Three very big questions about mixing .....that have taken my life ...

DevD

New member
1) MUDDY SOUND - I do everything that can be done to broaden the sound , compress, eq , cut lows, dip muddy freq , choose best of sounds while programming , use very little but best plugins , YET when I compare my sound with others, neither it sounds as powerful nor as sharp at mixing stage ..... this power all I can think of achieving might be by increasing loudness... and sharpness by increasing the high frequencies in mastering .....what do you all think how can it be achieved .....?

2) NOT SO MUCH DIFFERENCE BETWEEN MIXING AND MASTERING :Teachers say you should be quite close to the final mastered sound at the final mix stage , and not wait for mastering to make it sound good .....as far as I am concerned , my final mixes are nowhere close to those professional mastered reference tracks..... mine seem far unclear and muddy in the final bounced mix....is this the difference of hardwares in professional studios and limited softwares in home studios..?....or truly all magic happens in mastering and I am bad at it may be ? your views plz

3)ALL VSTS HAVE PROCESSED SAMPLES NOW A DAYS ..... and sometimes mixing engineers expect you to get untreated uncompressed dry sound ....does that mean you all programmers remove all effects (compression , reverb, delay etc)of the plugin and then record the sound ?, but you would not have chosen that sound had it been so dry .....so do you all remove all effects before giving for mixing ? is it unprofessional to give sounds with effects to the mixing engineer...?...but sometimes there are no options to remove certain effects that you can hear in the vst.... What do you do ?

Plz help ,thanks.
 
Heya DevD. For #1 and #2...there's no easy fix. A good mix is a million tiny things. Work with reference mixes of mixes that you dig and be constantly switching back and forth between your mix and the "goal" mix. Differences become pretty clear. Just make sure that the volumes are the same while doing this.

For #3, I always request dry sounds unless there is an effect that is clutch to the song. i.e. a repeating delay on a guitar line, a cool atypical effect, etc.
With things like distorted guitars processed through plugins, I always request both the processed sound and the dry sound.
Giving a mix engineer the tracks with your effects already on them ties his hands and starts to defeat the purpose of hiring him in the first place.

Hope that helps!
 
Just make sure that the volumes are the same while doing this.

LIKE THIS!

This was where I made my big step forward...

1. Adjusting the perceived volume of references DOWN to the volume of my mix.

2. Working with consistent mix levels. I burnt a CD with reference tracks adjusted down to K-20 which is bags of headroom: 20 dB. When mixing I refer to those tracks for tonality and loudness. These days I import them into the session. I forget about loudness until the mastering stage. Mixing is about choosing an appropriate intensity and going for that.

3. Always using the makeup gain in plugins to restore the modified signal to equivalent loudness to the bypassed signal. That's not always easy. With EQ, do you maintain the loudness of the lows, the mids, or the highs? That depends but usually the mids, even on bass instruments.

I used to do the full Bob Katz thing but now I monitor at lower levels than that and in fact I change the volume setting on the monitors frequently so that I can hear how the mix gets affected by changes in playback volume. After changing the monitor volume I have a flick through the references to attune my ears before making changes to the mix.

When you start using equivalent volume listening you will get a lot better at EQ. You will be able to hear the differences between your mix and the references more easily. Most dull mixes come from poor EQ (or mixing on harsh, bright monitors) in my experience.
 
1) MUDDY SOUND - I do everything that can be done to broaden the sound , compress, eq , cut lows, dip muddy freq , choose best of sounds while programming , use very little but best plugins , YET when I compare my sound with others, neither it sounds as powerful nor as sharp at mixing stage ..... this power all I can think of achieving might be by increasing loudness... and sharpness by increasing the high frequencies in mastering .....what do you all think how can it be achieved .....?

Is this music you have recorded or other's? I'm going to suggest that the mud might be entering from the tracking stage. Much harder to remove if it's from mic choice/placement/room issues/etc. If you're recording it, tell us about that process. Room, mics, etc.

Beyond that, what's your mixing room like? How well treated? What are you monitoring on?
 
