a disappointing car ride

  • Thread starter Thread starter EVT
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EVT

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Hello,
I have some finished mixes that sound good at lower volumes, but in my car...when I put the song louder it gets kind of muddy, and I don't mean that I'm blasting it all the way up. Other cd's don't do this, so I am wondering what I can do about this.
I'm thinking it might have something to do with eq, but it sounds good in my tannoy reveals, and anywhere through headphones it sounds good.
What do you all think I can do?
evt
 
Yep, try cutting some low-to-mid frequencies from some of the tracks as a start and see if it cleans things up. If you haven't already you can roll off all the lows on things like guitars below 150 - 200 Hz. If you have a sweepable EQ plug just push it out until you hear it start to really effect the tone and then back it off. You can do the same thing to vocal tracks and drum overhead/room mics if they're muddying things up. But basically try and do it on the individual track level before messing with an EQ tweak on your master fader. My car is my ultimate mix-check location as well; and often mixes that sound cool on my monitors don't translate as well there, so you're not alone. If you can, spend some more time listening to other CD's you're familiar with on your monitoring rig so you can better learn how they sound. The more you do this, the better your mixes will translate to other systems.
 
The trick is finding the fundamental frequencies for each instrument. Boosting here and cutting at other unecessary frequencies will help clarify your instruments and get rid of that muddy sound (roll of below 50hz, maybe higher if you can). Plenty of beginning tutorial websites will list the fundamental frequencies of different instruments if you do a simple search.
 
You could just be mixing at too low a volume. Our ears hear most evenly at around 85-90db, meaning that if you want to make the best EQ adjustments, then you'd want to do it at an optimal volume.

So it would make sense that if it sounds good at a louder volume, then it should be pretty close at lower volumes.

In fact, a slight increase in db is what it might take to realize that the EQ is off.

Kind of like testing a ferrari. You drive it as hard as you can at the highest possible levels, but it probably won't be run that hard out in the real world.


Proper mastering really brings out more of that eveness you speak of.
 
Thanks for the replies everyone,

LRosario "Proper mastering really brings out more of that eveness you speak of."

That is what I am thinking too. I always get to the point where all the songs are mixed and sound good in my 16 track, but that final... just getting what you here on the 16 to get onto a cd and feel that it sounds the way that I felt satisfied with in the 16 track through the monitors and headphones .

I have done a lot of absolutely retarted things like complicated chains (too many steps-mixer, preamps...etc. in final stages when trying to get a good overall sound on the finished songs to cd. Sucked! I have tried making things simpler... going straight from the 16 track into cd burner. It was better but thin sounding like it was missing the meat in the mix which I seemeto hear in the headphones and direct into the monitors before it got onto the cd.

I have been using better equipment than in the past... preamps etc., on the way in to recordings, which has helped the overall sound big time. In addition to just more experiene and different techniques etc. that I've tried through my travels in recording, and that I've learned here on this forum, and in print.

But, no matter what I do... better equipment, time, techniques... I don't think I will EVER feel satisfied with the finished songs onto CD. I'm sure things will keep on getting better, but I can defnitely forsee this being an issue since it's always been.

I am going to get the cd I'm almost done with mastered. I am thinking I understand why it is said that it is SO incredibly needed to get your music mastered from somone other than yourself. I am living in pre-master hell right now and am feeling like I'll never get out! Faith!
evt
 
Mastering will help a lot.

Also, if you're using a lot of compression on a lot of the tracks that can make things sound nasty when cranked.

Also, like someone else mentioned EQing can really help. Listen for instruments that are competing for the same frequency range and make some room for them, so that each instrument has its own place in the mix. If sounds are fighting for frequency range and space it's going to sound muddy, especially at high volumes.
 
EleKtriKaz
"Also, like someone else mentioned EQing can really help. Listen for instruments that are competing for the same frequency range and make some room for them, so that each instrument has its own place in the mix. If sounds are fighting for frequency range and space it's going to sound muddy, especially at high volumes.

I've actually done that. I have read about "subtractive" eq'ng and I have been doing so. In the past, the bass was the problem at any volume. When listening to the mix with the bass muted out everything sounded great, but when I would punch the bass back in it would turn everything into a muddy mess. This was when we were using an active alembic brown bass which was an awesome bass, but hi-fi and really difficult to work with with mixing unless you have a lot of good equipment and experience in dealing with these kinds of instruments.
When I was suffering through this, I ran into this article which I could relate to big time!
http://www.prorec.com/prorec/articles.nsf/files/C05204C8DC2968B78625665000797D4D

Subtractive eq to carve room for the bass, pbass and safesound really solved that issue. I have been setting the safesound's compressor to the recommended levels for bass in it's manual and then just moving knobs a hair or even just leaving it since it sounds good, since I don't know a lot about compressor settings, the suggested levels in the manual were extremely helpful. So I don't think I've overcompressed. I do the same for vocals, and guitar direct, and mic'd with the safesound which I make adjustments till I like how it sounds.

I haven't added any compression afterwards, so I'm not sure why it is doing this. But, as I was typing the sentence above I just remembered that I might have compression added from the actual fostex internal compressor, so I am going to see. I'm thinking if so, I should just take off the compressor completely and then just have the mastering engineer add the compression that's needed, since I don't know what setting I should use.
thanks for helping me,
evt
 
You say it sounds good on your monitors, but do you know how your monitors sound? What I mean is how comfortable are you with the way they resolve sound? How do commercially produced CDs in a similar style of music or the style you're trying to emmulate sound on your monitors. My mixing improved when I started figuring out where my playback system was weak and started mixing to that curve. Ya know what I mean?
 
Track Rat said:
You say it sounds good on your monitors, but do you know how your monitors sound? What I mean is how comfortable are you with the way they resolve sound? How do commercially produced CDs in a similar style of music or the style you're trying to emmulate sound on your monitors. My mixing improved when I started figuring out where my playback system was weak and started mixing to that curve. Ya know what I mean?
Click to expand...
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Yes... absolutely. I have to definitely spend some more time listening to other commercially produced cd's through my monitors to help me understand where I'm at and what I'm trying to accomplish. Comparing and trying to learn how to match things up will help me a lot.
thanks...
There are so many things I need to do and it's hard to make time to really do it along with all the other insanities that need to be done in life... like going to work, eating and sleeping...Zzzzzzz Zzzzzzz Zzzzz...
evt
 
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