10 Reasons your Music Sounds Amateur

The most common thing that prevents amateurs from getting a full sound is not filling the "box” that is volume, panning, and frequency. The typical problem is that as more sounds are layered together, the audio becomes too loud & may start to clip. So, you turn the gain down on the each channel of the mixer so it doesn't clip. Then, it sounds quiet. In order to fix this, you need to learn about compression and mixing. Compression, if used properly, reduces the variations between one audio channel's highest and lowest gain levels throughout the track, which allows you to turn the volume up without clipping.

Muddy sound

When too many frequencies are overlapping in a mix, the result is "muddy". To prevent this, you must keep in mind what range of frequencies you are adding with each new part. Inevitably, frequencies will overlap, no matter what instruments you choose. For example, two bassy sounds on top of each other will interfere, resulting in weird phasing issues. If you want to use two instruments that use up the same frequency spectrum, you'll want to make sure they both occupy their own part of the frequency spectrum by removing perhaps the high frequencies on one and the lows on the other (this is done with EQ, this will eliminate overlapping frequencies and clear up the mix). The end result should consist of many different parts that all cover different ranges of frequencies, which all add up to a full, clear sound. For a clear chart of which instruments occupy certain frequency ranges, check out our EQ Chart of Recommended Frequencies.

Presets This topic seems to stir up a lot of controversy in the electronic music community. Using presets, whether it is for beats, basslines, lead synths, or effects, can easily lead to an amateur sounding track, but why?

A lot of VST instrument plugins have presets that sound very good on their own, but when thrown together with other presets, they clash. A lot of these presets are full sounding, filling the whole frequency spectrum. Unless you remove the clashing frequencies using EQ, you will get an unclear muddy sound when the presets are combined.

Other producers will hear your tracks and recognize the preset sounds and lose respect for you. Now that the internet is such an important tool for electronic musicians, samples found for free online have been used in music for years now. The best way to overcome this pitfall and to find your own unique style is to record your own sounds and create your own presets. At the very least, you can take presets and tweak them to make something new.

Head across to our forum for loads of great soundfonts, VSTs & presets.

Cheap reverb

If you don't have enough money to purchase a really high end artificial reverb, just don't use much reverb. If you do, tone it down so you can't really notice when it's there. The key to knowing if you've got it right is when your average listener will notice when you take the reverb away, but they won't notice it when it's there, because it doesn't stick out at you. Tracks that are drenched in cheap reverb almost always sound amateur. If you want real reverb, consider using the site tank-fx, which takes your file that you send to it online and plays it back in a huge reverb silo, where it is recorded and sent back to you. This is the only way to get real reverb with nothing but a computer and the internet Using anything that sounds like "MIDI” You know what I'm talking about. Listen to the before and after of a trance track that uses default midi presets:

Before:

After:

The first one sounds like it came directly from a computer's MIDI bank synthesizer presets, and the second one sounds like it was crafted by a talented producer. Notice the differences and you will see what I mean when I say don't use anything that sounds like "MIDI”. A lot of older sampler units equally cheesy and otherwise unusable sounds. Why use artificial reproductions of a sound that already exists if you can use a synthesizer to create a completely new sound that's never been heard before?

Weak sound, track volume too low

This is a sign that the track is unmastered. These days, a lot of producers are mastering their own music with software such as Wave Arts PowerSuite, izotope Ozone, PSP Vintage Warmer, Waves MaxxVolume, Sony's Wave Hammer, etc. Though digital plugins can really improve the overall loudness of your track, using them can never match the skill of a seasoned mastering engineer with an arsenal of expensive outboard mastering equipment. However, most of us can't afford to hire a professional to master our music. So the least we can do is boost the loudness of our track with the skillful use of mastering plugins on the final mix of a track.

Unquantized Beats

I've heard tracks where people used their midi 16-pad drum trigger to play beats on their tracks, but they never quantize the resulting performance. This problem is amplified when the latency on your audio interface adds a delay from when you hit the pad to when the drum makes a sound. I'm not saying that you should quantize everything, unless you are going for a mechanical, computerized drum track. In order to retain the human feel, you should only quantize to 75%-90%. Also, sometimes you may need to quantize certain groups of midi notes on their own, apart from the whole drum truck. You'll need to do this when you have triplet notes, for example. Some quantize menus will have "1/16 + 1/16 T”, which means it will quantize to the nearest 16th note or the nearest 16th triplet note. If you have this option, you can apply quantization to the whole track

Excessive Looping

Unless you are producing minimal techno or something, the repetitive overuse of loops in your tracks can lead to a stale, uninteresting track. Another common abuse is taking one sample and using it throughout the track, over, and over, and over again (minus drum samples, of course it will be the same samples), I'm referring to something such as when you sample a clip from a movie and then keep playing it throughout your track. If you want to use the same sample over and over, at least transform it or shape it somehow so we get some variation to keep things interesting. Slice it, dice it, pitch it, reverse it, flange it, phase it, you name it. Just PLEASE do me a favor and don't repeat yourself without good reason.

Misuse of compression/EQ

So by now, you've probably heard of compression and EQ, two tools that are used to sculpt sound. EQ seems straightforward enough, but you should always check which frequency you are modifying, and make sure that you aren't just randomly turning knobs. To avoid this, use a spectral analysis plugin to view which frequencies your track is using. FL Studio has a decent spectrum analyzer included. Use it in conjunction with EQ to make sure you can see what you're doing. And as for compression, it's understandable why you would not understand which settings to use. Unless you develop your hearing to discern the minute differences when you twiddle with compressor knobs, you won't really hear what you're doing. And then it's easy to use the wrong setting. To avoid this, check common recommendations for whichever instrument/part you're using. For example, the bass part is usually a 2:1 through 5:1 compression ratio. Ultimately, it's up to the producer to decide how much or how little compression to use, but if misused, compression can kill the dynamics of a track or just make it sound really bad. Don't use a compressor/limiter just for its own sake. Use it when you need to keep a high-dynamics sound under control (to prevent clipping, for example).

Autotune abuse

The first time you come across these programs you won't know how you ever got along without it. Yes, all the big studios use this program, and it's easy to see why. It turns an amateur singer into a perfectly tuned singing machine. Anyone can sing now! Then the logic continues, "why should I learn to sing if I have autotune?”. Then it becomes a crutch, and demonstrates that you are an amateur. Not to mention it's overdone. Cher was the first pop star to use it, so you know you should avoid it if you're into making REAL electronic music.