This ^^^
1) Over the years I have found that the mud comes from not tracking good sounds in the 1st place. The room must sound good and have no room mud. I have mixed other peoples recordings a lot and have found that I spend all my time trying to fix muddy vocals, drums, acoustic guitars etc, by cutting the lower mids and low end, by the time I have finished it is always a compromise. Recordings in my own studio in a good sounding room only may need the smallest of eq adjustment mainly to fit in the mix amongst other instruments.

Now 2) What they mean by close to the mastered sound is that the unmastered mix should sound good without you expecting the mastering to fix problems, a bit like saying during tracking that "We will fix it in the mix" (see my point 1 above) However they are not saying leave out any overall mix compression or eq as it should sound good without it.

3) Not quite true, I do not record with effects generally, however say there is electric guitar with reverb or delay in the sound that actually makes the guitar sound needed I will record it with the effects. If there is a vocal sound that the singer wants, delay or verb, I will record a straight vocal but record the effects on a separate track that we may mix in later.

Alan.
 
for #1:

the capture, is the most important thing.

i'm assuming you are referring to live sound captured by a mic,
if you are talking about samples and synths, there's really no excuse for not having pristine sound.

the quality of the front end, and the mic, is key.

then, knowing how to set your gain staging is the 2nd most important.
after that, stuff like your convertors, mix skills, etc.
 
a)No ....I am not talking about recording anything live, I just use Vsts ....., and vocal mixing is not a problem , I can make my vocals sound good,I record them in the studio, it's about the arrangement .....after the mix it seems as if I have used muffled sounds when it is not the case I choose the best sounds , best kicks , best strings , best guitars , it eats up all my time but the final result is not like reference tracks ,

b)Also how do you suggest should I reference a track ? , coz if I refer to them the only things I would be doing would be increasing the loudness. using stereo wideners and increasing the sharpness by increasing the higher freq in the illusion of clarity .....

c)also if I just mix the song thinking I have used the best sound the result is never the same as professional mastered tracks .....does this mean .....like loudness.... that for years engineers didn't feel the need to increase and now they do , may be I don't know about something that engineers have started doing to make those mixes so distinct and clean and big ......what can those secrets be ?

d)also I don't think room is a major problem as when an engineer mixes my programming, results sound amazing in the same room , but when I do it is muffled and those hits that hit on your chest out of the speakers when engineer mixes them become ordinary when I mix them ......so what do you think is he doing different that makes the same mix so much clearer and punchy ?
what do you do for CLARITY AND PUNCH ?
 
A good mix is a million tiny things.

LIke Jeffro says, it's a lot of little things and no one big thing. There really are no secrets. Get in there and work at it, experiment, learn, build your experience....

and if you can peak over the other guy's shoulder, you should do so.
 
a)No ....I am not talking about recording anything live, I just use Vsts ....., and vocal mixing is not a problem , I can make my vocals sound good,I record them in the studio, it's about the arrangement .....after the mix it seems as if I have used muffled sounds when it is not the case I choose the best sounds , best kicks , best strings , best guitars , it eats up all my time but the final result is not like reference tracks ,

b)Also how do you suggest should I reference a track ? , coz if I refer to them the only things I would be doing would be increasing the loudness. using stereo wideners and increasing the sharpness by increasing the higher freq in the illusion of clarity .....

c)also if I just mix the song thinking I have used the best sound the result is never the same as professional mastered tracks .....does this mean .....like loudness.... that for years engineers didn't feel the need to increase and now they do , may be I don't know about something that engineers have started doing to make those mixes so distinct and clean and big ......what can those secrets be ?

d)also I don't think room is a major problem as when an engineer mixes my programming, results sound amazing in the same room , but when I do it is muffled and those hits that hit on your chest out of the speakers when engineer mixes them become ordinary when I mix them ......so what do you think is he doing different that makes the same mix so much clearer and punchy ?
what do you do for CLARITY AND PUNCH ?

A lot of study and practice is in order.

