cleaning up the low end muck?

S

superelixir

New member
hi, i'm having a bit of bass trouble. i boosted my bass track at 800 and 4.1k, cut out some of the yucky frequencies (around 230 hz and 470 hz), and eq'd the other tracks to make room for it. everything sounded pretty good on my speakers/headphones, but when i tested it on my car speakers, it failed miserably--the low end sounded like mush and the bass was so boomy it gave me a headache.

so i did a high pass at 50 hz, and cut the sub-bass frequencies on pretty much every track. it doesn't seem to be helping though; no matter what i do, the bass is either inaudible (in my headphones) or obnoxious (on my car speakers). i lowered the volume on the bass for now, tried to make the guitars brighter, but it's hard to get them out of the low-mid range.

is there any trick to making the bass stand out on smaller speakers without making it explode on bigger speakers? and can i tighten up the low end without making the guitar tracks sound bright and tinny?

for reference here is the link to the song:

i'm hoping someone more experienced than me will take a listen and maybe point me in the right direction. thanks in advance.
 
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First, go HERE to raise your post count.

You will have problems with translation to other systems, if your studio monitoring is either inadequate, or the room it is in is creating issues. Headphones will always give you problems here (for other reasons), especially inexpensive ones. The main thing you need to do, in any situation (Good or bad monitors/treated or non-treated room), is learn how your mixes translate on other systems/environments. The better the monitoring you have, the better it will translate.

There is no 'trick'. It can only come from experience in learning from what you listen to while mixing. Spend money and/or time there. I have heard good mixes from computer speakers. I have also heard horrible mixes done on monitors that cost more than my Corvette. It is all about learning what it is you hear on what you have.
 
hmm, what did you mean about the headphones? is it because they project the sound straight into your ear, instead of the room?

i try to listen to the mix on a couple different systems every few changes i make (test it on my speakers, car speaker, bassy headphones, earbuds with weak low end). i guess it's just frustrating because i can hear that it's not translating well and i know why (sort of), but i can't figure out how to fix it...
 
Yes, actually that is a big part of the headphone issue. More than that though, is that low end headphones are produced to enhance the listening experience, not to create balanced natural sound. A cheapo $20 headphone can fool you into thinking the low end of your mixes sound great, when in fact, it is complete mud. Trust me, I have been there.

Learning a decent set of monitors/speakers, and treating your room so that it does not interfere so much with what you hear, will make drastic changes in your ability to translate your mixes to other systems. This is not just me being pompous. It is just the truth. I have tried every shortcut, with some decent results, and mostly failures. Until you really work at creating the right environment to hear what you are doing accurately, you will just have a constant battle of guessing. Nothing good comes from guessing. Well, unless gambling is your thing....
 
superelixir said:
the low end sounded like mush and the bass was so boomy it gave me a headache.
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Ok, so I gave it a listen until I got a headache too. There are things that you can do to increase your listening accuracy, but I think that you could also help yourself by rethinking your mix. You talk about it hard getting the guitars out of the low mid-range. They do dominate in that area, but you may not have to do much except drop them in level. At their predominant frequency range they are very dense, and are overwhelming everything else. The drums, on the other hand, which cover a big range of frequencies and can provide some sonic interest, are buried right back in the mix that there is almost little point in having them.

So consider redoing the mix. Start with the drums, and get them sitting there bright and crisp. Bring up bass so that it matches level with the kick. Then bring up the lead vocals so it is sitting where you want. You had it a bit lower than I prefer, but that's just a matter of taste. All things going well, the track should sound pretty good with just kit, bass and vocals. Bring up the guitars last . . . enough so that you get their flavour, but not so much that they start taking over (which is what they're doing at the moment).
 
Gekko is absolutely correct (he always is). Build a base for the track with the drums before anything. Then find space for the rest. I have always found that nothing works unless the rhythm section is working. Guess that is why I play bass and drums. :)
 
thanks for the advice gecko. today i made a new drum track and re-recorded the bass. it's a lot tighter now and i managed to get better tone (just messed around with the knobs). i also muted the strings with a sock to get more staccato and less fret buzz. i haven't mixed anything yet but it's already sounding much cleaner and less headache-y. :)
 
I'm just a noob here, but I agree pretty much with the observations by Jimmy and Gecko. Part of the problem you're having may be similar to what I've been experiencing in setting up my studio. I'm still tweaking the room (bass traps are on the way), I don't know how flat my monitors are, and I don't know how what I'm hearing in my studio relates to the "real world". I've been re-mixing some old demos to learn how to use my 2488, and some stuff is coming out pretty muddy sometimes. The results are not always what I'm expecting, based upon what I'm hearing off my monitors.

I don't know whether you're mixing with monitors or headphones, but one thing you might want to try, is to do a mix with EQ flat, right across the board. Get your track levels set (definitely bring the drums up), but leave all the EQ flat. Mix that down to a CD that you can play on 8 or 10 other systems (car, living room, bathroom, whatever), and see how it compares to what you're hearing in your studio. Even if you can't do anything with your room, you'll at least know if it's growing bass or eating it, or if you're getting resonant peaks that are strictly room-related, and twisting the EQ to try to compensate for it.

