https://soundcloud.com/adfults/warmwhiskey2-1

Made this beat and decided to see if this acapella would fit, and I think it does. Mix still sounds kinda rough, but its the best I could get. Only been producing for about a year now, so Im still fairly new to all of this. Let me know your opinions, and criticisms though!

Not exactly, sure you want good quality samples, but say you're layering a kick or clap/snare, some samples may just sound bad together, so picking the right ones to make a good kick or clap/snare is important. Even sequencing drums, not everything is going to work well together, picking the right samples for your sequence to work well is important.

I was more so talking about the whole mix in general though. Say you have a drop with a good lead going on but you want to add more elements, this is where you have to watch for what part of the frequency spectrum the new elements are most dominant, you want to be sure the sounds you are using are not going to over power or drown out your lead. If there's part of the spectrum you're trying to fill, use something that fills that part of the spectrum, don't throw any old synth in there & EQ it to fill that specific part.

Having a hard time trying to explain it, but hopefully that helps a little bit hah
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Yeah, I get what you're trying to say. Should I have an eq on the master channel(not to actually EQ), but just to see where all the frequency ranges are peaking and where I have free space? Would that be considered a normal technique to do? lol

What are the only plugins you should use in your master channel?

Quote from: movementmachina on January 21, 2016, 11:47:21 am

Though, a decent high pass filter on any channel needing some low rumble/mud removal is a great place to start, technique-wise.

I actually wish I had remembered this, because that's actually something I think should be just standard operating procedure for anyone working on a DAW when it comes to mixing: every channel that does not need to have any bass frequencies should have an EQ or a filter that cuts off any unneeded frequencies if the sound has some. Most of your sounds, whether synth or sample, will have harmonic content in the 30-250 Hz range. If it's not a kick or a bass, any of that information is just adding to the overall volume of that frequency range, which isn't beneficial at all. Start sweeping up in frequency until the sound starts to lose a bit of its character. It'll probably start to sound a bit more hollow - that's when you know you've gone too far, and you can back it off until it sounds normal again.

Other than that, if you're just starting out think about an equalizer as a surgical instrument, not a necessary effect (even though it is, and you'll soon realize why) - you should only consider using an equalizer on something that sounds good but it doesn't fit with everything else. All the creative design and/or advanced mixing applications are great but they can distract you from the most important experiences that a beginning producer or engineer should be developing: how to remove frequencies from specific sounds so they do not get hidden when they are played at the same time as other sounds. That was the core function of an EQ, before any sort of mid-side or sidechain or crazy sound design shaping came into play, and sometimes I think new producers (especially ones without any experience in classical sound engineering) tend to look at all the cool stuff you can do in your mix and can overlook what the necessary stuff to do in your mix can be.

Like I said, just listen to a lot of songs that you love inside your DAW. Dissect them and try to recreate them. Figure out how the sounds are blending together to take up the whole frequency spectrum while maintaining their individual clarity. A finished song is an open book, you just have to be patient enough to read the pages instead of watching the movie.

EDIT:

Quote from: Lokan on January 21, 2016, 08:20:26 am

1. EQ // get your sound clean

I actually want to kinda clarify on this a bit, because I think this wording is what leads to a lot of bad habits for newer producers. We should be careful not to conflate "clean" with "good" - you don't want to EQ a bad sound to make it a good sound. You want to EQ a good sound to make it a better sound in the context of your mix. Sample selection and sound selection is a critical skill to develop, but it is something that is hard to understand at first. That's why I recommend learning drum programming and sound design before you start approaching the concepts of mixing, because by learning how to create your own drum kits and your own loops you will start to hunt for samples that sound more like the loops you have or the tracks you are taking loops from, and by learning sound design your taste for synthesizer patches improves.

You want to learn how to do everything, but you don't have to learn how to do everything at once.

Really appreciate all your feedback, I've been listening to alot of my favorite songs and focusing on the instruments and how they sound together. Lately Ive been focusing on alot of EQing, and trying to give everything in my song somewhat of its own frequency, and cutting out low-end on some of my mids and all my highs so the song sounds clearer. As for trying to recreate my favorite songs, I'd just rather create my own and begin figuring/teaching myself how to properly mix. So I can also practice good composition and mixing all at once. I like your idea of actually bringing in a song and dissecting it in my DAW. I'll definitely start doing that and comparing it to songs I've made and just trying to get them to sound alike (mix wise). 

How do most of yall get samples or stems to songs? Is there a website to download them, or would that be considered "illegal"? I'd like to do a bootleg a remix, but Im not sure where to find stems for the certain song