Mastering compression advice needed..

[evilcat]

The secret to a good mix is mental-disorder-like focus and insane amounts of time practising.

OK, I'm going to be a pain in the ass and disagree with the first part. I've watched some of the very best at work and have done this myself for a good long while.  In my experience you do not get to a great result by concentrating ever harder, that's just another part of the Gearslutz myth.

Truly great music is written, arranged and performed, not mixed.  If you have great music find a good balance and get out of it's way, perhaps add a little salt and pepper.  Ff you do not have good music no amount of "mental-disorder-like focus" will make your mix worth listening to.

I do realize I sound like an old man to save any of you the trouble pointing it out.

I totally agree! +10000

 

[etheory]

This is true of live music sure, but it's certainly not true of electronic music.
Electronic music isn't a performance so much as a continual process of refinement of sounds that don't or can't exist in the real world.
It's not as much about maintaining the integrity of a good performance when there isn't really any performance in the first place....

Patch creation for sounds, Composing, Mixing, Arranging, Mastering etc. etc. are much more fluid and interrelated in the EDM world.
I still stick by what I'm saying for electronic music, and still say it holds true regardless, but for a band, or a live recording, sure, it's totally different, but that's not what I was talking about.

I'm also talking from the POV of a "bedroom producer". As a professional mixing engineer, that gets stems and mixes them for someone else, then sure, again, you are absolutely right in that you want to maintain what they've given you, and quite often that process can happen quite quickly. But those stems themselves are already partially balanced, and in the context of a electronic music mix, would have already had a lot of time spent on them before you get them.

 

[ruairioflaherty]

This is true of live music sure, but it's certainly not true of electronic music.
Electronic music isn't a performance so much as a continual process of refinement of sounds that don't or can't exist in the real world.
It's not as much about maintaining the integrity of a good performance when there isn't really any performance in the first place....

I don't work much with electronic music  so I won't dispute what you say.  I'd be curious to hear who your benchmark artists are, the ones who inspire you.  I wonder how long there records take to make?  (Genuinely - I have no idea).  I do know a few very very heavy hitters in the genre though that I can ask personally.

I'm also talking from the POV of a "bedroom producer". As a professional mixing engineer, that gets stems and mixes them for someone else, then sure, again, you are absolutely right in that you want to maintain what they've given you, and quite often that process can happen quite quickly. But those stems themselves are already partially balanced, and in the context of a electronic music mix, would have already had a lot of time spent on them before you get them.

Professional mixers don't get stems from bands or producers, they get discrete tracks, often over 100!  Sometimes there is a very clear vision from the producer/artist, other times the mixers is free to shape and re process.

My original point with regard to most typical forms of music is that more time does not equal a better mix - and often makes it worse.  Use your gut, make quick decisions.

 

[joaquins]

My original point with regard to most typical forms of music is that more time does not equal a better mix - and often makes it worse.  Use your gut, make quick decisions.

I'm with you in this... if a mix doesn't make sense in 45' and isn't working good in 2hs there is a problem with it... then I take the time I need for automation and processing, I like to cut toms manually instead of using a gate and things like that, but the mix is already done by the time I do that so I don't change much after I edit all this things, as I said, some automation and fx like delays and such, but little eq and compression changes...

JS