Ever had your confidence shattered and felt like you've lost your way? Well, that's where I've reached!
I've mixed a ton of stuff in the last few years and although I don't feel expert in any way, I usually feel that I have a reasonable idea what I'm doing - or so I thought. I've had a couple of experiences lately where I've tried to create some hip hop tracks and used synth bass with some sub content, and its completely thrown me. OK, I admit that I have only 5" monitors and no sub monitor, but I thought I could manage - surely that's been done before, and I also use Beyer DT880 pro headphones with the Sonarworks reference correction plug in.
Anyway, I mix the track and it all seems OK, balanced, and a visual check on bass content (Fab Filter EQ display) indicates its not overpowering, and the drum transients are present but also not overpowering - it seems. I try to get the volume up to commercial levels, but have to be cautious to stop transients from drum machine impacts creeping through the limiter and peaking above 0dB. My rms level is then about -12dB (according to Ozone 7), which is not great but OK. There's no distortion though, so I think I'm doing OK.
Then I render the file to mp3 using Cubase's built-in codec, (although I've also tried converting using Soundforge). The resulting mp3 has distortion not only on the hi-hats/cymbals but on the bass too, as if they are interacting with each other in a nasty way. I've dropped the bass levels and tamed the hats/cymbals but the same effect is still present. This has not happened to me before on mixes with 'normal' bass content, and I've tried using a high-pass filter on the bass set at 35Hz to roll off the sub content, but its not really helped. So I'm confused. Is it Cubase, the bass, the hats, the mp3 converter, my monitoring, my metering, my ears, my sanity?
How do the hip hop guys get a commercial level track without these issues, especially with sub-bass frequencies present and mp3 conversion? All advice very much appreciated and awaited eagerly (as long as you don't tell me to buy a sub monitor, or to step away from the hip hop 
).
!
I'm baring my soul on this one, but I figured I'm amongst friends. 
) was great at doing a really good of blocking almost anything you could throw at it. I've not tried Waves L3 though - I didn't expect to need it after buying Ozone 7.]
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