New to mixing, need some advice...well, lots of advice.

SteveTaylor

New member
Hey all, I'm really new to the forum and have been mixing without any third party input for a few months now and it's been driving me insane, I can never seem to get the mix I want. So I figured I a place like this would be great for feedback and advice, which I most desperately need :D

Anyway I'm working on a mix right now and have no idea how to get it to sound well rounded. If I cut the lows off of the rhythm guitar then the track seems bare, if I want to bring the melody guitar forward a bit it starts to sound horrible too. I'm driving myself insane since I'm really new to this and have no frame of reference other than studio mixed tracks, which is too high of a standard for me to have any idea what's going on in the mix.

Yeah, I'll shut up now and show you two mixes of the track I'm working on, since I can't even choose between my own mixes lol





Any advice on which is better and how to improve it? I'd really appreciate any input at all :P
 
Welcome to the forum Steve. You did come to the right place if you want straight up advice.

First thing I hear is an overall thinness to the mix. The cymbals are the most harsh IMO, but most of it is really bright and harsh in the upper frequencies.

The low end is quite weak below 80Hz. I think I hear bass guitar but it is not moving air.


Are you the guitar player or the keys player? I bet both. :)


First thing I would suggest is to talk about what your monitoring and room treatment situation is. I bet that is the biggest issue you have.


Great playing by the way! :D
 
Hey man, thanks for the reply :)

Yeah, I recorded the guitar myself, then arranged everything else in FL Studio. I'm in university at the minute so, unfortunately, I've had to mix on headphones to avoid making a lot of noise, ATH-M50x to be exact. I actually cut off a lot of the low end because I thought I was getting a lot of bass rumble, but I can extend it a bit further and see how it turns out. Should I do anything to the rhythm guitar do you think? Or should I leave it alone? Also, should I cut off some of the high ends on the cymbals too?
 
The use of headphones for mixing is going to be your biggest issue.

Find the harsh frequencies of the cymbals. Notch them out a bit. Then try to listen to your mix on other systems (with speakers).

You will be guessing what is right until you have a decent room and monitors to make the right decisions. Headphones even high end ones) are almost impossible to make the right choices even for those experienced with them. Just the way they work man.

You have great stuff here. Just need to understand that it is almost impossible to mix with headphones without the ability to check yourself on actual speakers.
 
Yeah, I know I'm shooting myself in the foot by mixing on headphones, that's why I tried to get the headphones with the best sound reproduction and least colouring (for a price that I could afford lol), but ultimately, yeah, I need to mix on proper monitors.

I've just been trying to become a bit more mix-savvy in terms of knowing how to actually construct a good mix, as opposed to fine tuning it to perfection. I mean, I could identify that it didn't sound right, so having a third party with a good set up to listen with is something that is really helpful to me. Plus, I don't want to stop mixing altogether because I have to use headphones, you know what I mean? At the first opportunity though, I'm gonna listen on actual speakers to get a frame of reference for future mixing.

I'll try my best to make some adjustments to the cymbals and extend the low end a bit, too :D
 
Yeah man, I am not saying to give up by any means. Just listen to your mixes elsewhere so you can learn to make judgements from what it is you hear from your headphones. It is always a challenge there...


You are doing well. Just need to find what is not working with what you have.



The fact that you understand this makes me see that you will be doing very well here.

Again, welcome to the forum. :)
 
Awesome, dude, thanks :)

Thanks for the feedback too, man, it's gonna be really handy being here if everyone is responsive and supportive as you :D
 
Awesome, dude, thanks :)

Thanks for the feedback too, man, it's gonna be really handy being here if everyone is responsive and supportive as you :D

There will be more. We all go out of our way to give whatever advice we can to those who wish to listen. We learn from each other here man. :)
 
Some observations (some of which have already been made):

1 There is not a lot of action at the bottom end.

2 The kit is overwhelmed by the guitars and keys, except for that cymbal which sounds a bit strange.

3 The playing is very competent; nice and tight.

4 The arrangement needs at work. At the moment the track starts, everything fires up, and it's all systems go until the end. There is little dynamic movement in the track, and by the time I get to the end, my ears feel assaulted. See if you can create some variety in the dynamics.
 
I didn't really read any of the other comments, so I apologize if this has all been brought up, but this is what i'm hearing:

• The composition is very busy, everything is going full tilt all the way through. The drums are going nuts, The guitars are going nuts the synths are going nuts... you get the picture. There's nothing to focus on because there's so much going on. Maybe that's the idea, but my brain is swimming trying to soak it in.

• Everything sounds like it's using the same sonic space which is kind of confusing things further (lots of midrange and some highs).

•The bass end feels like it's almost missing...like you rolled off everythigng under 200 on everything.

Just random observations, but de-cluttering your mix and applying some EQ (so everything's not fighting) might do wonders.
 
This sounds great, it has plenty of energy and reminds me of a happy Japanese cartoon, and I mean that in a positive way.

I would want to ruin it by mixing down the guitar so the drums come through, and then ruin the drums by not making every bar a fill. Then I would want some bass to come through. I also think the happy synth is treading on the same space as the guitar and would look to replace it's trills with another guitar and perhaps separate the guitars with some panning.
 
Just listen to your mixes elsewhere so you can learn to make judgements from what it is you hear from your headphones. It is always a challenge there...

I second this one in a big way. In addition to not getting a good perspective of what it sounds like through speakers, after a few hours of using headphones it dulls your hearing to what sounds right. I've gotten something to where I thought I had it sounding ok using headphones, then come back a day or two later after my ears had been rejuvenated, put the headphones back on and realized it was way off.
 
Real huge thanks for the feedback guys. I'm gonna go back to the base tracks without any EQ and start again. The recordings, hopefully, are solid enough. There's a bunch of tracks in the song, there's 2 rhythm guitar tracks panned hard left and right, two melody accompaniment guitar tracks panned 50% left and 50% right, a main melody guitar track centre panned, a bass guitar track centre panned, like 3 synths panned hard left, hard right and centre and the drum kit, which is all over the place. :P

It's quite a difficult balance to find, but honestly, you guys are helping which is awesome. :D

I've been listening to the mix on multiple speakers and it's really making a difference, I'll post any new mixes here and see what you guys think :)
 
I listened to mix 2.

Like everybody said, there is no low end and there are a lot of instruments fighting for our attention in the middle.
 
Alright, I've done a quick and dirty EQ on the tracks, basically trying to boost the low end and separate some of the mids. This definitely isn't final, but do you think it's a step in the right direction?



Also, I've tried to make it sound a bit less hectic, but for the most part, the intense energy is what I'm going for, it's for a Sonic the Hedgehog game, so you can see where I'm coming from there :P
 
It does sound better already.

The drums are too silent though. I think that a gotta-go-fast game like Sonic could use a lot more up front drumming.
 
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