How to have a clean/crisp sound??

[Bloodybastid]

I've been working on this beat lately and right now it just sounds like something that was 93 or something. Not that it's a bad thing but people here have been saying my beats sound muffled and stuff.

Now the beat is pretty much done. The intro/hook/ whatever the hell...it's all taken care of. It's just it sounds real grimey and dirty but it's not supposed to. I want this beat to be a little more cleaner and a little more sharper. I pretty much have the high-ends at 160 Hz. The low at about 170, and the middle is around 170 as well.

And I don't know about compression...should I have a longer attack time or something? What should the threshold be? I mean, the original sample is already real dusty-sounding...it sounds very dirty and just cracks everywhere. Maybe it's the sample's problem but I really don't wanna believe that, I don't know wanna blame that on the sample.

 

[FistFulloDollaz]

if the record a lil scratched up that might be the prob.

its extra hard damn near impossible to clean that up with processing

u might have some success with one of those noise removal plug-ins if ya got one

 

[5th Sequence]

If you can somehow get the sample into audition they have some nice noise/humm cleaning options for dirty samples.

Is your sample already filtered and thats why its muffled? try bringing the sample up with compression. Put your threshold around -20db with an attack of 50 and a release of 150. Ratio around 8 or 9:1. Turn the gain up a grip (but don't clip). That should be a decent starting point to mess with the controls from there, but you'll have more of the sample to play with. Try using a parametric eq to lift up the higher midrange frequencies and also cutting out a bit of the 350Hz range (if thats where its muddy).

 

[JPeg]

If ur beat sounds muffled/muddy u should pay more attention to filtering to get rid of uneeded frequencies.

 

[Ash Holmz]

you need a noise elimination plug like waves x-krackle or sound soap ... takes the noise and pops off the record .. there are others too those are the 2 i got tho

 

[Bloodybastid]

Alright thanks...I'll work on it.

 

[Hypnotist]

I pretty much have the high-ends at 160 Hz. The low at about 170, and the middle is around 170 as well.

I don't know what you mean about 160 and 170 being your highs, low and middle. What exactly are you trying to sample? Low-end ends between 150-200 Hz, and how can your low to mids be higher than your high-end? Do you mean that's where your highs begin?

If you're trying to filter bass from a sample, cut the frequency off at around 150 and take everything lower than that. If you want mids, use a band-pass filter and take everything between 150 Hz and maybe 1-5 kHz. And for your high end, take a high-pass filter and get everything from 1-5 kHz and up.

Bass: under 150Hz
Fat guitars/keys/melodies: between 250Hz-1kHz
Thin guitars/keys/melodies: between 500Hz-2kHz (maybe 1kHz if you don't want to clash with vocals
Vocal samples: between 300Hz-3kHz (leave the high-end for actual vocals recorded over it so they're crisp on top of the sample, unless you're using the sample only in a hook, then just use a high-pass filter and cut off the low-end at around 150-200Hz.)

These are my methods for EQing samples so they don't interfere with any vocals recorded over them. Everything needs to sit in a certain place in the mix, so I keep everything but the vocals on the mid range and leave the full range for the recorded vocals.

But if you're just showcasing a beat, then it may mean that you're at the wrong sample rate (make sure it's at LEAST 44.1kHz, 16-bit) and all your samples have mid to full range. Filter at the end, when it sounds funny normal. That way you won't mess anything up in the beginning, and you can work with what you have later because everything is still raw as it was when you sampled it.