Mixing hiphop rnb and pop -IMPOSSIBLE!?!?

[Realziment]

Hey guys im getting so confused trying to mix my newest music and im been so hard on myself, because the new music im so happy with, but my mixing i am not. I do all my beats usually within nuendo using VSTi's and Kontakt, and it bangs hard but only when my mix bus is clipping, when i record my artists on there and theres nothing left to do but mix, but it just wont bang like i want when i bring all the faders down and get a nice balance and make sure its not clipping its just so low, any help here would be appreciated alot, i asked a mix engineer i used to work for who is really good and done some snoop and omarion and stuff to come mix 1 or 2 my songs on my system and ill pay him just to see what he does etc, to get a better idea of what i should be doing. Any tips for mixing these types of tracks just a starting point and how to get it to still bang after i bring down to a level of not clipping. Thanks guys!

[MikeyMike]

Nobody can answer your question unless you post some music, duh.

[Lrmusic]

Originally Posted by Realziment

Any tips for mixing these types of tracks just a starting point and how to get it to still bang after i bring down to a level of not clipping. Thanks guys!

You have to start with it down, and then make it bang.

At loud volumes, your ears naturally compress sound, making it sound better. In addition, as I read in the acclaimed Mixing Audio: Concepts, Practice, and Tools by Roey Ishaki, Fletcher and Munson showed that at higher volumes, you'll be proportionately more sensitive to lows and highs (compared to mids), which will make it sound better. So when you lower the volume it will suck. Souljah Boy disagrees.

[Tangible]

Originally Posted by Lrmusic

You have to start with it down, and then make it bang.

At loud volumes, your ears naturally compress sound, making it sound better. In addition, as I read in the acclaimed Mixing Audio: Concepts, Practice, and Tools by Roey Ishaki, Fletcher and Munson showed that at higher volumes, you'll be proportionately more sensitive to lows and highs (compared to mids), which will make it sound better. So when you lower the volume it will suck. Souljah Boy disagrees.

yeah, I've been mixing a lot lately, and I find my mixing has gotten exceptionally better when I learned that loud does not = better. Try to get your mixes sounding as good as possible at low volumes, heck even push down the meters of your tracks to prevent any clipping (even internal clipping inside plugins).

If you can make mixes sound good at low or moderate volumes, making them sound good loud is a peace of cake... you can just throw on a decent limiter from there or better yet, send it off to get mastered.

It's pretty easy for someone who knows some mastering to get a mix to sound loud, if it's a good mix. Go to the mastering section on this site, and check the before and afters. I think loudness is best achieved by the mastering guys then the mixers. If you insist on getting them loud yourself, study up on mastering.

Some people are skilled at making things loud and clear when they mix, but I think that takes a lot of experience. It's best to take the mixing and making things louder (mastering) as two separate steps.

Too often, I feel that less experienced mixers spend too much time trying to make their shit loud instead of focusing on the mix. In the end all you get is a distorted, over-hyped piece of crap...instead of a pretty good mix. You can get a half-decent guy who will master the songs you want to run with for pretty cheap....and the music will sound 10X better if you go that route. Any idiot can make a mix bang by peaking all the faders.

[Realziment]

I actually have just bought some mastering books to try achieve that. My problem is i can get nice mixes keep them low and not peaking and have a nice clean mix, but because of my bad habits of which where mistakes, mixing whilst having a limiter on the mix bus, the music now just doesnt hit as hard as it did before, and when i get a really nice low mix and use a limiter to bring it up it doesn't sound as loud as it should ahhh im so confused, and frustrated, you see im starting to see wrongs and rights and im been alot more harsh on myself so that my stuff is right.

[bigblessin]

maybe you need to start using a spectrum analyser. sometimes you can "overload" certain frequencies and then when it comes to the mastering part it wont hit like u want it. make your bass frequencies be the dominate part of the mix, other than the vocal, but make sure its not muddy down there. then when it comes to put that limiter on there u will see a dramatic difference.

[clivek]

If your mixes sound good at the mix stage ( and under 0db's ) then its seems like you need to look at your limiter settings !!?

Try increasing the attack time ?

Try a different limiter !

You might need to compress the whole mix before you limit !

Let the limiter clip if it sounds good !!

[piccazzo]

Take away the limiter and make you mix bang without it.
When you then apply a limiter with a gentle gain to make it louder you mix wont suffer as much.
I find it better to mix into a compressor instead of a limiter to glue the sound together and make it more punchy.