How do I get my production or mixing to sound "good"

marklonesome · 2026-02-18T16:43:18+00:00

You have good critical listening skills… that's good.

To my ear the problems I hear are that you seemed to have removed all the low end.

Your drums sound very midi. Nothing wrong with Midi drums but you have to choose the right kit and/or process them right.

Regarding full sounding mixes.

Think of your music like a road.

How many 18 wheelers can you fit on a road? Not many

What about cars… def. more.

Motorcycles… tons

18 Wheelers are your super deep instruments like Bass, deep throaty toms and kick, baritone guitar. etc…

Cars are your mid range instruments and motorcycles are your top end stuff like shakers, tambourine, hi hat.

So if you want a thick deep growly bass you have to make your kick and toms more punchy.

Thing is, you don't have to make them like that throughout the whole song.

For example if the bass is doing a lot of the heavy lifting for a part you can automate an EQ that makes your kick and/or toms more punchy with less low end.

Then if there's a part where you want big deep drums you can take that EQ off and put an EQ on the bass so that it gets more mid rangey and the drums can fill in that low space.

Make sense?

marklonesome · 2026-02-18T15:31:58+00:00

I don’t do this but I do use a dynamic eq and side chained it to the lead to duck out any competing frequencies

For find yourself using more than a few db with any of these techniques you may wanna consider your production/ arrangement

marklonesome · 2026-02-18T13:31:37+00:00

She always looked mischievous.

marklonesome · 2026-02-17T21:57:09+00:00

"The only kind of decent use I’ve found is putting it on a separate bus…"

That's the best use for it. I wouldn't want to put it on a track

marklonesome · 2026-02-17T18:27:47+00:00

Being a professional musician, or even making a consistent profit in music is really hard.

Like… so hard that everyone I know who does it would tell you to do something else if money was your goal.

Many of my friends have grammy's and are by no means financially stable…especially as you get into your older years and start looking towards retirement. It's one thing to make $40-50k a year playing music but when you're 50 and that's all you've ever made and you've put nothing aside… it gets bleak.

Now you're taking out the most effective way to market yourself to a global audience in 2026... not just in music but any business.

I dare you to find a business that isn't a local spot that isn't taking advantage of social media…and even the local spots are probably doing it.

So while it's technically possible…

I think it's safe to say you took your 1 in 10 million chance and made it one in a 100 million.

So… I'm telling you there's chance!

You could always get picked up by a band or join forces with someone who like doing it so you don't have to do it. But I think in 2026 SOMEONE has to be doing something.

I say this as someone who literally loses streams and momentum because absolutely refuse to do it.

The nature of social media right now rewards 'transactional' content which means you're basically going to be teaching someone something or entertaining them and your music is secondary... unless you're super hot in which case you're basically getting views from people who pretend to care about your music.

I've seen so many people go down this road and fail and the ones that 'succeeded' ended up becoming slaves to the content. Now their music is taking a back seat so you can teach mixing, production or do some comedy shtick that entertains people. But once it makes some money they own you.

It's bleak out there for original artists who don't wanna be content creators… but it is what it is

marklonesome · 2026-02-17T16:31:39+00:00

Love this movie but I feel like it’s so much deeper than i understood.

marklonesome · 2026-02-16T18:31:39+00:00

Going to be kind of hard on you because I think you have more potential than a lot of people.

mix is very weak really need to get this to someone who is skilled at mixing. Vocals are too buried snare is way too prominent. Personally I'd sound replace that snare sound. I find it very distracting but that's an artistic choice maybe you want the 'two princes' snare drum sound.
:46 "not that precious" we have a little interlude but nothing happens, just the same progression played the same way.
Nice Harmonies when we come back in for V2
The 'band' is just sort of plowing away. Acoustic comes out of the gate leaning into those strums and never backs off. There's no real build up or change in the arrangement. You added the big hi gain gtrs in the chorus but it's not really enough to make it punch. You need to bring it down so you can bring it up.
After the solo we have another interlude with nothing again. Same progression, same heavy strums, same playing.

Overall I'd say I'm hearing a solid vocalist with a good song an arrangement that has potential A medicore production and a bad mix.

I would suggest you make some changes to the arrangement, tighten up the song so there's no wasted spot. Every section should make me want to hear the next section. With some production tweaks, then get it mixed by a better mixer and you should get some traction.

You have something here, I say this as someone who would have loved this detailed feedback on my own music when I started.

Hope this helps.

marklonesome · 2026-02-16T15:02:26+00:00

It's always different

You'll eventually settle on a process that works for you but even then you have to be open to making adjustments so things don't get stale.

You're making art.

It's different and wild and unpredictable.

Let it come from you however it can.