I'm not at all trying to offend, but it just sounds like you don't know what the hell you are doing (yet)

Like someone else mentioned, it's a lot of little things, not just one thing.

There is no magic formula, where if you do it, you'll get great mixes.

No, it's a combination. A combination of knowledge, skill, equipment, recording environment, mixing environment, your ears, etc, etc, etc.

It doesn't come together overnight.

And one thread on a forum is not going to solve it.

Hard work, practice, and dedication to the craft, sprinkled with a bit of time, is the only thing that can do it for you.

Nothing worth doing in this life comes easy.
 
uff so now people are laughing at me ha ha:) :) ..... the forum says home recording ,we should also talk about what would you do in that situation,even if it is 1 out of those million things that are required for a good mix ....at least I will learn one tip..... as obviously people are not working in ideal conditions and with best knowledge here :) rather than saying it takes year and years go and help yourself we should try to be specific, if such thread grows big it would help many new people ..... by doing this we discourage people from asking questions and announce that go to the engineer and the best studio matter finished....., anyway , let me put it this way .....I have been mixing songs released by companies for last several years but I feel inadequate as at home I don't get as great results as I hear now a days,my aim is to satisfy myself too not only clients who can't point out inadequacies.... so take a case if....... you have a song and after the mix you feel instruments are not sounding distinct as distinct as they sound when soloed (in best mixed songs I observe that even when all instruments are playing it feels every instrument is distinct ), and beat doesn't sound as punchy as it sounds when soloed what would be the first thing that would come to your mind about the problem .... if we want some people should get something from this forum before walking off, someone has to make a fool of himself and let me be that person ....plz help :)
 
uff so now people are laughing at me ha ha:) :)

No one is laughing at you for asking questions...it's just funny that you think there are "secrets" and that you only need someone to reveal them to you and then everything will sound great. :D

There are no secrets. Every situation is different....every song is different...and your home environment and equipment is not the same as a pro studio...but most importantly, you obviously haven't yet acquired the skill and experience to make it work like you expect, and that's something that just takes time and effort. There are no secrets.

Also...just *talking* about your audio problems is generally useless. Saying that your mix doesn't sound good at home and ..."plz help"...isn't going to get you any real help because no one can hear what you are hearing when you just talk about it.
 
Miroslav is right. Without hearing examples we can't help much. We could make suggestions but we would probably make far better suggestions if we were listening to something.
 
I guess the old-timers here got Miro's little laugh-icon joke. It wasn't pointed at you, but moreso a response to the question that gets asked A LOT over the years. People will come here and ask the very same question, expecting there is one little tip or secret that they don't know about and it is preventing them from getting good mixes. Only the pros know this secret and they won't share it. Then the new person gets frustrated and leaves because he didn't get the answer he was expecting. It happens month after month here.

If a pro engineer is mixing the same song as you, in the same room as you, using the same equipment as you, and he's getting good results and you are not, that's because he has experience behind him and trained ears. He got those trained ears from sitting in the seat and practicing and experimenting and putting in the time to learn to craft.

Don't get frustrated, just keep working at it.
 
All good advice man. There's a steep learning curve and a million variables and, sure, it can be frustrating.
When you think you've stripped out the variables and boiled it down to the simplest it can be, and your mix doesn't sound like X or Y commercial mix, the go-to is often 'what aren't they telling me? What's the secret?'

Instead you need to ask what you're doing wrong, or what you're not doing.

Maybe you can find some tutorials or guides in the specific genre you're working in?
It might help to see how much or how little other people are having to do with similar tools and starting point?

It's amazing how one small decision can have a massive impact. Choosing one reverb over another can be the difference between perfect shimmering vocals and a muddy mess that gets lost in the mix.
If you don't identify the root of the problem them it compounds. You raise the vocal then it sticks out, then you compress it more then it sounds flat then...blah blah...throw the towel in.

