Tips On How To Improve This Mix...

C

chrishisey

New member
hey... I've been doing the basement project studio recording for a year (my first band was a year ago last week) and this is The last mix i had, let me know were i've been going wrong (the band wasn't good by my standards but that all has to do with taste) if you have any tricks of the trade that you could cue me in, or anything that just seems like bad engenering job? The band is below avarage musicianshisp, and my mics are pretty much blue light special (little better then radio shack, best one of the lot is bass drum akg d12) so let me know.

http://server3.hxcmp3.com/bands/26440/index.php
 
Tips on How improve this

Hi, how you doing.I've just listen to your track. First of all, what is the most
important things in your song.

First, decide what's the most important in your tracks.
In this one, that's the vocal, after the guitar, the bass and the drum.
( Except when there's a solo, it comes up from )

What i'm saying is what's the most important for YOU on the track
gotta be up front in yo face when you listin to it and
what doesn't matter just goes in the background.

In this mix i can ear the drum closer to my ears than the guitar. not great.
The vocals is too loud compare to the rest.

The vocal gotta be up front, after that the guitars, and than the bass and drum.

Try EQ each instrument to fit them in a precise frequence, EQ.

When you think you have a good mix,
just listen to it the lower volume you can, if you can't ear all the instrument
that's bad...Some instrument are not mix at all. Or if you can only here the drum.That's also bad.

You should also take a reference from other audio system
to know if you can ear the drum, bass and your instrument.

But remember that, what is the most important thing for YOU
in your tracks.

After that, use reverb, delay, eq,
to place each instrument in an order of importance.

What's the most important is what you hearing louder.Up in your face.
 
thanks alot for takeing time to listen and help, I'm not in this band, I have a cheap basement recording studio and I record local bands and such.. These guys were friends of mine....

but back to what you said... Thats a really good point of whats important to me, I try to balance what the genre of music is and my opinion, I'm changing the mix(es) as we speak, live and learn. I think you helped alot in just silly things i overlook.

but as a side question, I charge 10$ a hour 90$ for 12 hours, that mix is being fixed up, if you recorded and got that as a final mix, how riped off would you feel?
 
LA ONZIEME PROZ said:
Hi, how you doing.I've just listen to your track. First of all, what is the most
important things in your song.

First, decide what's the most important in your tracks.
In this one, that's the vocal, after the guitar, the bass and the drum.
( Except when there's a solo, it comes up from )

What i'm saying is what's the most important for YOU on the track
gotta be up front in yo face when you listin to it and
what doesn't matter just goes in the background.

In this mix i can ear the drum closer to my ears than the guitar. not great.
The vocals is too loud compare to the rest.

The vocal gotta be up front, after that the guitars, and than the bass and drum.

Try EQ each instrument to fit them in a precise frequence, EQ.

When you think you have a good mix,
just listen to it the lower volume you can, if you can't ear all the instrument
that's bad...Some instrument are not mix at all. Or if you can only here the drum.That's also bad.

You should also take a reference from other audio system
to know if you can ear the drum, bass and your instrument.

But remember that, what is the most important thing for YOU
in your tracks.

After that, use reverb, delay, eq,
to place each instrument in an order of importance.

What's the most important is what you hearing louder.Up in your face.
Click to expand...


I Remixed it and reposted it, let me know?

www.hxcmp3.com/bands/26440
 
Last edited:
chrishisey said:
I Remixed it and reposted it, let me know?

www.hxcmp3.com/bands/26440
Click to expand...

Heya there!

First of all, a good mix always starts from good tracks/tracking. You can turn good tracks into a shit but you can't turn badly tracked/played tracks into something good. In this track especially the drums are quite "wandering". The tempo changes many times, speeding and slowing.. speeding and slowing.. and so on. And the overall drumming isn't "tight" enough. It is extremely hard to build something solid over a rhythm that isn't solid. Next time pay a bit more attention to tracking. Song's basics and foundtion are the drums (especially kick/snare) and bass. If they don't keep it together, it doesn't matter what you "pile on top". It will always come rumbling down :)

Oh well, enough of that :)

About the mixing. First of all you have to have a good solid low end to build onto. So I would recommend to start from kick and bass. Make them work together. Remove the boxyness from the kick by cutting deeply around 200hz, EQ it until it sounds nice. Then work the bass guitar. As I said, make the work together (just tweak around with EQ/volumes until it starts to sound groovy hehe)

At the moment guitar is fighting with the lead and back vox. Pan that guitar out from their way!

Backing vocals are too loud. Make them a bit "thinner" and pan tem a bit more. By thinner I mean the effect what happens when you hear anyone singing a bit further way. The lower frequency range gets thinned. Just basic physics. The closer the sound is the more meat it has. By cutting the low end you create the illusion those backing vocals being further (like back there huh hehe).

Compress the lead vocal more, it has too much "jumpiness" in it.

Take the snare a bit more forward (increase volume) and compress it a bit to give it some more "punch".

Finally get that harsh sound out from those overheads. Try placing hipass filter around 700hz and then cut with moderate Q with around 3-7khz (try wherever it works best).

Hope this helps. Good luck with the mix! :)
 
chrishisey said:
but as a side question, I charge 10$ a hour 90$ for 12 hours, that mix is being fixed up, if you recorded and got that as a final mix, how riped off would you feel?
Click to expand...

I'm not really sure how good those tracks are "dry", so I can't say how good mix it is possible to squeeze out of them.

