Mix Comments

September 24, 2012 5:52 AM

I had a pretty tough time with the mix of my most recent post here, and I'm considering it a first draft. I'd like to come back to it with fresh ears in a while and have another go, and I'd really appreciate any comments on the current version.

The chorus sections, where I've got bass, guitar, drums, piano and voice all going seem particularly... congested, I guess. No feeling of space. I'm not sure what's going on there, and it's not as if it's a particularly problematic combination of instruments. My first inclination is to blame the guitar tone - too much gain, too much distortion. But I don't trust my ears on that, so other ears are welcome.
posted by Wolfdog (5 comments total) 2 users marked this as a favorite

If you're doing a stereo mix, you can carve out space with a little judicious panning. Don't go crazy with it, mind, but shifting some intruments a little to the left and others a little to the right will help.

Another thing you should do is EQ each track. A lot of this is trial & error but as a rule of them I try to cut the low frequencies and every track but the bass and drums, slightly boost the 7-10khz range on vocals, and then futz around in the mids with everything else.

Here's a good EQ starter tutorial with audio samples and some infographics from TutsPlus.

You might also want to add a little reverb. Here's YouTube tutorial on adding "reverb glue".
posted by Doleful Creature at 12:31 PM on September 24, 2012 [1 favorite]


Ok. Let's see...
- the whole thing is very "middy". First thing to do is not - repeat not - to boost any lows or highs, but to cut the mids and see what you got first. Only then start doing some modest boosting. If that doesn't help, you might have to remix from the ground up; so...
- kick is too weak
- the whole bottom end is too weak - not enough bass;
- counter-intuitively, use an HPF to get rid of any really low-end stuff that may be nearly inaudible but is still there wreaking havoc;
- the heavy room reverb on the vocal(s) will tend to make everything sound very "tight" and constrained - try something else or less of it;
- there's some plate reverb washing around in the back of this I think - cut the tails. Try to listen to the reverb on its own and use as little as you can get away with. All those tails etc can really clutter up a mix. And EQ the reverb too if necessary;
- you need to use the full stereo spectrum - this sounds like a lot of it is up the middle (not exactly mono, but you know what I mean);
- the synth drums ain't going to help you much re. dynamic range but the kind of late-70's/early 80's English synth-pop sound you seem to be after (Depeche Mode, OMD, Human League et al) maybe worth checking out some of those records in terms of structure, mix and EQ?

Hope that helps and you're not offended!
posted by MajorDundee at 9:04 AM on September 25, 2012


No offense at all, that's just the sort of help I was looking for! Thanks, I'll consider all of it.
posted by Wolfdog at 6:56 PM on September 25, 2012


Part of the issue is just the instrument sound sets that are being used. Think of it how you'd think of a physical instrument — would you record your tracks playing a Walmart guitar? :)

Agree with Major Dundee that that the mids are just too overbearing. Basic/easy things you can do there are tweaking the EQs on the various tracks in the song. For example, (this is just my opinion and style), because I always go for a poppier sound, I almost completely cut all lows and most low-mids in male vocals and push the treble hard right out of the gate on the EQ to get those nice overtones on the voice. Tweak each and see what sounds good, and try to have a frequency range where each track shines through. It gets muddy when tracks are invading/competing for one range.

Finally, my magic touch that makes basically anything sound a lot better is using a hefty multipressor, a hint of reverb, and a light-moderate stereo spread on the final mixdown.

But that's the way I do things, I'm not a pro or anything. :)
posted by dacre at 1:18 PM on October 4, 2012


p.s., you can get a lot of improvement just by trying out various mixing plug-ins in whatever recording software you're using. Tweak around. If something is making it sound better, keep doing it, and experiment with why it's making it sound better. I tend to do more of a pop style, so I usually use a LOT of compression and experiment with various compressors and settings to see what makes it better, what makes it worse, especially multipressors which can do wonders for bringing out the bass a track should have.
posted by dacre at 1:22 PM on October 4, 2012


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