As the guys have said, stick at it and just try to learn learn learn. That's all we're doing. ;)
 
Back in the day...I use to think the same thing....there's something the pro's just ain't telling us. There must be stuff that is only revealed by the pros to their inner circle....etc. :D

Then after reading the many "how did you get started as an engineer?" stories...I realized that these guys didn't know shit either when they first started out, and it was only after they put in a lot of work that things became "pro" for therm.

One important observation and conclusion that I've come to...
If you are doing the same things, the same way, over and over...and getting the same lousy results...
...you need to change your process.
That sounds pretty obvious...but it's actually not to many of the home rec crowd.
There are people here who shall remain nameless...:)...who are making the same mistakes with their mixes today, that they were making 3 years ago, yet they keep posting their mixes and asking for comments/advice about their mixes....???? :confused:

IOW...they haven't learned anything...or they are simply clinging to their misguided beliefs, and making assumptions that "it's something else" that is the problem....or that there might be some "secrets" they haven't been told...but no, it's not them. ;)
 
...you need to change your process.
That sounds pretty obvious...but it's actually not to many of the home rec crowd.

Absolutely. I've been guilty of this in the past.
I'm sure I still am, with some things.

It's easy to get stuck with the comfortable and familiar, not realising that's what's holding you firmly in exactly the same place.
 
I'd be willing to bet that it starts with the arrangement. If there's actually mud, it's because you've got too much sustained material in that area where "bass" turns into "low mids". Take a hard look at who's playing what when and why it's playing where it is both in time and in frequency spectrum.

But I'm concerned with this refrain "I use all the best sounds". How do you know these are the best sounds? Is this what it said on the box? Did you listen to it all by itself and tweak it until it sound "the best" you could make it? I figure the best sound is the one that fits the mix with the least amount of dicking around. Since your sounds apparently aren't fitting quite right, maybe they're not actually the best for whatever you're trying to achieve. Quite often the best sound for the mix sounds pretty crappy all by itself.

Anyway, if you want real, practical advice on this "mud" issue, I suggest you start dropping in high pass filters. Listen to the mix, make an educated guess on which instrument seems to be making the biggest mess, and high pass it. Then find the next worst culprit and high pass it. After a while, you may find that you can actually loosen up that first high pass a bit. Maybe mess with the filter slopes or even try shelving instead of HPFs. Keep turning the knobs til it sounds good. In a way this is saying - contrary to what you've said above - don't boost the treble, cut the bass.
 
There are tools and techniques that can influence the punch and depth of the mix. Maybe it needs a touch of compression or reverb, delay, a saturation plugin or a complimentary eq structure.

Any of that stuff can kill a mix as well.

Good dithering habits might help.

The cooking analogy gets used a lot. Let's say you've got the gas range, the cast iron cookware, the magic spatula, the secret sauce, the special rub and all eleven herbs and spices. You get everything to a rolling boil and by the time you take the last bite you're thinking maybe this is not exactly bistro quality. Maybe it's not as good as pub grub.

At some point you watch a skilled chef prepare some food and they use 3 ingredients. The last one being a tiny, tiny pinch of salt. Doesn't seem like it would be a very sophisticated meal but you take the first bite and for some weird reason it's magic!

WTF?

What someone created was balance. The elements that came out were the ones needed. Nothing else.

Sometimes it's hard to separate the roles of songwriting and performance with good mixing and production. You throw up all 47 faders and it sounds like chaos. You bring it down to 8 and all of a sudden there's a song in there trying to tell you what it needs.

I listened to a clip last night of Paul McCartney in the studio trying to show The Beatles how to play Yesterday. George Martin had him record the guitar and vocal. After listening to it, George was saying he couldn't think of how to put the band in there without ruining the song. The only thing he could think of that might accent the track was strings. Paul hated the idea. Until George put strings on it and they listened to the result. It just worked, but Paul wouldn't have done that on his own.

Performance and arrangement are huge. Maybe there's a genius hook in there trying to spread its wings and take off, eh? But it's being held to the ground by the timbales. When processing your tracks don't overlook the mute button. I'm not trying to rain on anyone's parade of timbale genius, but it has to serve the song.
 
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