Which instrument is too loud?

LazerBeakShiek

LazerBeakShiek

Rad Racing Team
Out of these, which instrument is too oud? Is it close to being a nice local mix? The shapes of the instruments need work. They sound too thinned to me but I am fatigued. Am I getting close?

Its just a bunch of mono doodles to a 120 beat. -6db mix. No effects, or EQs. I cant figure those in yet. M88 (1 foot away)and MD421 used. ADA amps and Fender instruments. No VSTs. Drums prerecorded.

Guitar chords
Guitar riffs
bass
drums
3 finger piano

About a minute jam.

 
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What I know, I know.

If the microphones are too close the bass is too boomy. This boominess makes it hard to normalize across devices. Sounds bad too.There are videos saying to use a HPF 35-120hz to remove the prox bass. That only does so much for me. The second choice is to pull the microphones back further than a foot keeping things in the middle of the room. The recording are more normal across devices. However it becomes quiet and thin. What in the tool kit works on this? Levels? Ok, say a compressor. A far mic is lower in volume. Compressing makes it quieter. You quickly run out of gain dailing it back up. What is the best solution?

The HPF seems to shape the sound. By cutting off the lows a little. The shape of the HPF curve drop off has something to do with it.

An EQ is completely useless to me right now.

Adding slight ammounts of VST Reaper distortion at a % mix actually makes it sound thicker. Which is good.

I only am using 2 microphones, so should i mix a near and a far?

What?
 
Well - only listening on my laptop at the moment - but I can't hear a piano or the bass on these little speakers. Normally I can.

I suspect the advice in videos is probably variable. As I've said, LPF and HPF are deciders when you start to EQ. It all sounds a little distant, and I don't do distant miming on anything other than orchestra type recordings. For guitars and drums, I go closer and add reverb and treatment if it needs it. Most of my early mixes don't have much EQ applied until I'm happy with the balance and blend, then I'll start to be selective with the EQ. I'd rather have clean and treatable audio than a spacey mess I can't tame.
 
Everything sounds basically like it should...as you stated....mono tracks......no effects...no EQ. It's nice and clean and you can really put a lot of character in it if you wanted to. As for the bass........yes....it's too "fat" and without character IMO. It needs more mid frequency. Find some "growl" or find some top end or other frequency that adds something other than the "bloat" (no offense intended). As for how and where to place your mics.......there's no absolute answer or reference. You're on the right track already....and as you experiment.....one method will jump out at you. You're right there!! What kind of bass and amp is it?

2 cents worth of....even if I was there I wouldn't know what to do.

Mick
 
LazerBeakShiek said:
What I know, I know.

If the microphones are too close the bass is too boomy. This boominess makes it hard to normalize across devices. Sounds bad too.There are videos saying to use a HPF 35-120hz to remove the prox bass. That only does so much for me. The second choice is to pull the microphones back further than a foot keeping things in the middle of the room. The recording are more normal across devices. However it becomes quiet and thin. What in the tool kit works on this? Levels? Ok, say a compressor. A far mic is lower in volume. Compressing makes it quieter. You quickly run out of gain dailing it back up. What is the best solution?

The HPF seems to shape the sound. By cutting off the lows a little. The shape of the HPF curve drop off has something to do with it.

An EQ is completely useless to me right now.

Adding slight ammounts of VST Reaper distortion at a % mix actually makes it sound thicker. Which is good.

I only am using 2 microphones, so should i mix a near and a far?

What?
Click to expand...
A far mic shouldn't be lower in volume, since you will increase the gain on the mic preamp to get the recording level you need. Compressing it will make it thicker and add some sustain, at the cost of the transients.

One of the things I'm noticing is the kick and the bass don't have much mid or high presence. This will make your guitars sound thin by comparison. Adding a little growl around 800-900hz and maybe some 3k to the bass could help.
Also, that kick could use some extended low end and some slap on the attack. The drums as a whole could be brightened up. If you had more 40hz to 100hz information in the bass and drums, the proximity effect on the guitars would fit the mix and you wouldn't have to have the mic so far away.

I know you didn't EQ, which is why the mix isn't coming together as it could. The guitars sound thin and spikey against the dull sounding bass and drums.
 
The drums were a prerecorded wav. I cut to fit. They came with some focusrite software in a drumloop pack.

I used past suggestions. Turning the treble down at amp . Adding 3k to bass. Using ReaFir instead of ReaEq. So I can make better edges on the filters.

