EDM mixing tips that will improve your sound quality

In this article, I’d like to focus on the details of production and further professional mixing of such most popular styles as EDM and Trance music. Here, we will consider the work on the six most important elements in any song of an electronic dance music genre. Exactly on them is EDM mixing rap vocals based: Kick, Snare, High Hats, Bass, Sweeps and Sub-Drops. The nuances of sounding of these elements will be helpful for novices at EDM music online mixing services  to find out about. It will by far simplify their advancing in a producer career path. Those who got fairly firmly established in EDM and Trance production, I’m sure, should find out engineer's view of track preparation for further work at the mixing studio. While following these simple tips backed up with many years’ experience and overall researches in the field of sound, you can be sure of sound quality during both live performances and preparations of tracks compilations.

Now let’s get from the foreword actually down to the subject matter.

A magnificent EDM sound gets put from the first track draft, and in this long chain of petty manipulations, the professional EDM online music mixing and mastering studio is the most crucial link but it’s far from getting all settled. That is which see about the sound quality and sounding purity of samples at the production stage while picking them out for a song. During recording single sounds engineers also recommend using analog appliances – hardware equalization and compression will give soft coloration due to extra harmonics added by natural saturation of analog devices already at the stage of samples’ preparation. The further track processing in the EDM music mixing mastering services studio will emphasize the character put into the sample yet more. Thanks to that the overall sound of an EDM song will only benefit from it. 

Now, as it was promised, let’s consider the most important components of any EDM track in detail.

Kick

It is admittedly stated by professional EDM engineers that Kick drum in a dance music track is a keystone which is literally the backbone of other components. If the producer doesn’t give due consideration to its production, the professional engineer’s efforts will fail. It would be more simply to replace an inappropriate Kick for a new one or at least to have the missing elements blended into. Definitely, everyone on their own decides which algorithm of work on a track is the best. Yet it’s worth keeping in mind a trick frequently used by EDM engineers– make an original version of bass drum that meets your ideas without getting involved too much into processing its details until the end of the work on the overall song structure. Why? The response is simple. As you know, in professional mixing, absolutely all decisions are taken only for the purposes of the entire song sound. The same principle is fair for music production as well. When the track has been finished, it will be obvious what is necessary to add to the main drum in order to turn it into a star track. Professional online EDM mixing services   engineers often use layering technique by creating their own unique bass drum out of several samples each of which is responsible for one or another characteristic in professional online electronic dance music mixing and mastering services. Despite a unique character of this element, in each single track, there is a characteristic which all EDM kicks share – an evidently expressed transient that has a quick attack as well as gives precise attack. During further mixing this transient will be hard compressed by laying groundwork for track loudness. Even after hard compression (necessary in professional online EDM music mixing mastering services) an appropriate kick won’t lose punchiness as well as precise punch. 

Snare

When it comes to attack character, Snare is similar to Bass drum and has a vibrant transient with a dramatic drop what brings about sharp attack. During snare mixing  multilayered sound building is also used from different samples and synthesized sounds with various kinds of saturation and distortion. While working on EDM music, it is important to find the right balance of Snare in a track so that during professional mixing service it won’t be buried in the wall of synthesized instruments. There is a technique of setting its level by 2–4 dB louder with view to the further compression processing. Professional EDM mixing  engineers also often work on a song through a limiter and a compressor put on the output channel in order to preset the character of drastically and dynamically compressed track at once. During Snare mixing the technique of parallel compression is frequently used what allows you to add more density to it without losing explosive character and bright attack.

High Hats

It is more simply with them in terms of building – there is no layering. In EDM and Trance music, finished high-hat samples are applied or they are synthesized on their own – their purpose in EDM music mixing and mastering is to specify the bright high-end of a track. In the former case you should pay attention on the samples’ quality – they shouldn’t have any signs of distortion. It is initially barely noticeable but can produce evidently harsh sound during mixing. Against loudness, you can set high-hat by 2–3 dB lower than the expected level with view to significant dynamics changes during mastering and mixing. They can make them too emphasized. Or again can you apply the best mixing mastering engineers’ trick to check the balance during compression and aggressive limitation of the entire song.  

Bass

In EDM music professional mixing services, the role of bass is different from the common one, and the engineers’ work with it is also different from the work with bass in pop or rock music. In EDM it both creates low frequency track base and often plays the role of a leading instrument. Depending on it, during its synthesis mixing & mastering electronic dance music (edm) engineers  apply Sine (for deep sub-harmonics sound) or Saw (for saturated bass line well-sticking out in a track) waveforms. It is necessary to realize that low frequency harmonics have the most energy, and during mixing they can cause overloading if the balance is wrong. So while working with an EDM song, you should check bass balance both on different audio systems and with the help of loudness analyzers. Otherwise, an unpleasant surprise awaits you in terms of distortion after mastering.

Sub-Drops

Since sub-drops also contain low harmonics in abundance, during their mixing you should also keep balance precisely and have in mind the following track changes after professional online EDM music mixing. There is an important point – as far as sub-drops include frequencies beyond an audible range as well, a simple monitoring by ear can turn out to be insufficient so in order to be precise, you should apply metering devices.

Sweeps

Like high-hats, sweeps include most of frequencies of an audible range. They can easily mask scarcely audible artifacts (like distortion) which will turn out to be a side tone that annoys hearing after mixing. If you notice that the sweep sample annoys hearing, there is more likely such a defect, and you would rather replace the sample. 

Resolution

Now when music production stage is over and it’s time you sent the track to the professional online EDM mixing mastering studio, it’s worth pinpointing attention upon purely scientific perspective. So, you are ready for exporting finished audio track by track so that the engineer could give final sound to a song. Here, it’s vital to do the best of the possibilities of digital audio – export samples with 24 bit capacity what will give 144 dB of dynamics range and will allow the audioengineer to finely show the nuances of music dynamics especially as far as transients of drums are concerned. Keep in mind that the higher the quality of the source audio is, the better the result will be at the output from the electronic music mixing studio. At present practically any DAW allows export music in diverse formats so do not get lazy and select appropriate resolution – 24 bit.

While sending a track to dance music mix and master services, make sure audio  has approximately 6–3 dB of loudness reserve. In comparison to 144 dB provided by 24 bit format, the set headroom is nothing but it will prevent it from possible clipping of single transients and will give the engineer some space for processing music.

Samples

It is worth adding that the attempts to whomp up a masterpiece from unfitting samples of poor quality will fail. You will hardly manage to correct them by professional EDM mixing mastering online, you’d better select others or combine the sound from several ones (as in case with kick drum and snare). By the way, while building kick, engineers recommend paying attention to their polarity. It is important to prevent them from opposite phase – waveform of one grows up, whereas another one drops what will bring about sound distortion of a layered kick.