too quiet - they get drowned out by the power of the kick and bass! Also the compression totally ruins the sound of the hats. It gives a slightly deadened and hollow sound compared to leaving things uncompressed.
I'm using quite a high pitched sharp hi-hat with lots of reverb - could it be i need to change it for something a bit fatter? (more like the standard open hi-hat type sound)... really don't want to as I'm attached to the one I'm already using!
Or do I just have to put up the compression messing things up a bit (judging by some heavily compressed albums I've heard.... yes!)
Can anyone give me any tips for successful compression? should i start trying out multiband compressors? This is my first track so I'm finding the learning curve a bit steep - I don't want to ruin it with dodgy compression...
I'm trying to get the final mix as loud as possible.. looking at a few pro tracks I can see that the kick drum goes pretty close to 0dB with everything compressed/limited to give a very loud mix.
The problem I'm getting is that some of my hi hats and synth notes come up well over the level of the kick drum when mixed down - especially when they fall on the same beat as a bass note. I've tried compressing the mix to get rid of these peaks - and even tried just reducing the volume of the offending parts. But this makes them too quiet - they get drowned out by the power of the kick and bass! Also the compression totally ruins the sound of the hats. It gives a slightly deadened and hollow sound compared to leaving things uncompressed.
I'm using quite a high pitched sharp hi-hat with lots of reverb - could it be i need to change it for something a bit fatter? (more like the standard open hi-hat type sound)... really don't want to as I'm attached to the one I'm already using!
Or do I just have to put up the compression messing things up a bit (judging by some heavily compressed albums I've heard.... yes!)
Can anyone give me any tips for successful compression? should i start trying out multiband compressors? This is my first track so I'm finding the learning curve a bit steep - I don't want to ruin it with dodgy compression...