Sorry I'm late to the covnersation about vocal doubling. I use chorus effects too - along with a slight delay. Actually I learnt a lot of tricks by using Izotope's plugins and studying presets then researching further. They also have a ton of good videos on mixing vocals.

Another tip... I tend to record one very forward version and sit one further back behind it, both "lead" with the same effects etc. For the main lead, I boost highs a little and in the backing one I cut them. This allows for the lead to cut through the mix.

As for favourite chorus in terms of mixing, it has to be Disturbed - Never Wrong (in fact the whole album is exquisitely produced). Check out the chorus here at 0:50:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EWTnmYUPpU

Notice the low end? Listen carefully - to show the step up from the verse to the chorus then again from the first half of the chorus to the second half there's a boost in the low frequencies that hits hard but doesn't take over the mix. This, to me, is masterful. I was blown away when I first heard this.

No worries, it's always fun to discuss stuff! Oh! I actually use that technique with the up front high boost + sat back high cut when mixing centered double-tracked rap vocals (sometimes on sung vocals too) :D It gives a slightly different feel to just plain-old doubling. Great tip! Thanks for sharing!

Dang I love that production style in the Disturbed track (I think most of the Disturbed stuff I've heard has always sounded kickass!). I hear what you mean at the chorus impact. It sounds to me like they've added a high-decay 808 kick drum to emphasise those points with a big sub bass boom, rather than boosted the lows in another aspect of the mix, but I love it! It's a technique I've only discovered in the last year or so, but it's become one of my favourites! Again, thanks for sharing, that was awesome!

Hi everyone! It's the beginning of another month and I've just sent out my final (for now) JabunAudio audio / music production newsletter. No new topic to discuss, but this time I'm introducing the JabunAudio article archive where you can check out all of the past issues for lots of great tips and discussions. Sign up for free on https://www.jabunaudio.com/ to get all the access!

For those of you who've been keeping up with it over the past year (or if you've just signed up and read through), which was your favorite article? I hope to get back to the series at some point in the future, but for now I'll be taking a bit of a break. Still, it's always fun to discuss topics here, so I encourage you to bounce ideas about what you read here on Newgrounds and I'll be around to add my thoughts when I can. Thanks for reading and hope you enjoy it!

Hard to say, but I think either clipping vs limiting or dynamic vs condenser were the ones I personally had the most use of. Lots of interesting reading with all of them though, especially the latter ones, delving into more and more advanced topics with each one it seems... overall it's been an informative year! Thanks for sharing all this knowledge too.

No worries at all CD and super happy you got something out of it :) Cheers!

Hi everyone and hope you're having a great start to the weekend! For those of you interested in the music I make, I've just released the lead single from my upcoming 2nd full-length album as Better Than The Book, Hopes and Dreams! The lead single is titled "Meteor Shower" and employs many of the music production techniques that I've discussed in this thread so have a listen and check out the track here on Newgrounds:

And if you like it, head over to the news post below to read more about the album, watch the lyric video for Meteor Shower, check out the album art, and pre-order Hopes and Dreams on Bandcamp!

https://jabun.newgrounds.com/news/post/1052434

I hope you enjoy it, and if you have any questions about the production techniques, I'd be happy to share my thoughts and discuss them. Looking forward to your thoughts!

I think dat a couple of my songs is pretty mastered I need different opinions

Hi there! There are a fair few good mastering engineers here on NG. Post up a track when you can and we can take a listen and share our thoughts if you're happy to :)

I start to mix and master shit like how dubstep prod doing it, realized it help my cinematic production a lot. Cos like dubstep and dnb, it's eventually depending on how many sounds you can fit in the song without killing too much of the dynamic.

Hi everyone and hope you're having a great start to the weekend! For those of you interested in the music I make, I've just released the 2nd single from my upcoming 2nd full-length album as Better Than The Book, Hopes and Dreams! It's back to my ska punk roots for this one and "Artificial Ignorance" employs many of the music production techniques that I've discussed in this thread including vocal production techniques, blending horns with heavy guitar, and making the chorus hit hard and sound huge! Have a listen and I hope you enjoy it:

And if you do like it, head over to the news post below to read more about the album, and check out the previous single and pre-order Hopes and Dreams on Bandcamp!

https://jabun.newgrounds.com/news/post/1055545

Hope you enjoy it, and if you have any questions about the production techniques, I'd be happy to share my thoughts and discuss them. Looking forward to your thoughts!

