Making a beat - Your process - Start to finish

[badhabitbeats]

Hi guys!

I’m new here. Hopefully this is in the right place.

I’m just curious to know what some of your processes are for making a beat; start to finish.

The reason I’m asking... I was mixing one of my beats yesterday whilst watching a Sean divine video/course that I’ve purchased regarding mixing. I noticed that when he was eq’ing his drums, 808’s etc they looked pretty clean like some eq’ing might already have been carried out when creating the beat.

What process do you guys use? Do you guys process your tracks before mixing and then do additional mixing on top of this during the mix process. I know there is no right or wrong answer. I’m finding myself in a bit of a rut at the moment, I’m unable to get a competitive/polished sound so that my beats can compete...

the other thing, Sean divine mixes into a limiter... This completely threw me off as I normally mix to around -6db headroom and then use ozone 8 to allow my beats to be more competitive on beat stars.

any help would be appreciated! I really struggle to find the time to make beats at the moment due young kids, work etc and it feels impossible to give it my time and dedication to learn. Help!

Bad Habit (Mark)

 

[Fade]

That's a good question.

I've written countless articles about stuff like this but also I did some videos as well to give people an idea of how I got about it, but basically:

As far as clean sounds, what I try to do is get the cleanest possible sound to begin with before mixing. I usually use samples so a lot of times it's hard to find clean sounds, but with samples I'm not really going for clean stuff anyway. But even with samples, it's about EQing and adjusting levels as you go. You don't have to, but it really helps.

As for mixing, I always advise to try to get the best sounding mix without ANY effects added to it. This mainly means adjusting the levels and using a bit of EQ per track. Only then do I start to add in effects as needed. I find too many people think of effects right away when mixing, and they are very important but not the end all.

Two things I learned ages ago were:

• "Garbage in, garbage out". If your tracks sound like crap to begin with, effects won't necessarily help that much.
• "Always take away rather than add". This is the biggest thing about mixing. If you keep adding sounds and/or effects, the mix will end up too loud, muddy, etc.

@2GooD Productions What was your trick again with the VU meter and the kick?

 

[2GooD Productions]

@2GooD Productions What was your trick again with the VU meter and the kick?

 

[badhabitbeats]

That's a good question.

I've written countless articles about stuff like this but also I did some videos as well to give people an idea of how I got about it, but basically:

As far as clean sounds, what I try to do is get the cleanest possible sound to begin with before mixing. I usually use samples so a lot of times it's hard to find clean sounds, but with samples I'm not really going for clean stuff anyway. But even with samples, it's about EQing and adjusting levels as you go. You don't have to, but it really helps.

As for mixing, I always advise to try to get the best sounding mix without ANY effects added to it. This mainly means adjusting the levels and using a bit of EQ per track. Only then do I start to add in effects as needed. I find too many people think of effects right away when mixing, and they are very important but not the end all.

Two things I learned ages ago were:

• "Garbage in, garbage out". If your tracks sound like crap to begin with, effects won't necessarily help that much.
• "Always take away rather than add". This is the biggest thing about mixing. If you keep adding sounds and/or effects, the mix will end up too loud, muddy, etc.

@2GooD Productions What was your trick again with the VU meter and the kick?

Very useful info. Thanks very much. I did actually have a look at a couple of those articles before I joined the forum.

Mark

 

[badhabitbeats]

This looks really helpful. Can’t wait to try it