Getting each track to sit nicely in the mix

[skiz]

I mentioned today to a friend that when i mix down things get pretty muddy. He said one thing he likes to do is assign different parts of the frequency spectrum to diff tracks by means of a multiband compressor like the C4. He'll assign diff lows to the kick and bass, different high mids to the guitars etc by boosting those freq's with the c4. What do you guys think of this and what techniques might i use to get everything to sit better in the mix without interfering with each other?

 

[mixsit]

Hmm. Instead of perhaps the same moves on an eq, you assign them to a version of dynamic eq?

 

[Daisy]

I just track everything so that it doesn't need any corrective EQ to get everything to gel.




Not really. I use a shit load of EQ sometimes.

 

[adferrendelli]

http://www.recordingwebsite.com/articles/eqprimer.php

basic information for equalization

 

[Ironklad Audio]

to be honest, it sounds as if your friend is using the multiband completely incorrectly

maybe he's found a way for it work for him, but i would personally never start throwing it on all the tracks of a mix like that...i'd be willing to bet he'd be much better off using notching EQ techniques along with high and low-pass filtering

i like using a multiband to squish the bottom end on stuff sometimes...but aside from that, i try to stay away

 

[Steve Henningsgard]

Getting each track to sit nicely in a mix IS mixing! Using a multiband to actually route signals is lazy. At most, I keep one on the master fader and enable it only when I want to check what some specific band is doing (really useful for checking on the low-end, to make sure there isn't much other than the bass guitar and kick down past 70-80hz).

The multiband has many incredible uses, but it is a fucking beast of a tool to learn! I'm nowhere near competent with it...

 

[Todzilla]

In order to have tracks sound very muddy and indistinct, make sure each part takes up the full frequency spectrum.

This is a problem with players who've honed their sound by playing in their bedroom by themselves. They develop a full frequency sound that is Godlike on their own. Get a whole band of those players together and they quickly clog up the whole tune.

Some of the best overall songs have wimpy constituent tracks when solo'ed. Don't judge a track's tone on how it sounds by itself, judge it in the context of the song.

 

[Steve Henningsgard]

In order to have tracks sound very muddy and indistinct, make sure each part takes up the full frequency spectrum.

This is a problem with players who've honed their sound by playing in their bedroom by themselves. They develop a full frequency sound that is Godlike on their own. Get a whole band of those players together and they quickly clog up the whole tune.

Some of the best overall songs have wimpy constituent tracks when solo'ed. Don't judge a track's tone on how it sounds by itself, judge it in the context of the song.

Very good call man! This goes very much for live playing as well.

 

[mrhotapples]

In order to have tracks sound very muddy and indistinct, make sure each part takes up the full frequency spectrum.

This is a problem with players who've honed their sound by playing in their bedroom by themselves. They develop a full frequency sound that is Godlike on their own. Get a whole band of those players together and they quickly clog up the whole tune.

Some of the best overall songs have wimpy constituent tracks when solo'ed. Don't judge a track's tone on how it sounds by itself, judge it in the context of the song.

Ah! This reminds me so much of the other guitarist in my band. He has a Peavey Windsor (which is a really nice amp if you want something similar to a 1960s Marshall) which he runs a metal zone into. I don't mind the metal zone at all, it's pretty flexible, but he sets it up so that it booms, chugs, thumps and HISSSSSSSSSSSSSSES terribly. It's a stark, unsettling contrast to my tone. I push my Super hard and EQ it so that it sounds even to me. No trying to get it to sound like a hissing, screaming, booming monster.

The funny thing is that the rest of the band thinks my tone sounds like shit but they don't understand that the reason we can't hear anything when there's a distorted part is because of all the fizzing and hissing that's coming out of the other guitarist's cab instead of notes.

 

[Robert D]

Hey skiz,
Your friend has the right idea, but he's using what would be for most anyone, the wrong tool. If he's gotten good results with this approach, hats off to him; but it's a crazy way to approach mixing and track eq, and NOT recommended. A multiband compressor effects both eq and dynamics at the same time, effecting eq as a result of introducing a less than linear transfer function, differently to different frequency bands.

Maybe what he's doing is leaving all the ratios at 1:1, and adjusting the band centers, widths, and levels......in which case he's turning it into a 4 band parametric eq. The problem with that is the resources it consumes, and the fact that it will not likely make the most musical sounding parametric EQ. There are lots of EQ plugins that will sound better doing this while loading the CPU down less times the number of tracks it's used on.