Beat CD's?

[BaneTheTerrible]

If a Beatmaker plans on handing out beat CD's what are some good finishing touches to put on the actual beats, like would it be good to add some ghetto mastering or take it to someone who knows how to master or just throw the mixed version of the beats on there?

 

[HERESY]

i'M DEAD AGAINST THIS NOW. IF I WERE YOU I WOULD INVITE THE PERSON OVER AND PLAY THE MUSIC. IF NOT I WOULD GO TO WHERE THEY ARE AND PLAY IT. A WEEK AGO SOMEONE CAME BY MY SPOT AND THEY HAD A SONG ON CD. THEY SAID THEY MADE IT BUT LOST THE FILES. THE SONG HAD A BASIC SEQUENCE BUT I WAS ABLE TO RIP TEH SONG, LOAD THE AUDIO IN PRO TOOLS, COPY, CROP, COMP AND REARRANGE IT SO IT WOULD FIT WHAT THEY WANTED TO DO....


IF YOU DO PLAN ON GOING YOUR ROUTE MASTERING WILL SERVE YOU NO PURPOSE AT THIS TIME. WHEN YOU MIX DOWN/BOUNCE YOU WANT TO *DITHER* DEPENDING ON THE BIT RATE YOU RECORDED AT: 24 TO 16 BIT. IF YOU DITHER MORE THAN ONCE YOU RUN TEH RISK OF INTRODUCING ARTIFACTS THAT ARE UNPLEASENT TO THE EAR. WHAT YOU CAN DO IS BOUNCE THE TRACKS AND APPLY A DITHER AND A MASTER BUSS COMPRESSION. A DITHER WITH NOISE SHAPING 1 WILL SUFFICE AND A 2:1 (OR 4:1) ON THE MASTER BUSS WILL SUFFICE.



JUST CURIOUS HOW HOT (LOUD) DO YOU WANT THE SONGS TO BE?

 

[BaneTheTerrible]

i want it hot enough to catch the users ear, if that makes sense? i just want to be able to make the beat sound nice, closer to somewhat a finished product might sound like. i think my mixes are just flat, whenever i mix and burn a cd of my beats, i listen to them in the car and my headphones at work and both systems they sound flat and lifeless, and i think to myself "gee that sounds bad, i wouldnt pay for that"

does that make sense?

 

[HERESY]

When I say HOT I'm making reference to LOUDNESS. You'll be wasting your time and money by having a mastering engineer do this for you (that is of course you have money to burn). BTW just so you know you CAN send out a beat cd. Someone just pulled my coat tail to how a certain producer (certified millionaire and platinum producer) gets all of his contacts. He has beat cd's via EMI......They send the cd's to artist sort of like a record pool....Thats somethin you should look into.



Now back to your levels you WANT the mix to sound as FLAT as possible. Mastering engineers prefer product that has not been overtweeked with equalization and squashed with compression. If your mixes sound LIFELESS (flat and lifeless arent the same to me) you should go back in and remix the tracks. You should make sure frequencies are balanced and by that I mean the highs are present, the low end is present and the mid range isn't muddy. You can achieve this by making sure that you eq the individual tracks the proper way. Cut the bass frequencies to allow the highs to poke through. cut some mid range so the music doesn't sound irritating. If you don't want to do all of that (which you SHOULD be doing anyway) you can run an eq or compressor on your stereo buss and that should help you out. The type of eq and compressor you want to use will depend soley on you and your taste. Personally I would use a MULTIBAND COMPRESSOR...Hint...hint.....

An "exciter" or "maximizer" can work wonders also but have you considered the room you mix out of?

 

[BaneTheTerrible]

thanks for sprinkling me! the room i mix in isnt that good, but its alot better then what i used to mix in. i think my mixes are good, but i think you are correct in saying that my mixes could use a tad bit of eq, i think i will go home and experiment with that, thank you for the advice!