First attempt at recording and mixing, need help with mud

O

Oh! Henry

New member
So after reading a crazy amount of threads and a few mixing books, I submit my first attempt at recording and mixing. Personally, I find it sounds flat and muddy. I've already done a pass of Hi-passing all my tracks and it did help, however I find I'm still far from the sound I'm hearing in my head and I'm not sure where to take it. I've been mixing on headphones mostly for now since my room is still not completely treated (missing basstraps and speaker placement is not Ideal for now)

Any ideas on making the mix shine a little more, your help is greatly appreciated!

https://soundcloud.com/henry-wojcik/born-this-way
 
I wouldn't necessarily say the mix was muddy but instrument levels need attention for me. The drums and vocal are burying everything else in places. The rhythm guitar is a little in the mid and too low, sometimes like it's not there at all. I would remove some of the low end (maybe a bit of the mid) and add some treble. Bring it up some in the mix. The 1st guitar solo level is nice but I don't particularly like the tone of it. (Personal thing) The 2nd part sounds better but is a touch too low in the mix for me. A lack of consistency in levels throughout. That's my 0.2p worth. I'm sure others will be along with better advice soon.

I would rather mix with badly placed monitors than headphones, personally. Unless you have exceptional headphones, hearing and know your headphones well.

Having said all that, fantastic tune, great vocals/voice and some great playing in there.

Really dig this and your cover of 20 Flight Rock :thumbs up:
 
Mr Clean, thanks for the tips!

It's funny how once someone tells you that something is wrong, you instantly hear it!!! I actually already Lo-cut everything under 150Hz on the guitars and notching some out at around 500Hz, but didn't boost any, I'll try reworking the Eq and levels on the guitars and see how it helps.

I'm not really used to any of my equipment since most has just been acquired and pretty much new to me, so this is a steep learning curve for me. It's fun though!!!

BTW, the first solo is a Gazoo :) I actually did my best to make it sound like a blues harmonica.

Thanks, I'll get back to work on this
 
the main problem is the backing vocal tuning... I would personally re-record them or tune them in using pitch correction.

the mix is a bit muddy but the mud is mostly coming from the guitar in the left, which could be fixed with a 3-5K boost and the lack of clarity of the bass guitar. The drums are quite dynamic and could do with some compression to even them out, same thing with the bass guitar which sounds unclear to me especially in the high mids and I can hear the fundimental but not much of the harmonics, were the strings old when recording?

A subtle compressor on the master buss would help it 'glue' together, and this track would also suit tape emulation plug-ins.
 
I went back and reworked the mix using your comments, the mix is sounding better after fixing the guitar and upright bass, however even after using the pitch correct in Cubase 7 the backing vocals still sound pretty bad in certain places and will need rerecording!!!

Here's the new version:

https://soundcloud.com/henry-wojcik/born-this-way-04

To facilitate the live recording, the Upright bass was recorded using the DI from my amp and it added too much dirt to the bass. I think I'll go back and rerecord the upright bass using some mics into my GAP 73 preamp instead, I'll be able to pick up some slap as well since it's not coming through at all!
 
I think you've got some hamonies issues around 0.26 - sounds wrong to me. The lead vocal track sounds a bit TOO HPFed for me and is clipping a lot at the loud notes. Your singer needs to learn some mic technique, I think... she's also too buried in the quiet bits and a bit too echoed. I know you're going for a certain sound but I'd be winding it back a bit...

Couldn't get past 30-ish seconds sorry... as soon as I hear loud shrill clipping female vocals, I'm outta here...
 
No offence taken, I definitely hear what your saying! Since we were recording live I only realized after the session that our signer moved the Pop filter I had set up 6-7 inches from the mic to about 2-3 inches, so that completely messed up the setup and was obviously clipping the input!

Although I read alot about it, and having now done it for the first time, I'm starting to realize and understand the importance in proper mic placement and proper set up, which we had very little time to do! I feel like the source material may not be clean enough to get a proper mix going at least not with my brand new and limited skillset, but the practice is really fun and I'm enjoying the learning experience.

I'll keep messing with this one to at least fix some of the problems I can like rerecording the bass and back vocals, and trying to work the EQ and echo and comp on the lead track

Thanks for all the input.
 
I think the newer mix is better, however like you said mic placement is VERY important as is also the choice of mic, you should use the best mic you can possibly get your hands on because it makes it sit in the mix much better later on, I had to learn that the hard way. I recommend you just learn from the experience and try and spend more time for the next recording instead of trying to fix the current mix, it's all part of the learning experience. Something that I've recently started doing a lot of is LCR (left centre right) panning, which to me sounds cleaner.
 
Really neat cover. Performances were good.

I agree with Mr. Clean. The biggest problem is with the track levels. Vocal and drums are covering everything else.

I didn't care for the guitar tones, although I think the problem might be due as much to mic placement than anything else. All guitar tracks sound very distant. Tone coming out of the amp might be ok - tough to tell.

Bass is tough to hear. Low end in general is kind of missing.

I'd take reverb off of everything for a while. It's doing more harm than good right now.

Little pop at about :58. Another one at 2:03. again - 2:25, 3:02 other places too.
 
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