Todd Leon an online educator has been guiding me to not apply EQ or LPF HPF at time of recording.

My amps are halfway up. Not tuning volume. They are gig volume.

Here is the 55mb Reaper project if you want to check it out. See if its just me. You can see where my levels are at. What I tried. Perhaps tell me what to improve.
 


Here is what I did:
Added high and low shelf to the drums, (8k and 50hz)
Brought up the level of the M88 on the bass 13db to nearly match that of the 421. Why was it so quiet?
Took out some 1.3k on the lead
Compressed the bass slightly
Ran the mix through a limiter

There was nothing wrong with the guitar sounds, the drums and bass were just really dull so the mix wouldn't balance. It would sound more interesting if you doubled the rhythm guitar part and panned them away from each other. That would get you some stereo spread and make more room for the lead part in the middle.
 
Wow! That is not my recordings...You switched them...I listened to it about 10 times. Gonna listen 10 more, digest and get back to you...Figure out how you did it..Cool man. I like.

The Bass M88 was an experiment in adding distance to one of the microphones. Near and far. The gain was dimed on it. I was unsatisfied with MY bass results. You worked it out and sounds ok.

Dull is a good word. My mix was dull.

The guitars sound perfect. That is what I had in mind. Up front. Clear. Sitting in a mix. Not a bunch of distortion, but harmonically dirty.
Tell me more about it. Any particular tools VSTs or otherwise that make the difference?

If you look at the limiter I had in the master, are those settings close to make the mix?
 
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come out with me tonight
we can start a fire
bond a new light
but shes such a liar

hangin out a sight
like a spare tire
such a rush to fight
she cant get no higher

stay its alright
its her desire
we're in real tight
a twisted wire


I wrote these words on some paper at lunch. See if I can make a melody for em.
 
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I don't use Reaper, so I had to start from scratch. I couldn't see anything you did in the mix.

The only thing I did on the bass was bring up the clip gain on the M88 track and add very little compression from an LA3A compressor. No EQ

I did nothing to the rhythm guitar, no EQ, both tracks panned center at the same volume.

I added delay to the lead and took out a little 1.3k

I panned the piano wide

The biggest difference was brightening up the drums and adding a little more sub to them.

For the most part, I didn't do much of anything
 
Farview said:
I don't use Reaper, so I had to start from scratch. I couldn't see anything you did in the mix. What DAW are you using?

The only thing I did on the bass was bring up the clip gain on the M88 track and add very little compression from an LA3A compressor. It sounds nice, my bass mix was terrible.

I added delay to the lead and took out a little 1.3k... It did sound better with the scoop. Hahahah. I thought that was my front room. Natural ambience you brought out. No.

I panned the piano wide..The piano track was labeled for the vocals SM58. It is the 1/4" R and L from my Fantom X. Taken into the Apollo interface. A known good sample.
Click to expand...
 
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I use an older version of Nuendo. I closed my studio down a long time ago and stopped updating my software.

The delay was 96ms on one side and 110ms on the other with a little bit of decay. I brought it up just to give it a little stereo spread, since there wasn't much stereo information in the rest of the tracks.
 
I think what Laser did was spot on. The only problem I'm having is with the panning or lack of doubling. I think the mix could be a Lot wider. mark
 
Yes , my mix the drums were too loud. The drums make the biggest difference. In Farview's , the drums are more fluid, they don't push the other instruments out of the mix. Farviews balance is really nice. I tried to recreate just the drums with a EQ GUI. He even told me the shelf settings 50-8000hz. The reverb splashes much better on his drums. Still I could not figure out the shelfs. I was at +6 at 10khz and although bright, it wasn't fluid. This is the EQ shape I made. I think the hi shelf is wrong.

Screenshot 2021-05-07 083605.jpg
 
Part of the problem is, according to the graphic, you aren't actually using shelves.

I looked at my settings again.
High Shelf 8k +7.7db
Low Shelf 60hz +4.8db
Mid boost 3.62k +2.7db 1.5q

It should look something more like this: 1620402221753.png

But I'm actually using an SSL channel strip, which has a different sound than the stock EQ, but it doesn't have the graphic display.
1620402379805.png
The compressor and expander are defeated.
 
On the ReaEQ, when you turn a shelf eq all the way down it starts to act like a HPF/LPF filter. You have them set to -∞ but the high shelf should be +7.7dB and the low shelf should be +4.8dB. The slope of the filter will also affect how it works.
 
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