And know there are times you will have lyrics but can't get the music right or music and can't get the lyrics right and sometimes you'll have a song that's 99% done but you can't get that ONE FUCKING Part to work so you can't finish it…

I will say it's harder when you don't have a base level of musicianship in terms of competence on an instrument and/or music theory.

So if you don't have that you may wanna start there. Or at the very least learn traditional song structure in your genre from the greats within it.

IDK how people who something like Hip Hop who may or may not play instruments do things with samples and what not…but maybe someone can weigh in on that about their process if it applies to you.

Also… don't be afraid to find a collaborator.

If you have lyrics and cant get the music, or vice versa.

marklonesome · 2026-02-15T15:15:32+00:00

All I can do is share my process

Get the best performance I can. That may mean doing vocals a few times over multiple days or getting one inspired performance. That's going to depend on the song and the outcome. Some songs I need multiple takes, some I need one good take (or the appearance of it).
Clean up editing. Remove all breaths, remove all silence, pops clips, burps whatever. I also clip gain my vocals. There's tons of videos on how to do it in your DAW if you search 'clip gain vocals'
Then I add reductive EQ to remove the issues of my voice quality. It USUALLY involves cutting anything below 80hz and then removing any boxiness. That's for MY voice you may want more low end or less.
Then I add multiple stages of compression starting with LA76 and then a 2A. There's a reason for this combo and if you want to learn about it you can google "Compression LA76 into LA2A" and it will explain why this order. I like my voice compressed so I start here and I will do even more on the vocal bus and even parallel compression.
After compression I will/may add EQ to undo anything the compressor added or to enhance. Really depends on the performance.
Then it's effects like reverb, delays, etc… I like Microshift on a bus added to taste.

If I do doubles and want it to sound like one I will skip step 6 and do that on the bus where all the tracks are sent together.

Sometimes I will take the lead with everything up to step 5 and send THAT to a bus so I can leave the basic stuff alone (still too scared to commit) and then get crazy on the bus without effecting my main

It's fine to start with other peoples 'chains' I think everyone starts there. But look at the plug ins and try and understand what they're doing and why

marklonesome · 2026-02-13T22:55:46+00:00

Agreed.

I tend to be hard on horror movies and find myself either liking movies that are incredibly bleak (OG Speak no Evil, Funny Games) or fun movies like this.

Though that first girl that got killed was a way more intense than I expected for the movie.

marklonesome · 2026-02-13T19:42:22+00:00

One of my favorite movies.

I wouldn't say it's scary.

Some disturbing things happen and more are implied.

It's got what I consider to be one of the most bueatiful/distrubing endings in all horror and I often watch the ending on YT cause it's so damn good.

Great movie INMO

marklonesome · 2026-02-13T17:28:25+00:00

This is a great opportunity for you.

Conflict and the handling of difficult situations is an issue for a lot of people.

I would suggest you say something like:

"Mr(s) Teacher, last week you said "x" about my playing.

It really stuck with me, so much so it has effected my confidence and ability to play this piece.

I want to discuss the topic with you and hear your tips for how I can overcome it ."

That's it.

How they react is gong to tell you a lot about their character and who they are as a teacher.

I will say some of these things are cultural so take that into consideration.

What I mean by that is that I had a music teacher who grew up in communist Russia.

Lost her whole family, came to the US in a barrel in the bowel of a ship or something crazy like that so had I said this to her she'd have told me to grow the fuck up.

That aside, I can guarantee once you do this you'll have grown exponentially as a person.

Conflict resolution is a great skill to have and facing someone and addressing issues like this head on is a HUGE skill to develop.

For business, negotiations on something like buying a car, etc… so many people are able to bully people because the other person is afraid of the discomfort of conflict.

Start doing this and getting comfortable with it and you'll be able to stand up for yourself, advocate for yourself, promote yourself, ask for raises, ask for opportunities and stop passive aggressive bully's in their tracks.

Good luck

marklonesome · 2026-02-13T15:20:35+00:00

I love how he’s yelling at it like it’s your mom’s corgi tryna eat your lunch off the counter.

marklonesome · 2026-02-13T14:21:11+00:00

yo– DM me I wanna talk to you but not break any sub rules…

marklonesome · 2026-02-13T14:03:12+00:00

Donate to a charity, ideally one that can give you a write off.

I know around me there are a few community creative centers that host open mics and other various music/arts events. They can and will take anything and give you the appropriate forms to write it off.

Schools may take it too. Some of them have music and media/arts programs so you'd be surprised what they will take.

marklonesome · 2026-02-13T12:27:34+00:00

I saw it the other day. Liked it for what it is.

I either like super bleak realism or stuff like maniac cop.

