At the end of a long day working on your latest production in your bedroom/loungeroom (or as some like to call it “the Studio”), when you’ve finished that bumpin’ groove, tamed that thumping bassline and trimmed that sizzling snare, you might like to sit back and admire your handy work, no?

On first inspection it sounds killer! Off the hook! Capital Ph – Phat! Well of course it does, because you’ve just been nodding your head to it for the last 6+ hours haven’t you? You go for a walk to the shop, rest your ears a little you think, grab a beer maybe, have a smoke even (if you like the dirty habit!), come home watch some TV and just chill out. “Job well done”, you say.

Next day, after listening to some of your favourite commercial tracks on the ride home from work you’re thinking, “Hell yea, I totally nailed that beat last night, it sounds just like whats on my iPod!” But all is not the case is it! You come home, all fired up ready to push play and bask in the glory that should rightly be the next big hit, only to find that in comparison to everything you’ve been listening to on the ride home, you’re new baby seems (prepare for some buzz words), lack-luster, plain, lumpy, lifeless, busy, cluttered, muddy or just plain Whack!

Well…?? What the hell happened?

There’s about 10 topics I will cover which could have occured to rob you of your glory.  Be certain that this is by no means an exhaustive list, but these are some of the more common areas I find affecting people on the road to their own musical nirvana.

You could have been suffering from ‘ear fatigue’ last night, a bad listening environment or even mixing the track at a level that’s too high (or too low). 

You listened to your own project for too long and didn’t reference other material or you didn’t program your sounds appropriately (with regard to each and every other sound in the mix).  The sounds that you programmed so delicately weren’t placed in the mix properly or your little pet that’s always jumping up at you with beaming eyes wanting to be played with (your effects!) got the better of you! 

You had a little too much alcohol or drugs (contrary to how you feel at the time, you don’t do things better when drunk or high), or maybe you were acting like a kid in a candy store, adding sound after sound, trying to ever evolve that otherwise rockin’ beat.

I’ll probably repeat myself a few times throughout this mini-series, but there’s no harm in hearing things over & over till you got it, right?  Take what you need from these articles and, I promise there is no way in the world that you won’t improve your songs and how they sound next to a commercial release.

Happy reading and good luck on your musical journey!

Adam