For what it's worth, I'm starting to get a feel for my own room that way. . .
 
jimmys69 said:
Gekko is absolutely correct (he always is). Build a base for the track with the drums before anything. Then find space for the rest. I have always found that nothing works unless the rhythm section is working. Guess that is why I play bass and drums. :)
Click to expand...

+1!! I'm a drummer (primarily) and I don't know where I heard this but I live by it..."A badass mix isn't badass without a badass drum mix!"
 
paddedcell: thanks for the advice. i was definitely relying too much on eq... i guess that's why they say "if you want it to sound good, record it good"--if it doesn't work after recording and setting the levels, no amount of eq is gonna fix it.

how does this sound?



here is a list of changes i made:

- made a new drum track
- re-recorded the bass, making it as tight as possible
- used sock to mute strings so that the notes were more distinct
- turned up the treble on my bass (it was turned down really low the first time i recorded it, which is why i think no matter how much i boosted the higher frequencies in eq, i couldn't get it to sound clearer)
- toned down the reverb on a lot of the vocals. i like music to sound fuzzy and ambient, but the reverb didn't translate well to every system. i think it was contributing to the "mush" on speakers with heavy bass

i think i made a lot of progress, but it still seems like it's missing something...
 
I had a listen. No headache this time, and I noted the substantial improvements. The mix is vastly improved on the earlier version . . . but . . . there is still scope for improvement.

I note that you want it to sound "fuzzy and ambient", hence the reverb. But, I think the reverb is adding to the murkiness. Were I to be doing this, I would look for a vastly bigger room reverb, but not use as much of it. That way you can still get ambience without it clouding everything else. In my headphones, I felt the bass could do with still more definition, and maybe you need to think about cutting some bottom end off the guitars. The vocals and the guitars are occupying roughly the same area of the spectrum, which means they tend to compete with, rather than complement, each other.
 
I think that dusk dry3 is a major step forward. In this version I can hear the separate instruments clearly, and you have created a nice bit of space around everything.

Having gotten this far, you can now experiment with varying degrees of reverb. At the moment there is a fair amount there, and you might be happy that the amount reflects what you have in mind for the overall sound. On the other hand, you could see what it is like with less, and whether you can retain that spaciness.

I like the way the bass and the kit work together. I'd wonder what it would be like to treat this pair as the main musical interest. Instead of using the same fairly consistent strum on the rhythm guitars, maybe you could emphasise the different bits of the song by varying what you play. This is more an arrangement thing rather than a recording thing.
 
This means you are not used to your monitors (and how they translate to other systems) and/or your room is not treated well.
Maybe get new monitors and maybe try treating your room.

G
 
superelixir said:
thanks for listening and giving me advice gecko. i started over from scratch, and tried to keep your suggestions in mind. does this sound any better? (i left the older version on soundcloud so you can compare)

View attachment 73435
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Overall your Mix is muddy, sounds like a filter is over the whole mix making it sound distant.
Nice song, QOTSA I can hear. :)
 
hmm, is there something in particular that sounds muddy (like the vocals or a certain frequency range)? this is my first time mixing so i don't have a very good ear for this stuff...

and thanks, qotsa is my favorite band so i may be very inspired by them :D

gecko: thanks again. i might re-record the rhythm guitar, and try to get a bigger guitar sound during the chorus. i'll also experiment with the reverb some more; i got a new plugin (ambience) which gives me more control over how the reverb sounds, but for some reason it resets whenever i close my DAW.
 
superelixir said:
hmm, is there something in particular that sounds muddy (like the vocals or a certain frequency range)? this is my first time mixing so i don't have a very good ear for this stuff...

and thanks, qotsa is my favorite band so i may be very inspired by them :D
Click to expand...
The mud sounds seems to be in the bass, I would probably go and re-record the bass as it is cheapening the Mix. The low mids sound dull and lifeless on the bass.
Get them drums upfront! Especially for this style of music, you want your drums right up front by using compression (don't be afraid to use lots) and boost in the hi mids and cut in the low mids.
Compress your drums using an attack of around 6-10ms to catch the transients, release around 50ms (depends on the tempo of the song and style of drum playing really).

Anyways keep at it!
G
 
superelixir said:
thanks for listening and giving me advice gecko. i started over from scratch, and tried to keep your suggestions in mind. does this sound any better? (i left the older version on soundcloud so you can compare)

View attachment 73435
Click to expand...

MUCH better. More clarity and punch from the rhythm section, and less collision between guitar and vocal (which were trying to fit into the same space). I think it was a good idea to move the vocal farther out front. Good vocal quality, good song. Sounds like progress to me. . .
 
thanks a lot for all the help guys. i'm pretty happy with how this turned out--it's not perfect but it's way better than the original. now there's one more problem... the mix is really soft. here's what i'm working with:



i guess this step is considered mastering? i didn't really know where to start, so i tried using a limiter on the master buss, and here's the result:

View attachment dusk master.mp3

my untrained ear can't detect any differences (besides the fact that it's louder), so i was wondering... is there a drawback to using the limiiter like this? from what i understand, it just reduces peaks that exceed the threshold. so if i wanted to boost the mix by 8 db, could i just set the threshold to -8?
 
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