Hi everyone and hope you're having a great start to the weekend! For those of you interested in the music I make, I've just released the 3rd and final single from my upcoming 2nd full-length album as Better Than The Book, Hopes and Dreams and it's more ska punk with this this one: "(The Travelling To See Eva Song)"! Once again this track employs many of the music production techniques that I've discussed in this thread including vocal production techniques, blending horns with heavy guitar, and making the chorus hit hard and sound huge! Have a listen and I hope you enjoy it:

And if you do like it, head over to the news post below to read more about the album, and check out the previous singles and pre-order Hopes and Dreams on Bandcamp!

https://jabun.newgrounds.com/news/post/1058825

Hope you enjoy it, and if you have any questions about the production techniques, I'd be happy to share my thoughts and discuss them. Looking forward to your thoughts!

I usually just use mastering websites. I've always done that because I've found that when I try to master something it doesn't always come out the way I want it to. I also think it's easier, but then again you don't really have control over how the final master sounds if you use online mastering.

If it gets the results you want then that's the main thing and it's definitely easier and cheaper than hiring someone, though as well as not really having control over how the final master sounds, if you use an automated mastering system you're not getting feedback on your mix to really get it sounding the best it can be. The website's not going to message you to say "actually I think this bit needs just a little more/less something", it's just going to do the best with what it's given and send it back.

The job of a (good) mastering engineer should be to be the final line of checking to present the music in the best possible way for distribution (as well as prepare it for specific formatting if need be such as cutting vinyl masters which will physically play well). When people are using "Mastering" websites, they're only really getting a small amount of the service that a mastering engineer should be providing, although you're only paying a fraction of the cost so it may feel justifiable. You're also not getting that personal treatment for your own music, sure it'll measure the frequency content and adjust as necessary differently depending on the source material, but you're unable to say, "I like the overall sound of this artist, could you try to get it sounding similar to that". You're getting an optimized version of what you're providing the automated system but not nessessarily the most optimized version, and I think this is something that comes from a really good back and forth discussion with your mastering engineer, something you cant get from an automated system.

That said, good and affordable mastering engineers aren't within everyone's budgets and an automatated system can feel like the lesser of a few evils when compared to not mastering at all or mastering things yourself when you're not able to get the results you're after. If people do decide to opt for an automated system though, I think at the very least it'd be best to run their mix by someone who has a good and experienced ear for mixing, music and audio engineering at a technical level to make sure they aren't putting out something which has any major errors, and effectively wasting their money by mastering something which isn't ready yet.

Those are my thoughts anyways, but I must admit that I'm definitely biased having worked as a mastering engineer for a fair few years now XD Can't have those websites stealing my clients, but I think it's more important just to make people aware of the differences in the services being provided by the websites vs hiring a human to do it. And that's not to say that automated systems can make pretty good if not great masters depending on the source material, but you don't get that back and forth to really make the best of your music. There are so called mastering engineers who can make your music sound terrible too and charge an arm and a leg for it though those people hopefully don't last too long in the industry. The trick is finding a mastering engineer you can trust, get along with and knows your genre of music really well, and you can be sure you'll have a good relationship for years to come making top notch tunes which will show off your music in the best way possible.

