"Pro" vs "Non-Pro" Sound

Listen to the lows, real rooms and monitors can handle them, bedrooms and desks top speakers can’t !

Big label vs indie music ?Zero difference other than the label stuff sometimes paid for expensive distortion on the mix. The hyper commercial stuff is more likely to have a bad mix now than the indie mix. You know it will be bad just like a big budget movie nowadays.

Hired mixer music vs mixed by the artist? The mixed by someone not from Fiverr mix will have a low end hopefully, vocals will be edited of pops and clicks and de-essed, compressors will be do something positive instead of god knows what, the levels will be evened out, there will be automation and fader rides on the mix to not pump wildly and add excitement, and hopefully parts of it will sound good. The artist doing themselves unless they are Butch Vig or a killer golden age rap dj normally sounds messed up and usually not in a cool way.

For me, it's a hard thing to quantify.

Of course, when a mix absolutely sucks, it's always obvious. Off time, out of tune, terrible EQ balance, etc.

But it's pretty rare to come across horrendous mixes these days. I feel like most stuff I hear is at least passable in some sense, and it's like, who am I to say this isn't "pro"?

If I had to pick something that always sounds amateur to me, it would be misuse of reverb. Especially in sparse mixes — nothing cornier than an obnoxiously long plate on the lead vocal when it's just piano + vocal and the song doesn't call for it.

I know from personal experience that on my first two albums, I had no understanding of phase on drums. Understanding how to ensure that drum mics were in phase took things to a better level.

Neither riding nor automating the faders into the bus compressor too. The pumping and ducking can get out of control. Uncontrolled fast fills and double kicks can even trigger the bus comp to flutter the whole mix like a bad tape deck.

I think bad productions often goes hand in hand with bad mixes. If you can’t afford or know or don’t understand the value of a good producer, you will likely also be ignorant regarding the mixing.

But in general I think amateurs can pull off a listenable mix today I suppose… to some extent. But I usually react on the low mids, where the body and fatness sits. A real pro can work with that area and make the mix full and huge while an amateur end up with boominess and a mess and end up scooping most life away from the mix due to that.

And as mentioned by others already, compressors, room and eq’s. Knowing what to use and why is a mystery for many amateurs i guess. A pro will be able to commit to a sound/production and be consequent about it, and you will hear when someone don’t know how to do it. In other words, everything can sound like its done right:ish, but the elements just don’t sit together.

Guilty amateur here. Most people would say my mixes sound pro, but I'm under no illusions; they wouldn't pass the smell test in these forums.

I make sure my mixes LUF somewhere between -13 and -14 dBFS, but they just don't sound as open and clean, and don't seem to have the dynamic range of a pro mix.

I don't doubt that its also a function of some of the other stuff folks are talking about here. I use pro equipment and have a well-treated space etc, but my lack of knowledge where it comes to the subtleties of compression, reverb and EQ are very likely part of it.

A biggy for me .... too much energy in the 500Hz zone, I hear that a lot. (made that mistake myself)

Sloppy playing, sloppy tuning, sloppy pitching! (kinda goes without saying) but I hear that a lot!

Too much reverb, too little reverb, too much delay, too little delay, too much compression, too little compression, too much EQ, too little EQ, too much room ambience, too little room ambience ....

An endless list - you just gotta practice and of course ..... analytically listen.

Love to hear that Sting song.

Ah but now you know it's programmed you'll all go ....

"oh mate, you've got cloth ears it's obviously programmed and a crappy old drum sample set - what were you thinking (facepalm)"

So I'm afraid on this occasion you'll just have to trust me when I say it fooled me :-)

Drums and vocals typically stand out the most to me when they're under or overcooked. I mean, anything can be done poorly, don't get me wrong.

Just listened to an artist/friend's new single. The song is great, the vocal is killer but a little too up front for the genre and the drums are a tad "out of focus" I'd have blended in more compression and lifted the top on the OHs and snare just enough to bring things forward. Might sound minor, but to me those changes would have made a world of difference. And mind you, these drums were tracked in a real purpose built commercial room. But they still need some love.