Struggling with getting good mixes :(

[themdla]

Hi everyone,

i've been recording for a few years and have always struggled with getting good mixes that have: punch, clarity, depth and separation.

nothing i've ever done sounds nearly as good as the pros

admittedly i don't have the best gear:

digi002, KRK rokkit 5's, basic plug-ins, etc...

and i haven't always used the best recording techniques aka actually miking instruments. Mostly i use softsynths, DI guitars and bass (with plugins for amp sounds), and sampled drums.

what drives me crazy is that everything sounds great on my monitors but after i bounce the track and take it somewhere else (Car, boombox, computer speakers) it sounds tiny!!! no low end, jacked mids, no air/shine. just dull tiny garbage.

occasionally i get lucky and 1 of 10 mixes turns out ok....

i'm thinking it's the monitors and listening position but need some seasoned advice. thx in advance, looking forward to hear from you guys


-Mike Duncan

 

[RAMI]

and i haven't always used the best recording techniques

Well, it seems you're aware of part of the problem (a HUGE part). The other thing would be, is your mixing room treated at all?

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

What Rami said.

Plus....

- Get your speakers away from the wall and your mixing position out of the corner, if either of those applies.

- Learn to "translate" what you hear on your KRKs to the outside world. That is, you have learned that getting things to sound best on the KRKs is not what sounds best in the real world; so you need to figure out what it needs to sound like at your mix position so that it *does* sound good on the outside.

G.

 

[themdla]

re:

@RAMI

not having the best gear and recording real instruments are big issues. i just wish that i could at least meet the level of (DJs/electronic musicians/sample guys) with my mixes.

my room is not treated and on top of that my monitors are about 6" from the wall on my desk about a foot lower than my head...

(i just realized these are all bad things after reading an article online)

@SouthSIDE Glen

A friend of mine recommended that i "learn" my monitors as well but i guess my ears just aren't that good. i can't seem to pick out specfically (frequency wise) what is going on while mixing.

he also suggested i use an dual 31-band eq to adjust my monitors to correct for the overemphasized and underemphasized frequencies.

i'm also wondering if i'm gain staging right (if that's the right term for it) because i feel like i might be recording and mixing too hot.

 

[themdla]

additionally i'm considering using another set of monitors (computer/car/boombox) to a/b with the KRK's while mixing.

or finding a set of monitors that will just translate well and also don't cost an arm & a leg (lol yeah right)

PS oh and apparently the "site" i referred to in my last post was yours glen haha

 

[kcearl]

Hi everyone,

i've been recording for a few years and have always struggled with getting good mixes that have: punch, clarity, depth and separation.

nothing i've ever done sounds nearly as good as the pros

admittedly i don't have the best gear:

digi002, KRK rokkit 5's, basic plug-ins, etc...

and i haven't always used the best recording techniques aka actually miking instruments. Mostly i use softsynths, DI guitars and bass (with plugins for amp sounds), and sampled drums.

what drives me crazy is that everything sounds great on my monitors but after i bounce the track and take it somewhere else (Car, boombox, computer speakers) it sounds tiny!!! no low end, jacked mids, no air/shine. just dull tiny garbage.

occasionally i get lucky and 1 of 10 mixes turns out ok....

i'm thinking it's the monitors and listening position but need some seasoned advice. thx in advance, looking forward to hear from you guys


-Mike Duncan

Its not the monitors its you Ill bet (no offence)


what you are not achieving is a balanced mix, and by that your not mixing to sound good in different environments...guaranteed you listen to mixes quite loudly on your monitors...stop, have a coffee, go back and mix at a lower volume

your ears hear mid frequencies the easiest, lows and highs dont register until louder levels are reached...so when you listen on small speakers or on systems that dont produce as much volume you lose tons of this..

you need to A/B between your monitors and a small speaker system, I use my MP3 player as thats what Im used to listening to music on...the car is great because its such a small "dry" environment but its not easily available...

if you are going to lose the kick and bass because of low frequencies not being heard on say PC speakers or a Ipod give them a little presence in the low highs when you are EQing them during the mix..this way you'll still hear them in the mix, low frequencies will not be reproduced in speakers that dont have the ability reproduce them...period...but you still want them heard in the mix

its practise...and being used to what your hearing...my mixes sounded awful on PC speakers at first but now they are fine, I hear good mixers in the clinics stuff away from my monitors and you can hear the folks that have got it right

sure room treatment etc is important but I bet half of us do no more than what Glen suggests, stay away from corners and move the monitors away from the wall...sit the same distance from them as they are from each other and angle them towards you with your ear level being between the tweeter and woofer...that'll all help but not as much as listening on a system that you listen to normal music on i think


all imho of course

 

[kcearl]

??


you dont get anything mastered until its mixed properly...mastering isnt for sorting out what the OPs having problems with

 

[kcearl]

"We will master your song into a hit!"


