Any Advice? Dull Sounding mixes

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twonky

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hi folks,

I am in a real quandry here. This is a problem that I have been aware of for a while now. But my mixes are sounding kind of dull in general. I record lots of different kinds of music, from bad emo punk to super sparse Ry Cooder type acoustic stuff, to stuff thats sounds like Wire to stuff that tries to sound like Steely Dan and XTC.

Anyway, the tracking will go great, the individual insturments will sound really good, as I mix, they will still sound good, but as I continue mixing I run into the problem that everthing seems to be fighting for the same sonic real estate. So I adjust levels, I pan things, I try not to eq to much, because it seems like I always end up going for the mids and cranking those up. Not a good idea I dont think.

I try not to use too much compression and stuff like that:

A. Because, I like to try to get things to sound as good as possible befor "fixing" it w/ comp and eq

B. I still dont feel like I have a true grasp on how to use it correctly.

So if I spend enough time on it eventually I will come up w/ something that sounds pretty dang good in my "control room"
I will bounce it to two tracks get the levels pretty close to 0 and then burn a cd.

Then the fun begins. It seems like every system I listen to the stuff on, the mixes end up sounding kinda dull and 2 dimensional.
Mostly, it seems to lack the sparkly high end and the nice tight mid-lows. All in all it just doesnt sound very round.

It also seems really quiet even though I have cranked up the levels.

Now I know a good mastering job can help but isnt it better to try and get it as close to "perfect" as possible befor mastering?

For whats its worth, I am mixing on a pair of Tannoy reveals using Samplitude, oh yeah and thiis is being routed through my Makie 1604 VLZ.

Any words of wisdome are appreciated

Twonky
 
It's tough to say for sure without knowing exactly what you're working with.

But I would suggest a keyword search on spectral / spectrum analyzers. There's a lot of info. in the archives on how to use them to eq individual tracks that are fighting for sonic space.

Also, how much bass cutting are you doing on the individual tracks? Are you using the bass rolloff switches and high-pass filters on your mics and preamps? Are you mindful of proximity effect as you track? Remember, as each successive track is added, you are slowly accumulating a lot of bass content. Stuff that, when combined, doesn't necessarily contribute to the overall sound - other than creating some extra mud. Some of it your ears may not even be able to hear, hence the maxing of the levels yet still having it sound too quiet.

Do you have a decent equalizer? Are you comfortable with frequencies and which ones the various tracks and instruments are occupying? You really need to have the kind of control to where you're able to cut everything below 35 hz on the kick drum and/or bass guitar tracks if you need to. And if you have any accoustic guitar going on, you need to be able to roll off everything below, say, 300 hz (or around there) on a whim.

You also need to have a good grasp of carving out the various frequencies to make room for the kick and snare drum amongst a busy bass guitar track track, for example. And it has to be a moreless surgical kind of eq'ing process at times.

That's pretty much your next big step in the world of mixing. And there's really no way around it -- you're going to have to put in a lot of studying, reading and practice time in order to get proficient . . . and eventually you'll just be able to do these things by ear with very little effort.
 
OKEY DOKE

Hi Chess,

You are one of my BBS heroes.

I am w/ you on the spectrum analyzer, I'm sure it would really help. Is it useful to also analyze your whole mix?

But still I am left w/ the question of why everything sounds great during playback but sort of deflated on other systems.

Thanks again for the advice
 
hi.. I've also had the problem of stale sounding mixes, people have described my mixes as "thin" or "sterile".. something I've been putting a lot of work into fixing.

I find that you have to be creative, and you have to use your ears.. carefully. find a band that you know sounds similar to yours, and has an excellent production job. while recognizing that your instruments will sound different from theirs to a point, aim for their tone. What kind of reverb do you hear on the drums? where/how do their guitars sit in the mix? Do yours maybe have too much nasalness compared to theirs? Compare the frequencies. If you haven't doubled each rhythm guitar track, you'll probably want to. If you don't want to physically re play each part again, at least set up a send on each channel to a bus, and apply some amp plugin to alter the sound on the bus, pan it a bit different, and you'll have a fuller sound.
 
Great reply Chess, I think I may find this thread invaluable in the future. You mentioned needing to know about different frequencies for different instruments. I suspected that I would need to do some of this more 'boring' spadework at some point.

Do you know of any particularly good websites / books which do a good job of explaining these for an amatuer enthusiast?
 
Post an example of your mixes.

The usual solutions - Use MORE compression, use less reverb, and dont bounce to disk for the final mixdown.
 
Alchemist3k said:
Do you know of any particularly good websites / books which do a good job of explaining these for an amatuer enthusiast?
Click to expand...

Honestly, I learned most of what I know here . . . so what I tell you is pretty much second or third generation stuff. :) Unfortunately, a lot of the older threads have been wiped out during some of the technical problems they've had on this site, which is too bad.

Twonky, I would suspect a lot of what you are encountering are monitor issues. Monitors are not supposed to flatter the sound of your mixes - they're supposed to give you an accurate representation that will translate to to other systems.

I'm probably the last guy to ask about monitors, though. I have a set of headphones (akg 240's), a car stereo, and a boom box. All of my mixes go through all three throughout my mixing process. If I can get it to translate well on all three, then I'm set.

I don't trust expensive monitors, because most of my clients listen to my work in their cars and home stereos, and those are the ones I'm trying to please. :) (Although some of my clients seem to have delusions of grandeur that they're going to be all over the radio and MTV - I just haven't yet worked with that level of talent yet).

(http://www.nowhereradio.com/artists/album.php?aid=1298&alid=-1 Feel free to have a listen if you want. You'll notice I still have a ways to go myself).
 
