frequency questions...

[itsmeagain]

Hello, I've been break my head to get specific answer to that, just TO KNOW. I all the time work by MY EARS, not "follow the book"...but i have some questions:

THE ISSUE: If i take my samples and instruments, BEFORE i put them together in the mix, and "polish" them, with frquency work, cut low here, cut high there...you know.

1. it will make MY MIX sound brighter/commercial/clear?

2. it will cancel ANY phase that could be?

3. I know when u put all in the mix, then "NEW" frequencys created, cause all play in the same time...so that's new cretaed frequencys that's IS "good" freq?

4. If i don't do that "polish" work, can i still make a clear brighter awsome mix? cause until now i work like this. and my mixes played good.

I know that playing "solo" channel, it's not important like when you play ALL, this is what's important and count.

Thanks for your answers guys and girls!

 

[Greg_L]

I know that playing "solo" channel, it's not important like when you play ALL, this is what's important and count.

Yes. That is correct. Unless you really, REALLY know what kind of sound you're looking for from each instrument, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to pre-process samples/tracks before putting them into a mix.

Basically you're just entertaining yourself. Put your tracks together and THEN EQ for the mix.

 

[BroKen_H]

It sounds like you have this pretty well sorted already.
First, nothing is set in stone. However, there are some general guidelines that will always be true.
If you start with good tracks, mixing will be easier. If you HAVE to hi and low pass everything, you're not getting good tracks.
Second, when you consider an entire mix, it is quite different than considering the individual tracks. Individual tracks soloed may sound horrible, but what counts is what it sounds like as a whole. Hi-passing at 300 on an acoustic sounds wrong when the acoustic is soloed, but may be right in a mix. Just an example.
The thing you want to work at is making sure that what you want to be heard is forefront when you want it to be heard. If you have a great bass line, you can accentuate it during an otherwise boring point in the song, but then bring it back down to finish. I often automate hi-pass filters on tracks that will be soloed during parts of the song and then join back into the mix to make them sound fuller during the soloed parts. You may, for example, automate the volume on a guitar so you can bring it forward a bit in the verse, but then back off in the chorus when it would compete with backing vocals or strings or what-not. I usually try to insert a device with a volume and not automate the actual faders. That way I can raise and lower the level of a track as a whole and still have control over the automation without having to completely redo the automation...
Then we get to sidechain compression, or "ducking". Most often used to duck the bass when the kick hits, or duck instruments competing with the vocal, but it can be used for so much more. That's a whole other process.
So, in a nutshell, you're absolutely correct about ALL being the important part of the game. Each track may sound good on it's own, or it may not. One sentence does not a story make.
1 AFA making your mix sound better...practice makes perfect. What I thought sounded excellent 2 years ago makes me cringe a bit today. Were those bad mixes...well, some...but the point is, it was what I knew how to do then. What I know how to do NOW is what matters. Will my current mixes make me cringe in two years? Maybe so, but I'm learning, and I'm growing.
2 AFA canceling phase issues...there's little that you NORMALLY have to worry about there, but changing EQ settings normally doesn't do much for that. Most of the phase issues I hear are Soundcloud or MP3 artifacts, and there's not a LOT you can do about that.
3 Yes, the sum is the total of the parts.
4 Yes, polishing a track in the beginning has merits, but only if you know what you're doing. You obviously have some knowledge if your mixes play well. But polishing in the full mix is more important. Again, the sum of the parts. If you have mud at 300 or wash at 5k, finding the offending tracks and fixing them is more important to the mix than having an individual track sound good soloed...nobody but you will ever hear the soloed tracks. It's usually better to remove the building frequencies at the source track than to try to cut them at the bus or master.

 

[itsmeagain]

Thanks guys!

For example, I make a remix for contest (two weeks ahead from now), in untreatment environment, and i play the "mastering suite" of reason propellerheads, then i make copy of the track and send it to a recording studio, to try to make it more proffesional way.

I've attach the files.

Sample1 - the one i send to proffesional studio, they say i have many phase, they do some QUICK mixing of the track.

Sample 2 - The one i did it, with the reason propellerheads.

So what's wrong here?

 

[BroKen_H]

The first thing I noticed listening to the two samples. Sample two is a bit quieter, but a LOT less squashed and undistorted. It has dynamics. It needs a bit more bass for the genre. But honestly, I prefer your mix, so I won't try to answer "what's wrong"...

 

[itsmeagain]

Thanks!

 

[Dave Holmes]

I work with samples a lot and to be honest I tend to process in stages. All before I settle on an arrangement.

So I'll have flipped the sample several different ways - have my drums down (including breaks and drop outs) as separate loops (of varying lengths) and will then process my drums against the main sample.
Once I've added my instrumentation (synths, bass, guitar and any extra percussion) I'll process the bass against the drums; sample against the drums and bass and work in my lead synths and/guitars against the whole...

That said... I try to do as little processing as is possible and prefer to pick sounds (drums, synths etc) that I think work together naturally.
In my opinion - when making electronic or sample based music - sound selection is absolutely crucial.