Effort to release 1st Demo (mixing issues)

Hello everybody, Im in some trouble and in dilemma and thought to ask for your advice. So time has come to prepare my first demo and try to get it released. The truth is I didnt intend to release this, at least now, but Ive been receiving positive feedback from people and a friend who is quite a successful artist and has released on a very special label, has talked me into sending this demo to a record label, as I havent done stuff like that before I asked him to supervise the whole thing. He believes this is very good material and is worth the effort and Im truly honored, he's even very kind to make the mastering, but there are mixing issues...and I suppose this was around the tops I could make it on my own regarding mixing.

Now, Ive been thinking, the mix is not very bad but needs tidying up as there are crackly sounds here and there, the reason might be due to excessive/bad dynamics processing from me (I had to raise the dynamics for the preview as the mix sounded quite dull and lifeless) but Im going to remove them from the master buss channels since the mix is going to be mastered anyway, but I want to at least have it mixed properly. Im not a mixing mastermind, I actually have very poor mixing knowledge, and thought to ask a pro for some help with the mixing, it turns out the fee is quite expensive for me given the fact that Im unemployed and barely get by. What would you guys advice me to do, to bite the bullet and bring in the pro for the sacred cause, or give it a go and work as much as I can to finish it off by myself? Thanx in advance

would you upload a 10 sec preview of the non-mastered material for us to hear it...?

if yes, pick just the best 10 sec from your best track not 10 sec from every track

otherwise i can't help you cause i don't know what genre we're talking about cause some are very sound-quality-dependent (modern classical, ambient, experimental, field recording?), what record label + what kind of expectations would they have and without knowing how good your mix is...so on...

i was glad to help :p

Not much to go off here man, maybe upload a snippet as xox says.

One tip i've found handy when mixing is to Save As your project in a similar name, but remove pretty much everything from your mixer channels. e.g. EQ, Compression, Stereo Tools, Exciters. When this is done, try mixing the song again from scratch and you might find you get it better second time round.

  On 9/9/2013 at 11:22 PM, mollekula said:

Hello everybody, Im in some trouble and in dilemma and thought to ask for your advice. So time has come to prepare my first demo and try to get it released. The truth is I didnt intend to release this, at least now, but Ive been receiving positive feedback from people and a friend who is quite a successful artist and has released on a very special label, has talked me into sending this demo to a record label, as I havent done stuff like that before I asked him to supervise the whole thing. He believes this is very good material and is worth the effort and Im truly honored, he's even very kind to make the mastering, but there are mixing issues...and I suppose this was around the tops I could make it on my own regarding mixing.

 

Now, Ive been thinking, the mix is not very bad but needs tidying up as there are crackly sounds here and there, the reason might be due to excessive/bad dynamics processing from me (I had to raise the dynamics for the preview as the mix sounded quite dull and lifeless) but Im going to remove them from the master buss channels since the mix is going to be mastered anyway, but I want to at least have it mixed properly. Im not a mixing mastermind, I actually have very poor mixing knowledge, and thought to ask a pro for some help with the mixing, it turns out the fee is quite expensive for me given the fact that Im unemployed and barely get by. What would you guys advice me to do, to bite the bullet and bring in the pro for the sacred cause, or give it a go and work as much as I can to finish it off by myself? Thanx in advance

You obviously have a general idea about what's wrong, so I don't see a reason to have it done "professionally". Especially not for a demo.

I'd say try to make it work yourself, starting from scratch, like rev85 suggests.

It's difficult to give an advice, not hearing anything, but do keep in mind that a mix can sound "lifeless" if there's too much stuff going on.

Lay off the dynamics processing, start off by just EQing the basic parts (don't even know if we're talking ambiental, rock instrumentation or banging dubstep), say drum tracks and bass. Make sure you make nice room for every new part you're adding. Ask yourself how low you really need that snare to go (and how high!). When you have a solid basic structure, continue adding other parts, still using just part level and EQ. This, I think, is an essential step in mixing, and it needs to be done from the very start.

Like others said, post some snippets. It's difficult to judge a mix without hearing it. And if your friend supports your efforts, then it can't be that bad.