mixing

[EleosFever]

Hello, for about 1 hour now I'm trying to mix a song.. I have tried many effect combinations but there are the same results.. The sounds at the final render is "thin" and no "full" as the professional mixes are.. What is the problem? The effects or must i master the song to get a nice result? If you can suggest me an good article that will help me.. Thanks..

I'm working on reaper..

[Chili]

I suggest posting it in the MP3 clinic and let others hear it. They will have a better idea of how to help if they can hear it.

Be sure to listen to others' mixes and leave comments for them... what goes around, comes around, etc.

peace.

[Massive Master]

The answer is so much bigger than the question...

[EleosFever]

@Chili, i don't want to post the song there..
I posted a small part.. Check http://homerecording.com/bbs/showthread.php?p=3160881

@Massive Master, yea i know..

Do you have any article to suggest me?

[RAMI]

I was walking around New York the other day, when a guy with a guitar came up and asked me "How do I get to Madison Square garden?".



I said: "Practice".

[EleosFever]

I'm about 3 hours in front of my pc trying to improve the mix but i can't achieve it..

[Farview]

You seem to have a monitoring problem. There is no low end in the mix, so you are either hearing low end that isn't there and cutting it out, or the sounds that you were using were thin and crappy in the first place.

[Chili]

Originally Posted by RAMI

I was walking around New York the other day, when a guy with a guitar came up and asked me "How do I get to Madison Square garden?".



I said: "Practice".

You've been waiting a long time to say that, haven't you?

[Dogbreath]

Yeah EleosDude...it just takes time and practice.

Many of us have been at this for years and I, for one, still struggle with it at times.

I'm at work so can't listen but, like Farview said...monitoring could be the biggest culprit. And hand in hand with the monitoring is the room. If ya have cheap monitors like I used to have, you can't hear what's REALLY goin on in the mix.
Likewise with the room. If you have an untreated room, it makes it hard to get a good mix. Strong assed bass waves bouncing around etc...

What I did before treating my room was just burn off CD's, try them in various stereos, boomboxes (or whatever there called these days ) car stereos etc and take notes of how they translated. Go back to my mix, tweak it based on what I wrote and burn another CD.

Not the optimum way of doing it but you end up learning YOUR monitors in YOUR room.

So maybe fix what you can.....and "Practice."

Luck man....
Kel

[Myriad_Rocker]

I wish I could only spend an hour on a mix...

[Mart[1001]]

Originally Posted by Myriad_Rocker

I wish I could only spend an hour on a mix...

Exactly what I was thinking. I've been mixing my debut album since last November and I'm still not happy with it.

[Massive Master]

You can spend years tweaking - But if a mix isn't 90% "there" in around three minutes, it's probably never going to get "there" no matter what.

[BenignVanilla]

Originally Posted by Massive Master

You can spend years tweaking - But if a mix isn't 90% "there" in around three minutes, it's probably never going to get "there" no matter what.

Maybe we need a new thread for this...but how do you guys determine "there"? I have some early recordings, that I keep wanting to revisit to get it "there"...."there" seems to change every few months for me.

[Farview]

Originally Posted by BenignVanilla

Maybe we need a new thread for this...but how do you guys determine "there"? I have some early recordings, that I keep wanting to revisit to get it "there"...."there" seems to change every few months for me.

You just have to decide and move on. Your old recordings are a chronicle of where you were at the time. Make something new and do something with that.

[Massive Master]

Originally Posted by BenignVanilla

Maybe we need a new thread for this...but how do you guys determine "there"? I have some early recordings, that I keep wanting to revisit to get it "there"...."there" seems to change every few months for me.

"There" is making the recording you intended to make.

[HotRats]

Originally Posted by Massive Master

You can spend years tweaking - But if a mix isn't 90% "there" in around three minutes, it's probably never going to get "there" no matter what.

Maybe the minutes needed are not 3 but 30, but I do agree.

