guitars and bass in a mix

Br3n

Br3n

New member
its been a while since i have been here guys sorry been really busy with an overhaul at the studio now looks and sounds 100 times better and so much easier to work.

anyway my question is i have some really raw and earthy sounding guitars that are huge for a sort of grungy style band and i am loving them but how would you go about tightening up the tones a bit to allow them to sit better with the bass guitar that has a full rich tone to it.

currently eqing and compressing just a tad to make some room.

i think what i am really asking is what are peoples favorite methods of getting guitars to sound huge without stepping on the toes of other things like snare drums and toms
 
Really no way to answer your question without hearing the tracks in the context of the tune you're trying to mix. Suggest posting the tracks in the MP3 forum or better yet post in the Mix This forum.
 
You want the guitars to sound huge? Record them that way. But if your guitar tracks are masking things like drums, you're doing it wrong.
 
greg what do you mean i am doing it wrong?

the guitars sound huge and earthy but getting them to sit well with the bass and snare drum mainly as the snare wants the same frequency as the low in the guitars.
 
Br3n said:
greg what do you mean i am doing it wrong?

the guitars sound huge and earthy but getting them to sit well with the bass and snare drum mainly as the snare wants the same frequency as the low in the guitars.
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WTF is earthy?

I'd bet, just guessing, that you need to cut some lows out of the guitar tracks. Or retrack them. You can get a lot of muck in the 100-200 range if you mic'd a speaker poorly. Even "heavy" guitars don't have so much low end in them that they'd fuck up the bass and snare.
 
there is a high pass on the guitars at about the 125ish range.

what i mean by earthy is a kind of grungy/raw guitar sound of the say late 90s era. alice in chains or nirvana.

sounds great for the music that is being recorded. just struggling with the thud of the snare a little. it isnt a disaster just not quite where i want it. and bass is a full rounded tone that sits nicely just doesnt punch through as i would like
 
Okay, so the guitars are too woofy, the snare thud is a problem, and the bass isn't cutting through? Is that all?

Post up a sample.
 
A sample is necessary, but one thing I'm learning is that not everything can be huge. You have to decide what's going to be the focus. Huge guitars, huge snare, huge kick, huge vocals. Something's got to give some contrast or instead of huge you're gonna have a bunch of mush.

I've had what I believe is success picking one or two things to be the "big" part of the mix and letting everything else sound good, but not compete for size.
 
BrentDomann said:
A sample is necessary, but one thing I'm learning is that not everything can be huge. You have to decide what's going to be the focus. Huge guitars, huge snare, huge kick, huge vocals. Something's got to give some contrast or instead of huge you're gonna have a bunch of mush.

I've had what I believe is success picking one or two things to be the "big" part of the mix and letting everything else sound good, but not compete for size.
Click to expand...

You can also alternate which instrument takes the lead, i.e. you can punch up the bass mids when there are no vocals going on, but absolutely you only have so much room in a mix and that's it. Its a finite amount.
 
so this wasnt ment to be a thread so much on what i am doing wrong but a 2 part thing of what people do to combat issues they may have with elements of a mix they are not happy with based around certain aspects say guitars not sitting where they want and also an insight in to what is your go to mixing ideas around certain things.

i know every mix is different and requires a different approach but what are the steps you take to get places?

do you always do certain things all the time? do you always say place the rhythm guitar hard left and right with the lead guitar just inside or the other way round? do you always roll the low end out of the overheads on drums or allow the overheads to be the full tone of the drums?

that sort of thing not so much i am having these issue help sort them.
 
Subtractive EQ. Find the frequency where the snare resides by boosting huge with a narrow Q. Find where the snare pops best. Invert the curve (attenuate) and apply it to the guitar. In the overall mix, I bet you never miss it.
Mud in the bass can be handled by low shelving the bass up and the guitar down at the same xf.
I don't ever do ANYTHING the same. I start pretty much from scratch (with presets and a channel layout) and go from there. Sometimes the channel layout gets moved about a bit...
But grain of salt this, as I only record myself and that for my own amusement and amazement...
 
Br3n said:
its been a while since i have been here guys sorry been really busy with an overhaul at the studio now looks and sounds 100 times better and so much easier to work.

anyway my question is i have some really raw and earthy sounding guitars that are huge for a sort of grungy style band and i am loving them but how would you go about tightening up the tones a bit to allow them to sit better with the bass guitar that has a full rich tone to it.

currently eqing and compressing just a tad to make some room.

i think what i am really asking is what are peoples favorite methods of getting guitars to sound huge without stepping on the toes of other things like snare drums and toms
Click to expand...

Simple, if you want your guitars to be huge you have to make your bass "weak".
If you want your bass to be huge you need to weaken your guitars.

If you want both of them to be strong in the low end you are simply asking for a muddy mix :)

Also try to mix drums and bass perfectly and then add your guitars.
And yeah use lots of subtractive EQ to make room for your guitars and vice versa.
 
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