But to be honest, I listened your "remix" (never heard the first one), if I would get that result I woud definitely feel quite ripped off.. :o
 
Kainz said:
Heya there!

First of all, a good mix always starts from good tracks/tracking. You can turn good tracks into a shit but you can't turn badly tracked/played tracks into something good. In this track especially the drums are quite "wandering". The tempo changes many times, speeding and slowing.. speeding and slowing.. and so on. And the overall drumming isn't "tight" enough. It is extremely hard to build something solid over a rhythm that isn't solid. Next time pay a bit more attention to tracking. Song's basics and foundtion are the drums (especially kick/snare) and bass. If they don't keep it together, it doesn't matter what you "pile on top". It will always come rumbling down :)

Oh well, enough of that :)

About the mixing. First of all you have to have a good solid low end to build onto. So I would recommend to start from kick and bass. Make them work together. Remove the boxyness from the kick by cutting deeply around 200hz, EQ it until it sounds nice. Then work the bass guitar. As I said, make the work together (just tweak around with EQ/volumes until it starts to sound groovy hehe)

At the moment guitar is fighting with the lead and back vox. Pan that guitar out from their way!

Backing vocals are too loud. Make them a bit "thinner" and pan tem a bit more. By thinner I mean the effect what happens when you hear anyone singing a bit further way. The lower frequency range gets thinned. Just basic physics. The closer the sound is the more meat it has. By cutting the low end you create the illusion those backing vocals being further (like back there huh hehe).

Compress the lead vocal more, it has too much "jumpiness" in it.

Take the snare a bit more forward (increase volume) and compress it a bit to give it some more "punch".

Finally get that harsh sound out from those overheads. Try placing hipass filter around 700hz and then cut with moderate Q with around 3-7khz (try wherever it works best).

Hope this helps. Good luck with the mix! :)
Click to expand...



THanks a million, I'm still young so i have a lifetime to learn (17) and these kids are 15 just looking for a demo to play some shows. I don't I Told them there drum timeing was off, we took about many takes this was the best one out of them all. The guitar player and bass player (again 15 year olds,not great at playing anything even there own songs) still kept up with the timing so i assume they are use to it and dont care. just kids who want to show there friends. They were okay with the raw (or 'dry') Material, wich sounded just god awful,there everything was enough that I should be able to make a decent mix, I'm just not exsperianced and do nothing but read constently on this or that on recording/mixing... I'm happy with the progress I've made but have far from filled my disire to be a great engener. So hopfuly compared to your early mixes I'm not so far off the scale that it hurts your head to think about.


back to the mix... any good seggestions of were to raise on the bass drum? I cut the 200 and have fooled around but still not what I want out of it, trying my best to free it of its boxed cage of a thud and that Pow in your chest..


Guitar, what suggestions do you have for the pan? I had 3 mic's on the guitar amp (Larg.di. about 3 feet away,57 one center of each speakers,57 one faceing bottom corner of speaker cage/sound ring) I have the 57's panned hard left and hard right and L.D mic center.....

for snare what compression setting do you suggest, I was useing 3:1...

any wizdom anyone gives me I am more then thankful for.:-)
 
chrishisey said:
THanks a million, I'm still young so i have a lifetime to learn (17) and these kids are 15 just looking for a demo to play some shows. I don't I Told them there drum timeing was off, we took about many takes this was the best one out of them all. The guitar player and bass player (again 15 year olds,not great at playing anything even there own songs) still kept up with the timing so i assume they are use to it and dont care. just kids who want to show there friends. They were okay with the raw (or 'dry') Material, wich sounded just god awful,there everything was enough that I should be able to make a decent mix, I'm just not exsperianced and do nothing but read constently on this or that on recording/mixing... I'm happy with the progress I've made but have far from filled my disire to be a great engener. So hopfuly compared to your early mixes I'm not so far off the scale that it hurts your head to think about.


back to the mix... any good seggestions of were to raise on the bass drum? I cut the 200 and have fooled around but still not what I want out of it, trying my best to free it of its boxed cage of a thud and that Pow in your chest..


Guitar, what suggestions do you have for the pan? I had 3 mic's on the guitar amp (Larg.di. about 3 feet away,57 one center of each speakers,57 one faceing bottom corner of speaker cage/sound ring) I have the 57's panned hard left and hard right and L.D mic center.....

for snare what compression setting do you suggest, I was useing 3:1...

any wizdom anyone gives me I am more then thankful for.:-)
Click to expand...

I see heh :)

That guitar hmh.. I would take it completely out from the center. Or at least lower it. Overall I would like the guitar(s) be more out from the center. Pan them further away. Release some room for the lead and back vox.

It is quite hard to tell you some exact settings.. I would need to have the tracks right here and play with them to give so detailed advice heh.

Overall the snare and kick need to be brought forward. Free that middle area for vocals. And those overheads are too harsh sounding to me. They bury almost everything up there.
 
tell the drummer to never fill again in his life ;)

but for real, you are dealing with really bad players, so that will affect your mix. how a guy intonates a note on guitar and bass will always make a big difference...so that sucks, plus you can't grid the drums because they are all over the place...so to possibly salvage:

..compress the bass like 8:1 in this case to get the playing even. pan it center. add reverb and compression to the snare, pan it center...get those backgournds vocals and leads tuned..pann thebackups around 45 and 45 and throw on some lights chorus or delay..something..pan the guitars hard right and left..hi pass the guitars up to around 150..keep your ld vocal in the middle and compress it.

try to maintain your sanity while mixing :)
 
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