Im sending everything i have to them right now! hits a plenty!!

 

[RAMI]

Get your stuff mastered! You are mix-mastering, which is a recipe for disaster. Try these guys: http://www.littlemajorproductions.be/

I just discovered them and they seem to do a good job. Plus you don't have to pay them until you hear the difference.

??


you dont get anything mastered until its mixed properly...mastering isnt for sorting out what the OPs having problems with

Exactly.

 

[witzendoz]

@RAMI
he also suggested i use an dual 31-band eq to adjust my monitors to correct for the overemphasized and underemphasized frequencies.

Never ever use a 31 band or any other eq to adjust monitors for a bad sounding room or poor set up.

You need to set up the mixing position and the monitors correctly and there are a thousand threads on this forum discussing that topic.

Alan.

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

A friend of mine recommended that i "learn" my monitors as well but i guess my ears just aren't that good. i can't seem to pick out specfically (frequency wise) what is going on while mixing.

The bad news is that without ears, frankly, the rest is meaningless. The good news is that you're in the same boat as most others new to this racket; your situation is not unique. It takes some practice. Which leads to...

he also suggested i use an dual 31-band eq to adjust my monitors to correct for the overemphasized and underemphasized frequencies.

Aside from other issues that exist with that solution, without the ears to translate, adjusting the EQ for that reason will be taking a blind shot in the dark, at best.

If you have a graphic EQ, I suggest you try using it as an ear training tool. Listen to your favorite CDs, along with a few from genres you don't normally listen to, while sitting there with your EQ, sliding one fader up and down at a time, listening to how that frequency affects the sound, what it does to each instrument in the mix, etc. Do this for an hour a night for a week or two and see where you are. Before too long you should be able to give the EQ to your friend, pop in a new CD you have not practiced with before, and have him move the sliders without you seeing which ones he moves while you guess which ones he's moving. You may not get them all exactly right, especially on a 31-band, but you should start to get close at least after a while.

This will help you in at least two ways; not only will it help train your ears for the various frequencies and what they mean to the music and your various playback systems, but it will also help your ears build and hone their critical/analytical listening skills in general; i.e. they'll help your ears to learn how to listen beyond just the music itself and to listen to technical detail as well. That'll get you halfway home at least to having the ears to mix music.

i'm also wondering if i'm gain staging right (if that's the right term for it) because i feel like i might be recording and mixing too hot.

Another common newb issue. There's threads all over this BBS talking abot that, including an applet on my website, but here's the simple answer: it's awfully damn hard to record or mix at levels "too low", but it's incredibly easy to record and mix at levels "too high". When in doubt, turn it down.

G.

 

[Chili]

admittedly i don't have the best gear:

digi002, KRK rokkit 5's, basic plug-ins, etc...

This shouldn't be a problem. Though, I will say the 5" monitors are not great for low end.

and i haven't always used the best recording techniques aka actually miking instruments. Mostly i use softsynths, DI guitars and bass (with plugins for amp sounds), and sampled drums.

This isn't a problem. I use a guitar modeler, DI my bass and use sampled drums. I get fairly decent, though definitely not pro, results.

what drives me crazy is that everything sounds great on my monitors but after i bounce the track and take it somewhere else (Car, boombox, computer speakers) it sounds tiny!!! no low end, jacked mids, no air/shine. just dull tiny garbage.

This is your problem. You need to acoustically treat your mixing environment. It doesn't have to be expensive to be effective if you can do some simple DIY stuff. Check out the Studio Build and Construction forum, this topic gets discussed often. A few OC703 panels in key locations and your well on your way to better sound. The best bang for the buck to improve your mixes.

peace,

 

[rvs0002]

Another thing that might help is focusing on ONE SONG ONLY until you get it right. Go buy a 50 pack of cd-r's and start mixing. Burn a cd, take it to your car, and make a few notes on things you don't like (try to start with one instrument if you can such as drums). Go back in, tweak, burn, and back to car. Work on this for an hour or two a day (after that your ears are probably fatigued and you'll go backwards if you keep mixing) with breaks every 15 minutes. When you finally get something that you are happy with, save that file as a template in your DAW. Now you have a basic starting point for your room instead of starting from scratch every time.

