Box vs Honk

S

sjdean

New member
What's the difference between a boxy sound and a honky sound? Having massive problems trying to get the right sound for distorted electric guitar.

despite a deep cut around 600Hz, it still sounds flat and lifeless.

I was having a look around and noted that there's a box quality at around 500 Hz but honk quality around 800Hz so maybe I need to cut there instead?

Thanks
Simon
 
If there's a boxy or honky sound you need to look at how your amp and mics are set up more than anything.
Yeah, eq is a nice tool to have, but the track should sound good before you get in to any of that.

In the ideal world you won't need eq. That's the thing to aim for.

What's your setup?


PS: More of a recording/mixing issue than a mastering one. Maybe a mod will move this for better exposure?
 
Thanks Steenamaroo.

I actually go direct into a mixer and then use Amplitube and amp and cab simulation and go through Izotop Alloy and Ozone for mixingand mastering.

It sounds really good on the monitor speakers but translates really poor in the car for example.

I've posted a sample in the MP3 section.

Simon
 
sjdean said:
Thanks Steenamaroo.

I actually go direct into a mixer and then use Amplitube and amp and cab simulation and go through Izotop Alloy and Ozone for mixingand mastering.

It sounds really good on the monitor speakers but translates really poor in the car for example.

I've posted a sample in the MP3 section.

Simon
Click to expand...

Ah, ok, so maybe there's more a monitoring issue to deal with first? If your mix sounds good at your workplace and doesn't sound good elsewhere, it'd be worth looking into the type of monitors you have, position within the room, and the sound of the room itself.

What kind of setup do you have for monitoring?
 
Thanks again Steenamaroo.

I use M-Audio BX5-D2 speakers. They rest atop a stack of DVD's as a temporary shelf in a bedroom. I perch right in the middle of the two. Audio out from an Alesis mixer from USB, so Im happy this is clean sound.

I think my biggest problem is how dull, flat and lifeless the mix sounds in mono. I think the car suffers with this problem because the space is so confined I think it cancels any stereo effects.

Certainly there's very little width.

Headphones surprisingly sound really good, as does my mobile phone all things considered.

Simon
 
sjdean said:
Thanks again Steenamaroo.

I use M-Audio BX5-D2 speakers. They rest atop a stack of DVD's as a temporary shelf in a bedroom. I perch right in the middle of the two. Audio out from an Alesis mixer from USB, so Im happy this is clean sound.

I think my biggest problem is how dull, flat and lifeless the mix sounds in mono. I think the car suffers with this problem because the space is so confined I think it cancels any stereo effects.

Certainly there's very little width.

Headphones surprisingly sound really good, as does my mobile phone all things considered.

Simon
Click to expand...

Your audio mixes will always suffer on lesser playback systems, but the goal is to get them to suffer as much as, or in the same way as, similar commercial mixes.

Do you reference similar commercial material at your monitoring setup or in your car?
It's always good to have a suitable reference track to hand. :)

If, for example, commercial mixes sound super wide at your monitoring setup, you'll try to compensate when mixing and end up with a narrow sounding mix elsewhere.

Are your monitors head height, angled to cross paths at your face? It makes a huge difference!
What about the bass? Are your monitors against walls or in a corner?

Again, commercial mixes that you know very well should tell you if there's a problem.
I spend a lot of time listening to music that I've known all my life through my monitors, the idea being that I know them inside out when it comes to mixing.

Is this a fairly new setup? It can take some time to get used to a pair of monitors.
I know if you switched my Mackies for something else I'd be up shit creek for a while.
 
despite a deep cut around 600Hz, it still sounds flat and lifeless.
Click to expand...
I know it was mentioned elsewhere to some extent, but work on the core sound first.

A bad tone (or "the wrong" tone) isn't a correctable thing. The best you can hope for is (A) to make it "less irritating" and (B) if you're lucky, you can make it sound like it was done that way on purpose for some reason.
distorted electric guitar.
Click to expand...
Again, don't know if this is the case, but I see it all the time -- Gain all the way up, mids cut out, presence blown up -- "All fuzz and no crunch" -- And there's no amount of EQ (or anything else) that's going to give it "body" for real. You might be able to get something semi-usable by backing off the mic (a lot - but then the room is going to come into play in a major way). As little gain as you can - Not as much gain as you have.
 
Thanks Massive Master. Im a little lucky in that Im going direct and using an Amp and Cab simulator called Amplitube. So I can dial in new Amp and Speaker settings :-) I do cut out a lot of mid, but don't want a massive fuzz signal. I'll play around with the mic positions in the software and see what I can do.

Steenamaroo, The speakers are about 4 inch away from the wall angled towards my head. The top of the woofer is level with my ear. What I might do is to take some commercial tracks and play back in mono to see how those sound.

Certainly you're right, this is a new setup. I have a lot of getting used to these speakers. They do sound incredible, though people complain about a low bass end. I think the bass is fine, poor at lower volumes, but treble, while crisp and audible, I can't get an accurate reflection on these so I either scale off too much and find I can't hear anywhere else, or dial in more high frequencies which become unbearable in the car. It's very weird. I'll continue playing.

Some good thoughts there. Thanks.
 
sjdean said:
I have a lot of getting used to these speakers. They do sound incredible.
Click to expand...

They shouldn't. They should sound natural. ;)

sjdean said:
but treble, while crisp and audible, I can't get an accurate reflection on these so I either scale off too much and find I can't hear anywhere else, or dial in more high frequencies which become unbearable in the car.
Click to expand...

Sounds like that's the answer. I don't know if you need to treat the room or if you can just get away with really familiarising yourself with the sound of the environment right now.
 
Wow. This was interesting. I took one of Rush's songs, BU2B from Clockwork Angels, stuck it in Mono and reversed the Phase on the Left Channel. This seemed to cancel out everything but guitars, cymbals and --not vocals--, which is ironically, the three things Im suffering with.

My song however, mostly cancels the guitar and voice.

Ok. Got a bit to learn about phase and exactly what that means. I just wonder if that's a way of making a song sound more alive by putting it out of phase? Even so, I still don't get the same punch as a Rush song. Incredible!

Simon

My mistake, BU2B doesn't cancel the vocals.

Also additionally, I restored some of the cropped 600 Hz, moved a little to the 800 Hz, and added a bit more in the 2Khz range. Sounding nice now. :-) Also purchased a couple of "mics" from Amplitube which give me a slightly warmer sound too.
 
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In your learning, add "phase" to things you need to understand the meaning of. It's something that people often get wrong. You're not "reversing the phase", phase being a relationship between two signals, you're reversing, or "inverting" actually, the polarity. Not quite the same...
 
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