Making Pro Tools LE sound like the Pros did it?

[Dan M.]

I think my mixes sound great through my M-audio BX5 monitors, and T-racks mastering bundle but when I pop the bounced tracks on a cd and listen to them through generic computer speakers they loose they're finesse and warmth when they were in ProTools. I wanted to know peoples suggestions to having my mixes sound closer to the "real things" when playing them through other speakers ans systems.
Thanks,
Dan

[where02190]

First and foremost it is the artisic ability of the engineer and producer. You can make great recondings on anything if you ahve the instinctive artistic ability to do so.

Your control room acoustics are key. If you are in an untuned or poorly tuned room your mixes will reflect this. Multiple monitoring sources that you knwo and trust are also vital

In addition, unmastereed mixes will never compare to professionally mastered commercial recordings. Recording is a 3 step process:

Tracking
Mixing
Mastering

You must complete all three to compare apples to apples. (no pun intended.)

[Super Seven]

Fisrt thing I would do...is grab a CD that sounds close to what you are trying to get. Import it into ProTools and listen and studio. Try you best to replicate that sound. You may want to bring down the faders so that the imported audio is not quite so loud.

And as Where said....there are so many factors to getting a pro sound. But with alot of practice you might get farily close.

good luck.

[O.G. Killa]

the T-Racks plugins aren't that good...they are probably harming your mixes more than accentuating them...One of the most important steps to masting is the final plugin...the Waves L2 Ultra Maximizer. Once you learn how to use it and not over-use it, your mixes will start to come closer to professional CDs.

Another thing to point out is, sad to say...the gear. I recorded an album for someone in a converted bedroom on a 001. BUT!!!! We were using an expensive tube mic preamp and tube mic, all with mogami cable. We also built a little iso booth for vocals out of doors and fiberglass from home depot. All the keyboard sounds were from good soft synths and loop CDs. Any real bass and guitar were also sent through the tube preamp before going into the 001.

By the time we were ready to mix I was familiar with the sound of the room and it's problems so I could try and compensate for them to some degree. Even after the mixing it still didn't sound like commercial releases. I did my own mastering on it and it was so-so...But we budgeted and planned to bring it to a professional mastering studio. After we got the ref back from the mastering studio there was just no comparing! It sounded WAY better. It sounded much better than the mastering I did on the computer. It finally sounded like a commercial release. To this day people have a hard time accepting the fact that I recorded and mixed the whole thing in a spare bedroom in this guy's apartment. Everyone always asks which studio I went to...and the answer is none.

Mastering isn't a magical end all/be all where anything you send to them will come back pristine. I've heard CDs come back from mastering that still sounded bad...there is only so much a mastering engineer can do. But if your mixes are good, the mastering engineer can give it the finishing touches to make them sound like anything else on the shelves today.

[El CaCa]

Gear is a biggie, but mic placement is so damn important...I've upgraded my gear countless times thinking that It would take me to that "special place", and though it did sound better personally I've found that trying to get you're sound to tape is freaking important...I'm using less and less eq plugins these days and believe it or not my mixes sound way better and natural...Oh and if you're using plugin eq's etc., I'd do more cutting than boosting..Boosting digital eq's just straight up sounds nasty in my opinion...Use the t-racks to smooth out rumble or make the sounds cut through.. I'd have to disagree w/ the statement that the t-racks eq's suck...I use to really think that also, but after using them I've acutally found them pretty decent...I also use the waves Q eq's and mcdsp's filter bank...That t-racks is less "surgical" than the waves eq''s but I'd have to say that the t-racks eq's are a bit more"musical" if you know what I mean..

[Cyamarin]

The teacher in my acoustics class keeps saying, "If you can't take your room out of the mix, don't take your mix out of the room."

Every room, including the room in your studio, is going to have certain characteristics. What you need to do is figure out the things that are missing when you play the mix back on your computer speakers, and add in a little too much of that when you get back to the BX5s. It helps to import a commercial CD into Pro Tools, and listen to that through the BX5s. Then take that same CD and play it back through the computer speakers. You're going to have to build a mix that doesn't necessarily sound its best in your studio--but you know that it will sound good once you get it onto your computer or into your CD player or into your car.

Does that make any sense?

[Dan M.]

Thanks everyone for your very useful tips! I love the DUC!
One thing that I wanted to touch on is that everyone loves to use the L2 for mastering...thats just fine BUT there are no rules or "best anythings", its personal prefrence. That plug is being over used like an SM57 on a snare. Try a few diffrent techniques. The SM57 isn't even a solid, rich sounding micrphone, but yet everybody agrees on it as the "industry standard snare and drum mic", everybody uses it. Try diffrent mics, diffrent plug-ins, thats what mixing is all about, experimenting with sound.
Dan

[Chris Coleman]

everyone loves to use the L2 for mastering...thats just fine BUT there are no rules or "best anythings"

I agree about the "no rules" thing, but L2 is one of the best (of not the best) brickwall limiters around.

[walkdaplank]

Hey--I noticed you are using POD 2.0--how are finding the Amplitube software in comparison to the amps offered in the POD? Which do you reach for first in recording heavy distortion, in recording clean?

Just curious...

[proxy]

Tracking
Mixing
Mastering

...and I wish I had known this before I started, but, the better it is tracked (mic/pre quality, placement/phase), the easier it is to do the middle step - Mix! I would try all of the tricks and tips I read, but until I was working with tracks that were recorded right, my mixing learning curve was very diluted. I was amazed at how much fell into place once the music was tracked properly (and, yes, I'm afraid, expensively).

Lastly, with your new and improved mix, you'll finally hear what mastering can really do too, because they can make a so-so mix into a descent one, but they can make great mixes into world-class ones!

- proxy