help me polish my mix

J

justwantyou2kno

New member
I have finished mixing 6 songs for my band's first demo to be sold for a few bucks after shows. I am happy with the mixes but would like to better them some. The only two things I'm trying to do is create a little "air" and get a good consistant level throughout the demo. This is what I'm thinking, but I'm not sure:

1. I need a little subtractice EQ to make the recording a little less muddy. Usually the only post-mix EQ I do is to take out real low stuff, but I don't have a problem with real low stuff now. What's a good frequency to take out that'll give my recording more air?

2. Use a small ammount of compression. I tracked and mixed this thing real hot and would like to "cool" it down. I'm a novice in using a compresser though. Is there a compresser setting you use

3. Normalize. After compressing I'm thinking I should normalize to keep each song the same level.

I know I can't get great advice without giving specific details. I just want any littel advice that can help me, so I'm not taking total shots in the dark.

,Nick
 
Doesn't work that way....

1 - You want air then you have to make sure your tracks have AIR when you mix them.... if the mix sounds muddy, it's very likely the way you tracked, the arrangement, or the way you mixed is the culprit.

2 - When you say you mixed it "hot" - do you mean distortion? If so, there's nothing you can do but remix... compression won't help you, and chopping dynamics is not a good way to "cool" down a mix.... if you didn't want it "hot" why did you mix it that way?

3 - Normalize -- don't.... it won't help get the tracks to the same level anyways because meters don't tell you relative loudness - which is the way loudness dervied from the way you ear hears different frequencies.


Bottom-line -- you can't fix bad tracking in the mix, and you can't fix bad mixes by "mastering"..... get your mixes to sound the way you want them right from the start.
 
I'm not trying to make a night a day difference. For the most part I am happy with my mixes. Let me explain a little bit further.

1. The lower mids seem to muddy up the mix, but I can't find the cuprit frequency. It's not that big of a deal, I just wanted to know if anyone had a low-mid freq that they usually cut to lessen mud.

2. I mixed the songs hot because I'm recording in 16-bit and didn't want to lose fidelity. They're not distorted, just loud. I figured a small amount of compression wouldn't make the dynamics too choppy but would calm down a few songs that need to have tighter dynamics and would bring the volume down slightly. I'm thinking 1:2 with fast release and attack for a kind of slight transparent compression, but what about threshhold?

3. What's the best way to keep all songs the same levels without normalizing? I tried my best to keep all the songs the same while mixing, but it was difficult because some songs are distorted guitar driven rock songs, whereas others barely have any guitar and are driven by bass and horns.
 
final levels

One thing I do to get all my songs at a decent relative level is the following:
First...I use Vegas Audio as a multi-tracker....so...what I do is make a file that has all my final mixes in it...so its just a vegas file that has a bunch of individual songs in it....then I will add a limiter to each song...and have it go no louder than a set amount...say -0.5db or so...
then I will play each song...if it is consistently quiet...like it peaks out at -3db...I will give that specific song a 3db boost or so...until for the most part the song is at a -0.5db level. This works pretty good...you just have to be careful if your song has a lot of dynamics in it not to make ALL the parts too loud....but all in all this has made the relative difference from one song to another pretty consistent....plus...I also found that its nice to have all my completed songs in one vegas file so that when i learn little mastering tricks to be done at the final song phase...you have all the songs right there and you can mess around with all of them at the same time. Good luck!!
 
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