Another thing you might try is mixing on a decent pair of headphones (not the 20 dollar pair from KMart). It's not ideal, but a nice pair of headphones can be had for less than 100.00, and it would be much better than the environment it sounds like you are mixing in, at least until you can straighten that out.

Lastly, post some of your mixes and let some of the folks on the boards help you out! Lots of knowledge waiting to be had!

Good luck!

 

[themdla]

Its not the monitors its you Ill bet (no offence)


what you are not achieving is a balanced mix, and by that your not mixing to sound good in different environments...guaranteed you listen to mixes quite loudly on your monitors...stop, have a coffee, go back and mix at a lower volume

your ears hear mid frequencies the easiest, lows and highs dont register until louder levels are reached...so when you listen on small speakers or on systems that dont produce as much volume you lose tons of this..

you need to A/B between your monitors and a small speaker system, I use my MP3 player as thats what Im used to listening to music on...the car is great because its such a small "dry" environment but its not easily available...

if you are going to lose the kick and bass because of low frequencies not being heard on say PC speakers or a Ipod give them a little presence in the low highs when you are EQing them during the mix..this way you'll still hear them in the mix, low frequencies will not be reproduced in speakers that dont have the ability reproduce them...period...but you still want them heard in the mix

its practise...and being used to what your hearing...my mixes sounded awful on PC speakers at first but now they are fine, I hear good mixers in the clinics stuff away from my monitors and you can hear the folks that have got it right

sure room treatment etc is important but I bet half of us do no more than what Glen suggests, stay away from corners and move the monitors away from the wall...sit the same distance from them as they are from each other and angle them towards you with your ear level being between the tweeter and woofer...that'll all help but not as much as listening on a system that you listen to normal music on i think


all imho of course

first of all thanks to everyone for the big response, its really appreciated!

No offence taken brotha

I do listen at many different levels and in many positions around the room.

i started using a track i'm familar with (Kings of Leon - Sex on Fire) to check the differences between my monitors and my computer speakers. i did a good bit of critical listening trying to identify specific differences. it's amazing how much lowend these monitors add and how under represented the mids and highs are. hence my missing low end and harsh highs in final mixes, i assume.

i did as suggested and moved my monitors at least 14" from the wall and rasied them to ear level (with books of course, don't worry i have decoupling rubber feet under them). this helped things a good bit and definitely helped the low end, however the low end was still very over represented in comparison to my computer speakers (which have a sub BTW).

so them in my finite wisdom i decided to temporaily seal the ports on my KRK's as a friend of mine had told me that infinte baffle/non-ported enclosures better represented low end and transient response sans group delay (aka ns10m, his monitor of choice). this actually seems to kinda work and reduced bass levels a good bit (at what frequency? i'm guessing the "tune" of the port, prolly 110hz).

in the end if i plan on continuing to use these monitors i will still have to learn them... which is a good exercise no doubt for critical listening skills. but i would still prefer to be closer to the "truth" if possible.

which brings me to another idea.... what if i used a 31 -band eq, an RTA, and some pink noise to correct these monitors to "flat" in my listening position @ 85db? coupled with room treatment?

or should i just get ns10's and be done with it?

 

[themdla]

I think the gear you are using is fine, and you probably have great ears after as much time as you have devoted to the art. Mixing and Mastering are not the same thing, and the pros recognize the difference between mix engineers and mastering engineers.

dude go SELL your mastering BS somewhere else!

if i was ready to master i'd have a good mix already.

thanks

 

[themdla]

Another thing that might help is focusing on ONE SONG ONLY until you get it right. Go buy a 50 pack of cd-r's and start mixing. Burn a cd, take it to your car, and make a few notes on things you don't like (try to start with one instrument if you can such as drums). Go back in, tweak, burn, and back to car. Work on this for an hour or two a day (after that your ears are probably fatigued and you'll go backwards if you keep mixing) with breaks every 15 minutes. When you finally get something that you are happy with, save that file as a template in your DAW. Now you have a basic starting point for your room instead of starting from scratch every time.

Another thing you might try is mixing on a decent pair of headphones (not the 20 dollar pair from KMart). It's not ideal, but a nice pair of headphones can be had for less than 100.00, and it would be much better than the environment it sounds like you are mixing in, at least until you can straighten that out.

Lastly, post some of your mixes and let some of the folks on the boards help you out! Lots of knowledge waiting to be had!