[gecko zzed]

Originally Posted by HotRats

Maybe the minutes needed are not 3 but 30, but I do agree.

I think that 3 is closer than 30.

As I track (either my own or other people's stuff), I'm mixing as I go. At any stage of recording, when I do a playback, I'm already working on how it is going to sound in the end. This is handy for two reasons . . . it can indicate whether what you've just tracked is slotting in ok (bearing in mind that other stuff may be added), and it takes less time to do the actual final mix.

This means that by the time the final bit has been tracked, the mix is virtually done, and all that remains is a credibility check.

But there is another way of looking at this . . . because tracking and mixing become pretty much the same process, you could argue that mixing is actually taking the length of time that it takes to track, i.e. many hours!

[SouthSIDE Glen]

Originally Posted by BenignVanilla

Maybe we need a new thread for this...but how do you guys determine "there"? I have some early recordings, that I keep wanting to revisit to get it "there"...."there" seems to change every few months for me.

That's something I call "chasing a phantom mix", or trying to get a mix out of the tracks that just isn't there.

And I'll bet you that overall those subsequent mixes aren't really any better than the mixes you did a few months ago (unless a few months ago you just plain couldn't even mix a drink.) Like Farview said, just leave the old stuff alone and move on.

You mixes will never be perfect, especially after having spent so much intimate time with them. It's like when you spend time with a woman; you find out pretty quick that they all have freckles, and none of them looks like those fake airbrushed and Photoshopped magazine covers, and to expect otherwise is just setting yourself up for an unrealistic disappointment. Your mix is going to have freckles and wrinkles and stuff in it; recognize them for what they are and don't try to make your mix the perfect Photoshopped supermodel that doesn't exist in reality.

Trust your first instincts as far as a mix plan and run with it. When it's done, it's done. If you have to do a little tweaking after listening, fine. But once you find yourself chasing a sound like trying to scratch an unreachable itch, you've probably gone as far as you can go and should accept the results.

G.

[HotRats]

Originally Posted by gecko zzed

I think that 3 is closer than 30.

As I track (either my own or other people's stuff), I'm mixing as I go. At any stage of recording, when I do a playback, I'm already working on how it is going to sound in the end. This is handy for two reasons . . . it can indicate whether what you've just tracked is slotting in ok (bearing in mind that other stuff may be added), and it takes less time to do the actual final mix.

This means that by the time the final bit has been tracked, the mix is virtually done, and all that remains is a credibility check.

But there is another way of looking at this . . . because tracking and mixing become pretty much the same process, you could argue that mixing is actually taking the length of time that it takes to track, i.e. many hours!

Everyone has his own way of working and there are a lot of variables involved in the process.

I mix during tracking only to give a good headphone mix to the musicians and usually when is mixing time I turnoff everything and begin almost from scratch.
The only exeption is when the client needs a final mix deliverd right at the end of the recording session. In that case I have to mix while tracking and, as you stated, you end up mixing for some hours. And most of the time we're talking about music with quite low track counts and not many instruments/musicians involved.

When I mix music I tracked by others, of course, I have to mix from scratch
and, I have to listen to the tune 1 time to understend what's going on and where, 1 time to make a starting point volume and pan balance. At this point eq, compression and fxs are involved and I guess 10 minutes are already gone.

So, I insist is more 30 than 3 min.

[Farview]

Originally Posted by SouthSIDE Glen

That's something I call "chasing a phantom mix", or trying to get a mix out of the tracks that just isn't there.G.

I've made this mistake a few times in my life. I came across some tapes from 1996, so I loaded them into Nuendo. I figured that since I have many more tools at my disposal now (as opposed to an analog mixer and limited outboard), I could really make this thing sound like I thought it should in the first place.

I was wrong. With all the drum replacement, UAD plugins, and 15 years more experience, it ended up sounding essentially the same.