Hi everyone and hope you're having a great start to the weekend! For those of you interested in the music I make, today I released my 2nd full-length album as Better Than The Book, “Hopes and Dreams”, a 10 track / 39+ minute, heartfelt ska-punk journey. Whether or not the aggressive fusion of ska and punk rock is your jam, the album puts to great use many of the music production techniques I’ve discussed in this thread which I’d love to share with you! You’ll find plenty of examples of:

1. Dynamic microphones used for vocals (including traditional sung, rap and screaming)
2. Huge layered gang vocals
3. My hybrid guitar recording set-up
4. Faking stereo double tracked vocals (the JabunAudio way)
5. Making space for horns in a guitar heavy mix
6. Making Chorus hit hard when they come in and sound huge

As well as all the stuff you can’t hear doing its job such as clipping vs limiting, the importance of metering, the various ways to reference audio when producing, and preparing your track for mastering. The album is free to stream on Bandcamp and will be up on streaming services such as Spotify, iTunes and Amazon soon, and if you like it, feel free to pick up a copy from Bandcamp or get that and more when you support my work over on Patreon. I'll of course be uploading the rest of the tracks to Newgrounds as well, one a week starting this coming Wednesday!

https://betterthanthebook.bandcamp.com/album/hopes-and-dreams

https://www.patreon.com/NickStanding

I hope you enjoy it, and if you have any questions about the production techniques, I'd be happy to share my thoughts and discuss them here. Looking forward to your thoughts!

Hi everyone and hope you're having a great week so far! Just a quick one to say that Better Than The Book's "Hopes and Dreams" is now up in full on Newgrounds! Check it out via the full album stream below, or via the playlist of the individual tracks:

https://www.newgrounds.com/playlists/view/4de7b9bd11545537f082fae812c1395f

I hope you enjoy all the music which as I mentioned in the previous posts demonstrates many of the production techniques we've discussed in this thread. If you like it then head over to Bandcamp to pick up a copy, or grab the full album and complete Better Than The Book discography now when you become a supporter on my Patreon page:

https://betterthanthebook.bandcamp.com/

https://www.patreon.com/NickStanding

With today being the final day of the album's formal promo campaign too, I wrote up a post reflecting on all the achievements of the album so far including being featured on many radio stations all over the world from idobi Radio in California, to some more local stations in the UK, all the way to Australia where it was featured on the #2 ska music radio show / podcast in the world! Crazy stuff, and feel free to read more if you're interested via the Newgrounds post below:

https://jabun.newgrounds.com/news/post/1067595

That's about it for this post, and it'll be a little while until the next one as I'm moving town / house / studios next week! Hope to be back to it mid October, so expect the next post to be around then. Thanks as always for supporting my music and projects, keep hard at work on your own and take care!

It honestly for me depends what kind of music I write for mixing and mastering. I write several genres. But when it comes to trap bass boosted music, I usually don’t eq the lows. While mastering I always try to cut the lowest, like as low as possible, part so it’s not muddy.

Yeah I pretty much already knew that.

I usually export the song as a .wav file and then drop it onto a new song project specifically for mastering. I do the mastering and then export it as a .mp3 file, then I upload it.

Settings. It’s hard to explain. I would have to do screen shots to show you. Do you use fl studio?

Hi everyone and hope you're having a great start to November! It's a little later than anticipated, but after almost 2 months of downtime, I'm super excited to announce that my audio production business JabunAudio is finally relocated, calibrated and open again to help with all your digital mastering, music production, and animation audio needs!

Feel free to explore the portfolio and services list to see what JabunAudio is all about, and if you're a creator who uses audio then I look forward to working with you on your projects soon!

https://www.jabunaudio.com/

Some small website updates as well as a new mastering demo reel for 2019 will be coming soon too. Feels great to be back to it!

Hi everyone and hope you've got a fun weekend lined up!

Following from the last post and for those of you interested in the audio production work I do (from a creative, technical or business point of view), I've just put out a new Mastering and Music Production Demo Reel for 2019 featuring music from Better Than the Book's recent "Hopes and Dreams" album! For each pair of clips, the first version is the final mix made up against a generic limiter (to match loudness with the final master), and the 2nd is the final master as released. As well as being the mastering engineer (as demonstrated in the reel), I was also the composer, performer, recording and mix engineer, and producer for all these tracks, so this serves as a demo reel for those services too.

Check out the description in the audio portal and explore my services and portfolio as JabunAudio for more information, and I look forward to working with you on your own projects!

Listen to and purchase the full “Hopes and Dreams” album here:

https://betterthanthebook.bandcamp.com/album/hopes-and-dreams

And find out more about Better Than The Book on the project’s website:

https://betterthanthebookuk.weebly.com/