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damn chestrawk!

now I know why you're one of my HR heroes... listening to "Invitation". That guitar sounds so freakin' juicy. Voice is nice and clear... but... is that a plate reverb?! :) Naughty naughty! :D (Anyways, wasn't it Blue Bear who says he hates those?) :p

Seriously this is excellent...though a simple arrangement of bass, guitar, and vox. Don't think you could do much better. Did you get this mastered? Cuz if this isn't even mastered, it's even MORE better :):)


Chad
 
twonky said:

Anyway, the tracking will go great, the individual insturments will sound really good, as I mix, they will still sound good, but as I continue mixing I run into the problem that everthing seems to be fighting for the same sonic real estate.
....

Then the fun begins. It seems like every system I listen to the stuff on, the mixes end up sounding kinda dull and 2 dimensional.
Mostly, it seems to lack the sparkly high end and the nice tight mid-lows. All in all it just doesnt sound very round.
Click to expand...
A good 80-90% of the time, this kind of problem has more to do with the song arrangement than with the mix, assuming you tracked it properly........

The "...if Bon Jovi used 30 guitar tracks to get that sound, then dammit, so can I..." ideology is pretty common to bands new to studio recording....

If something is fighting with something else, the first thing to reach for is the MUTE knob, not the EQ knob! If it's fighting, should it really be there in the first place???

The problem is - musicians doing tracking come up with "the coolest rhythms" and expect that anything they lay down has space in the song - unfortunately, that's not the case.......

The other problem is that many musicians fall in love with "their tracks" and can't imagine not using them...

Bottom-line......... not everything fits everywhere and "making space" usually has little to do with EQ and far more to do with "trimming the fat!"
 
Re: damn chestrawk!

participant said:
...but... is that a plate reverb?! :) Naughty naughty! :D (Anyways, wasn't it Blue Bear who says he hates those?) :p
Click to expand...
Naw... I don't hate Plate Reverb in general -- I just hate it when it's put on a train-engine sound effect.......!!! :eek:

Right, Chess? :p :p


(WHY, you ask? there's no reverb possible in wide-open outdoor space, so a reverb-laden train engine sound is quite unseemly!)

;)
 
(WHY, you ask? there's no reverb possible in wide-open outdoor space, so a reverb-laden train engine sound is quite unseemly!)
Click to expand...

What about tunnels? :D
 
TexRoadkill said:


What about tunnels? :D
Click to expand...
heh-heh... well the key phrase there was "wide-open outdoor space" - which wouldn't include tunnels!

;)
 
I think you have to put it all in context, depending on the user's experience . . .

Candadian's experience: Choo-choo trains go by outdoors. Conductor yells "All aboard, eh!" to nothing but the sound of wind, grass, trees, and beatnic women who don't shave their armpits.

Chessrock's experience: Amtrak leaving from Union Station. Conductor yells "All aboard!" to big, luscious indoor echos, and ornery Chicago girls telling Chessrock to "Get lost!"

I still have yet to figure out the setting where you'd hear a plate reverb though. Maybe if you were a dishwasher and . . . :)
 
TexRoadkill said:
dont bounce to disk for the final mixdown.
Click to expand...

First time I've heard this one. Why not bounce all your tracks to a stereo mix?

And then, add final EQ and limiting tweaks?
 
Re: damn chestrawk!

participant said:
Voice is nice and clear... but... is that a plate reverb?! :) . . . Did you get this mastered?
Click to expand...

Actually, it's a slap-back delay. Although, there are alternating verses where I also use just a tad bit of "Tiled Room" preset and a little "Huge-ass Cathedral" on other parts (That one's my own creation, by the way).

I don't really think of mastering the way most people do. For my level of work, if I need something mastered, then I probably did something wrong during the mixing stage. Why not just go back and fix it there, at the source, instead of tinkering? It's one of the advantages of DAW (saving and recalling entire mixes). Why not take advantage of it?
 
Twonky:

I just typed out a long and detailed "troubleshooting" post here, but somehow it must have been eaten by the bbs. :rolleyes:

Just a quick question:

Are you mixing in the Samplitude mixer, or externally through the Mackie?
 
Sorry if I didn't see it mentioned, but aren't we missing something important???


You said that your mixes are not translating. My understanding and personal experience has been that if things sound well in the control room but mixes don't translate, you have a room problem and you need to get the room out of the mix.

I have a bad room 11x11x8 and before any wall treatment, My mixes were thin and exagerated in 5-7K. That's because my room comb filtered in the 5-7K range lowering the response so, I added more (too much). In my low end, I had a build up in the room in the low mids. This caused me to remove the warmth in my mixes.

I installed a $400.00 Auralex Roominator Kit with 8 Bass traps. What a difference! With this kit and LOWERING my mixing levels, I have taken a huge chunk of the room out of my mix.

My mixes are warmer now and less harsh. The only remaining problem is discerning the amount of effects. I still having trouble hearing reverb accurately. Not much, but a little makes a big difference.


TRANSLATION:

If you think your mixes are dull out of the studio, then you know what kind of top end you are looking for.

Having the ears to hear it, if you hear it in the studio but not out of the studio, then your are hearing too much top end from your monitors and you need to lower the top end in them or turn them out or in a little.

.02
 
I suspect my room is part of it, it does sort of sound like shit in there but I guess I have just gotten used to it.

Hi JitteringJim! I am mixing in Samplitude, I am only using the Mackie to route from the PC to the speakers.

I will post a couple of examples and let you guys decide why you think it sounds stinky.

Stand by

And as usual thanks again

Twonky

PS What do i mix down to if I dont bounce to disk?
 
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