That was the second time I made that mistake. The first was when I got the tapes to an old EP that I had done and decided to replay all the guitars. The guitar sound was a sore point from the get-go because the original studio was very small and didn't let the amps breath. (we ended up using combos instead of half stacks) So, the other guitar player and I retracked the guitars, then mixed it. To this day, I can't tell which version I'm listening to until it gets to a part of one of the songs that had an effect that we couldn't recreate on the remix.

Stuff tends to sound like what it wants to. The more you have to shoe-horn a mix together, the worse the results.

Old stuff is just old, move on.

IF it takes you 6 months to mix something, either it just isn't working or you are chasing your tail.

[urbanpro]

Originally Posted by Mart[1001]

Exactly what I was thinking. I've been mixing my debut album since last November and I'm still not happy with it.

sorry to hijack the thread but im in a similar situation to you mart. started working on a track back in January and still havn't got it how i want. i'd say its about 70-80% there, but theres just something missing and when i think i know what it is, it gets throwed in a differant direction to how i feel it should be if that makes sense however i believe that its also to do with the artist. see, you hear stuff on the radio and want it to sound the same though there are too many variables as to why it will never be the same, however one of the largest variables which people don't seem to account for is the origional voice.

[SouthSIDE Glen]

Originally Posted by Farview

I've made this mistake a few times in my life. I came across some tapes from 1996, so I loaded them into Nuendo. I figured that since I have many more tools at my disposal now (as opposed to an analog mixer and limited outboard), I could really make this thing sound like I thought it should in the first place.

I was wrong. With all the drum replacement, UAD plugins, and 15 years more experience, it ended up sounding essentially the same.

That was the second time I made that mistake. The first was when I got the tapes to an old EP that I had done and decided to replay all the guitars. The guitar sound was a sore point from the get-go because the original studio was very small and didn't let the amps breath. (we ended up using combos instead of half stacks) So, the other guitar player and I retracked the guitars, then mixed it. To this day, I can't tell which version I'm listening to until it gets to a part of one of the songs that had an effect that we couldn't recreate on the remix.

Stuff tends to sound like what it wants to. The more you have to shoe-horn a mix together, the worse the results.

Yeah, I think we all have been through that at least once or twice.

I think I've told the story before about the mix I did for this guy who used to record all his own tracks to an old 8-track R-to-R. He always gave me some very interesting stuff to mix, but he had this one cut that was a capture of lightning in a bottle; just one of those moments that clicked like the heavens were smiling on him that day; he had these dueling lead guitar tracks that just worked so perfectly together in a way that you just couldn't purposely re-create in a hundred years.

Anyway, because of this special quality in the performance, this has been a cut that I've gone back to a couple of time over the years and tried remixing, exactly like you say, with the knowledge that I had the extra experience and improved gear and fresh ears and whatnot. Yet nothing I could ever do with the new gear or new techniques sounded any better than the original, and many attempts sounded worse.

One of these years I'd like to re-track the rhythm and accompaniment parts and keep the original guitar work, because the drum sounds he used are kind of primitive by today's standards and also because either the heads or the tape on his Otari were getting a bit worn by that time I think (that machine has long since been retired), so updating the rest of the tracks, building around the original lightning guitar tracks would be an interesting project.

But re-mixing what's there now is just really a futile exercise; it turns out my first instincts and work with that mix were the right ones and that the mix just won't go any farther than that.

That's I think one of the hard parts about starting out in this racket; at the beginning it's hard to have either the confidence or the knowledge to know when you've hit that mixability limit. I call it when you feel like you're trying to scratch an itch that just won't scratch. Or, as you very nicely put it, when you feel like you're chasing your tail. Either way,that itchy tail is usually a pretty good sign that you have at least reached a point of diminishing returns, if not an outright end to them.

G.

[dodgeaspen]

Originally Posted by RAMI

I was walking around New York the other day, when a guy with a guitar came up and asked me "How do I get to Madison Square garden?".



I said: "Practice".

WOW man! I just listened to your tunes and was blown away. The sound is really cool. I hope sales are good for your CD.