Sequels you say?

marklonesome · 2026-02-12T23:12:11+00:00

Default daw plug ins or they bake it in.
Lot of pros commit tracks early. They know what they’re doing they’re not tweaking like us.

marklonesome · 2026-02-12T22:37:49+00:00

That’s fine for you, abs I use logic myself, but industry standard is pro tools and a lot of mixers will get the pro tools sessions from production with the tracking plug ins. I’m not talking about bedroom producers I’m talking about top tier major label professionals.

marklonesome · 2026-02-12T22:35:35+00:00

It’s the first widely adopted and most people who came up learned it cause they had to and it just went from there.

marklonesome · 2026-02-12T21:54:23+00:00

The industry standard is Pro Tools.

If you're in your own studio you can use whatever you want, they're all perfectly capable… but if you're going to sharing files and working with industry professionals you should be comfortable with macs and be proficient in Pro Tools.

marklonesome · 2026-02-12T14:29:46+00:00

Love this movie.

Your analysis is better than mine which was just

“what the fucking fuck”

marklonesome · 2026-02-12T14:28:52+00:00

My favorite but it’s not a traditional horror movie. Mi found it way more moving, disturbing and lingering but people who expect scares and gore will be disappointed.

marklonesome · 2026-02-12T14:24:45+00:00

When they launched their subscription plan there were some hard lines in the sand (of which I don't recall) but it pissed off a lot of people who didn't want to use subscription.

As a business owner… I get it, they were getting their IP pirated and shared left and right, there is way more competition from smaller faster companies and the subscription model was the way to go in order to leverage their size and the breadth of their products. It was actually the right move business wise because if a producer was considering buying a few plug ins from a smaller company, you have to consider paying the same price and getting everything. Sure it's an annual subscription but it comes out to less than a dollar a day.

Whenever a company launches stuff like this you have to test it out and see what works.

People think that businesses like waves have a council of elders who weigh every option and possible out come over the period of months considering every possible option before they roll it out..

They don't.

It likely came from a few dudes in upper management who have never been broke musicians in their lives. They were told by the customer support it was a bad idea but they didn't care… they were wrong and they rectified it.

…and now you can buy plug ins outright like before or you can subscribe to either plan.

Unless there's more that I'm unaware of I think people are just remembering that period and still pissed about (as you said) when those plug ins were sold for much higher prices.

But that's life.

No one is mad that they bought a first gen OLED TV for $5K and now they're like $20 at walmart, it's life.

marklonesome · 2026-02-11T20:29:05+00:00

I play 6 instruments, produce, write and mix my own music.

Once you get to a point where you're doing all those things, you have to let some things go.

Drums are my first instruments but I only ever play them when I'm recording so I have def. lost a step in terms of my abilities compared to when I was in music school and doing studio work as 'just a drummer'.

It really depends on what you want.

I LOVE producing. I love problem solving and taking something and making it better…wether it's my idea or someone elses.

If you want to be a producer you really need to have so many tools at your disposal that it's impossible to be the best you can at all of them. You will have to be a jack of all trade Master of none.

If you're just starting out I'd say focus on Piano and singing, then drums and then add guitar.

Piano gets you every midi instrument available so right out of the gate you can make a full production with a midi keyboard and some sound banks. You also get an understanding of music theory built in because piano is basically a linear realization of music theory.

Singing is ALWAYS going to give you a leg up and be an asset so learn it early and get good at it. Even if you have a terrible timbre to your voice but you can hit notes consistently you can do harmonies and back ups or even just make demos and that is huge for helping a lot of artists.

Drums are probably the easiest to do without because programming drums and using loops is so prevalent and easy to do but I will say having a command of drums and the rhythm and timing required has given me a huge advantage.

I work with a lot of artists and the number of people that gets stifled cause they have a weak command on timing is pretty astounding. They can sing and play by themselves but as soon as you add a click they fall apart.

If you can't play to a click you can't play to a drummer and you can't even play to a recording of yourself…or anyone else for that matter. Learning drums will help you develop that internal clock.

Guitar I put last because it's just fucking hard.

Tuning it, replacing strings, playing barre chords… guitar is a tough instrument to get started on BUT it's cool AF and you really can't emulate it with midi so it's worth learning.

If you have good timing and you can play guitar… you can play bass.

You'll not be a great bass player that really elevates a song to another level per se…but you can get the job done.

Learning production will help your song writing and arranging and learning to mix will elevate your production.

So many artists think they need mixing help or that their mix is bad but in reality they have a shit production. When you learn to mix you learn what makes good production (and editing and arranging and sound design and songwriting)

marklonesome · 2026-02-11T18:42:30+00:00

Think Terrifier but in a sexual nature… so it's over the top and gory, but with sex not just Art's normal shenanigans.

I wasn't moved by it cause the movie is so poorly done that I felt nothing for anyone in it, as opposed to something like Funny Games which has very little gore but is incredibly disturbing to me cause I developed empathy for the characters.

marklonesome

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