Good luck!

unfortunately the other musicians i work with don't always want to work on the same song. most of my tracks are just scratch tracks anyway, used for refining arrangements and drafting final ideas, but i would be nice if it sounded ok when bounced.

i have rarely worked with finished tracks, where all instruments, vox, guitar, bass, drums, synth, BV, etc... are represented. normally i'm "mixing" just a couple tracks: bass & drums, GTR & drums, vox and guitar, etc... but in the few opportunities i've had to mix vox and everything else i've gotten better results.

i like the idea of mixing in headphones because it takes the room & monitors out of the equasion but always heard it was a no-no to mix in headphones...

 

[themdla]

This shouldn't be a problem. Though, I will say the 5" monitors are not great for low end.



This isn't a problem. I use a guitar modeler, DI my bass and use sampled drums. I get fairly decent, though definitely not pro, results.



This is your problem. You need to acoustically treat your mixing environment. It doesn't have to be expensive to be effective if you can do some simple DIY stuff. Check out the Studio Build and Construction forum, this topic gets discussed often. A few OC703 panels in key locations and your well on your way to better sound. The best bang for the buck to improve your mixes.

peace,

see i know there are plenty of people out there that get good results with DI instruments, just not me lol

i bought a grip of rockwool/OC 703 material a few years back with the intention of building broad band absorbers and bass traps. i ended up building one bass trap and never had time to finish anything else (this wasn't my first DIY rodeo, i've built all kinds of different stuff including guitars, amps, and effects pedals). then a roommate tossed my left over materials after i moved out. but i've been thinking about getting more "703" and trying again.

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

what if i used a 31 -band eq, an RTA, and some pink noise to correct these monitors to "flat" in my listening position @ 85db? coupled with room treatment?

or should i just get ns10's and be done with it?

Just an FYI: NS10s are about as far from "flat" as one can get. They have a huge midrange bump and are quite anemic on the low end. Many pro engineers like taping tissue paper over the tweeter in order to deaden their harshness. That doesn't mean that one cannot mix on them, it just means that they should not be confused as "flat" speakers, just that they have a coloration that your friend prefers.

The problem with trying to correct monitors with EQ is that it does nothing to correct the room. This is not just an esoteric distinction; the bass modality of your room is a function of the room's physical dimensions and the nature of the larger objects (furniture, etc.) within the room, and nothing that you do to your speakers alone can change that. A bass null will remain a bass null no matter how you try to pump the bass with an EQ, and vice versa.

A second problem is that without a calibrated microphone, trying to EQ to pink noise will wind up having you EQ to the microphone's response and not the actual room's response.

I think you'll find it a much more successful tack to try and tune your room a bit better. This doesn't have to cost a lot of money; sometimes just a little furniture rearrangement can help, sometimes a one-afternoon project of making a removable DIY bass trap or two might be advantageous.

G.

 

[themdla]

i had assumed the calibrated/measurement microphone was implied but from what your describing it may not matter anyway.

so if i were to use a measurement mic would that change your opinion of RTA & EQ room correction? (despite room modes of course)

also where would you consider the most effective place to add a bass trap
(i have one that i built a few years back when i had initailly considered room treatment. its 2' x 4' x 4" plus 1" air gap behind the 4" of "703")

 

[themdla]

Just an FYI: NS10s are about as far from "flat" as one can get. They have a huge midrange bump and are quite anemic on the low end. Many pro engineers like taping tissue paper over the tweeter in order to deaden their harshness. That doesn't mean that one cannot mix on them, it just means that they should not be confused as "flat" speakers, just that they have a coloration that your friend prefers.

The problem with trying to correct monitors with EQ is that it does nothing to correct the room. This is not just an esoteric distinction; the bass modality of your room is a function of the room's physical dimensions and the nature of the larger objects (furniture, etc.) within the room, and nothing that you do to your speakers alone can change that. A bass null will remain a bass null no matter how you try to pump the bass with an EQ, and vice versa.

A second problem is that without a calibrated microphone, trying to EQ to pink noise will wind up having you EQ to the microphone's response and not the actual room's response.

I think you'll find it a much more successful tack to try and tune your room a bit better. This doesn't have to cost a lot of money; sometimes just a little furniture rearrangement can help, sometimes a one-afternoon project of making a removable DIY bass trap or two might be advantageous.

G.

i've heard that they aren't technically "flat" but i figured in my situation (missing low end, harsh mids, dull or harsh highs depending on the mix) that ns10's which are overly mid heavy, flabby low end, excessive highs would, in a way, correct exactly what is missing in my mixes by virtue of the fact that is what my mixes end up sounding like.

i'm not stuck on ns10's though... and welcome any other recommendations that aren't over a 1000 bucks for a pair