How does one sound nice and clean?

[SouthSIDE Glen]

Allow me to comment on my own article a bit ...

While the sweep technique can be used soloed or while "in the mix", it's really best used soloed. This may seen to contradict what everybody - including me - always says about making instruments sound good in the mix instead of soloed, but it really doesn't, because we're really tlking about two different things there.

The idea behind the parametric sweep is to take out instrument resonances and mic/room response "hotspots" in the recording that detract from the intrinsic "good" sounds of the instrument that are there already, but getting a bit camouflaged by the aforementioned mud. As such, it's usually best to have the instrument soloed when you do this so you're hearing only what's on that track and not being distracted by anything else.

The difference there is one is not trying to "get a sound" out of the track; i.e. to EQ, comp, etc. to manufacture an "awesome" sound out of a raw track; that should instead be done within the mix, because what often sounds like a big, awesome "new" sound soloed, winds up not playing nicely with the other big, awesome new sounds when thrown in the same sandbox.

The parametric sweep is not creating a sound; it is just cleaning up the sound you already have.

And this is important: It also is all subtractive - there are no additives such as EQ boosts, compression, reverb, salt, pepper or MSG. The more you take away from one track, the more "room" it leaves for the other tracks. Subtractive parametric sweeps help make practically everything play together better because each track is taking up less of the sandbox.

There's nothing wrong with additive EQ, compression, reverb or other herbs and spices. But those are best added when viewed within the context of the mix, because the more of each added to this tracke, the less room there is for the other tracks.

G.

 

[Elton123]

Allow me to comment on my own article a bit ...

While the sweep technique can be used soloed or while "in the mix", it's really best used soloed. This may seen to contradict what everybody - including me - always says about making instruments sound good in the mix instead of soloed, but it really doesn't, because we're really tlking about two different things there.

The idea behind the parametric sweep is to take out instrument resonances and mic/room response "hotspots" in the recording that detract from the intrinsic "good" sounds of the instrument that are there already, but getting a bit camouflaged by the aforementioned mud. As such, it's usually best to have the instrument soloed when you do this so you're hearing only what's on that track and not being distracted by anything else.

The difference there is one is not trying to "get a sound" out of the track; i.e. to EQ, comp, etc. to manufacture an "awesome" sound out of a raw track; that should instead be done within the mix, because what often sounds like a big, awesome "new" sound soloed, winds up not playing nicely with the other big, awesome new sounds when thrown in the same sandbox.

The parametric sweep is not creating a sound; it is just cleaning up the sound you already have.

And this is important: It also is all subtractive - there are no additives such as EQ boosts, compression, reverb, salt, pepper or MSG. The more you take away from one track, the more "room" it leaves for the other tracks. Subtractive parametric sweeps help make practically everything play together better because each track is taking up less of the sandbox.

There's nothing wrong with additive EQ, compression, reverb or other herbs and spices. But those are best added when viewed within the context of the mix, because the more of each added to this tracke, the less room there is for the other tracks.

G.

I'm really beginning to like Glen the more I play around on here!!!
A freq. mapping chart may help too. Always let your ears guide you, but this is an additional tool when doing the sweep technique. Pitch to Frequency Mappings

 

[TyphoidHippo]

I'm really beginning to like Glen the more I play around on here!!!
A freq. mapping chart may help too. Always let your ears guide you, but this is an additional tool when doing the sweep technique. Pitch to Frequency Mappings

Dude, yea.. Glen's the man. I've learned more from his articles than any other single source, printed, Internet, or otherwise - hands down. Check out his articles on monitors.

Allow me to comment on my own article a bit ...
G.

lol. Yea, that's what I was stumbling around trying to say. Where do they hide the green chicklet button these days? I haven't been around in a while and this is all weird now.

 

[Omega Records]

Imo using different filters/compressors for each instrument does a lot

 

[dco]

I built QUIZTONES (frequency identification trainer) to improve my own EQ'ing intuition.

You may find it useful to help yourself become familiar with learning how different frequencies respond with different sources.

It's helped me eliminate the need to always sweep around.

Let me know if there is anything you would find useful for me to add to it : )

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

Hey dco, that's a nice app. I'm glad to see someone finally adding in more than just test tones in that kind of app. Nice job .

I've always wanted to develop an app similar to that that allowed one to load in WAV or MP3 clips of actual music mixes and do a similar thing. That might not be feasible with a server-based Flash applet, there may be security access issues getting to local hard drive clips, I'm not sure. But have you ever considered something like that?

I'd also like to explain to the rest of the folks that while being able to ID frequencies by ear is an imperative skill to develop - it should be a prerequisite to doing any home mixing whatsoever, IMHO - it can't completely eliminate the utliity of the sweep. I would, in fact, say that it in fact can make sweeping an even more effective and efficient tool in many circumstances.

If someone is sweeping to take care of the stuff that's "obvious" (for lack of a better term offhand) for those with better-trained ears, then yeah, absolutely, learning the frequencies by ear will get rid of much of the need to do that.

Even with very well-trained ears, though, sweeping can be good for finding trouble spots that are not necessarily readily identifiable otherwise, even for those that can score 100% on the quiz.

One classic example I had a couple of years ago, and that I've talked about before (I think I talked about it on my website, even), was where I was tasked with re-mastering some old basement 2mix tapes from about 25 years ago. They sounded usable , but there was the common problem of a wild excess of energy in the upper mids between about 3k and 5k.

Using broadband EQ and/or multi-band compression on it was no good, because it wound up throwing out the baby with the bathwater; i.e. in order to get the energy balance "right" one has to take out or crunch way too much of "the good stuff" in the process. The only way to deal with it was to "punch some holes" in that frequency range with some pretty deep but very narrow Q EQ cuts, IDing the worst-sounding of those narrow frequencies with the sweep technique.

As I recall, there were a good four or five pinhole notches that I wound up carving into that fairly narrow frequency range on average (it varied from song to song), and there's no way that even the best of ears could have isolated them in the middle of all that mud without using the sweep to find them.

Anyway, nice app you got there, and thanks for the contribution .

G.