Enquiry regarding mids and unusal looking master sound waves

B

Benjitara

New member
Hi guys and girls
Just new here. I've been mixing my own stuff for years but invaribaly end up with inferior mixes that sound like someones put a blanket over the speakers or something.

Most of my master buss sound waves look something like this --- in the mids at least. - spikey type formations from 600- 4-5k. while that may indicate a lack of mid sounds the pattern of "spikey" wave form doesn't make sense to me!
When i compare to pro mixes my mixes seem to lack a sparkle and space ./ air... which i think may be due to poor home studio recording environment .. not really sure.
an explanation on the wave forms would be nice to hear from those that have more experience in this department.
spotty mids.png
 
Interesting - you have too much Bass between 90hz and about 550hz - HPF would work - you Midrange looks fine albeit the spikes should be leveled a little - multiple passes with a Parametric and write them - and then the level across the board should be brought up - are you using compression on the tracks and the master buss? - The mix looks to me like you have hearing holes or your hearing is shaved.
 
Without knowing what this is our actually sounds like, you can use that EQ sweep technique to identify what those peaks actually are, and then decide how to address them. If they're room resonance then treatment is really the best option (IMO), but something like a dynamic EQ plugin, can be useful when applied to the individual track that's contributing the most of that energy.

The 300-500 area is going to contributed "woofiness" and can muddy up the sound, so maybe there's a couple of tracks both adding a bit too much there?

To me, the mids look a bit low, if peaky, compared to the stuff on the other side, and the upper mids have a lot of energy up there at 8k, but then drop off pretty rapidly. You won't hear any "air" if there's too much right below it, or, at least, my old ears can't!
 
It's hard to know what good sound looks like.
We would really need to hear it to figure out what the issue is.

Also, a lot of the spikiness will get smoothed out in the mastering process. Comparing your raw mixes to mastered commercial mixes won't tell you much. Apples and oranges.
 
Benjitara said:
Hi guys and girls
Just new here. I've been mixing my own stuff for years but invaribaly end up with inferior mixes that sound like someones put a blanket over the speakers or something.

Most of my master buss sound waves look something like this --- in the mids at least. - spikey type formations from 600- 4-5k. while that may indicate a lack of mid sounds the pattern of "spikey" wave form doesn't make sense to me!
When i compare to pro mixes my mixes seem to lack a sparkle and space ./ air... which i think may be due to poor home studio recording environment .. not really sure.
an explanation on the wave forms would be nice to hear from those that have more experience in this department.
View attachment 129780
Click to expand...
It really depends on what style you're doing IMO. Can you tell us more about what genre this analyzer is about? And yeah, some careful EQ is probably the answer.
 
The main thing that looks weird to me is that you've got 0 information from 20-58hz and 17-20khz? Without knowing what the sources you're mixing from, maybe your Mic is cutting that info or not able to record in that range? Also... since all of your tracks seem to have EQ on them, are you doing surgical EQ moves in the midrange of all of your tracks? Are you boosting the bass that much?
 
This could be perfectly normal, or horribly wrong - we don't know what sort of music it is. The absence of anything below 50ish, and hardly anything below 100ish might be fine? Is there supposed to be a bass, or a synth or something there that isn't? I'd only look at a display like this if there was a problem I couldn't quite put my finger on?

Can we hear a bit please?
 
Hi Guys, thanks so much for your feedback and thoughts.
I've added an mp3 of a song i've been working on - without knowing what monitors etc you guys use I've always, as stated above felt my mixes lack clarity and a sort of sonic scope - it might be in a lack of experience using effects and a bit of dodgy EQ.. - my reference track for the One Last Stand MP3 below has actually been Bruce Springsteen streets of philadelphia but it's impossible for me to get anywhere near the pop and sonic shimmer of that track cheers.
View attachment One Last Stand 7.Mp3
one last stand.png
 
Papanate said:
Interesting - you have too much Bass between 90hz and about 550hz - HPF would work - you Midrange looks fine albeit the spikes should be leveled a little - multiple passes with a Parametric and write them - and then the level across the board should be brought up - are you using compression on the tracks and the master buss? - The mix looks to me like you have hearing holes or your hearing is shaved.
Click to expand...
Thanks for your reply, ive added a mp3 below for further reference.
 
Voice is great, song is fine, but,as you say, it lacks sparkle. The instruments don't emjoy much top end life. You might like to try a different pallette of sparkle into the backing.
 
gecko zzed said:
Voice is great, song is fine, but,as you say, it lacks sparkle. The instruments don't emjoy much top end life. You might like to try a different pallette of sparkle into the backing.
Click to expand...
thanks for that appraisal. So the composition isn't given enough life to the top end as you hear it. I'll try to add a few more elements maybe to flesh it out a little. - thnks once again.
 
Were the instrument tracks recorded dry? If so, would you let us hear the same mix you did above but without the FX or any plugins.
 
spantini said:
Were the instrument tracks recorded dry? If so, would you let us hear the same mix you did above but without the FX or any plugins.
Click to expand...
HI. I didn't have anything on any of the tracks when recording - no effects when recording. The only recording i do other than virtual instruents are the voive and guitars (the guitars are eq'd very heavily to only give a surging sound_ - the only part of the guitar EQ i use in the record is small bit between 400-600 hz.
 
HumanPlanet said:
This actually sounds better than your EQ'd version which you're over doing/over thinking. Get the levels sorted and you'll find a VERY light touch will get this sorted.
Click to expand...
you might be right. but starting with eq / effects you can go down a big rabbit hole and end up complicating things.
 
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