Any Advice? Dull Sounding mixes

  • Thread starter Thread starter twonky
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The bounce to disk is usually okay if it is a realtime procedure. If it is a rendered file (not realtime) it can often sound different.

One of the biggest drawbacks to home DAW's is their summing ability. If you have the option to mix thru a hardware mixer that is one solution. Another is to submix in groups of 6 tracks. According to Sjoko2 that seems to be the most that DAW's can handle before negative artifacts arise.

For many people's music this won't really matter but if you are trying to massage every bit of performance out of your system it is something to consider. Some may say I am full of shit but the bottom line is there aren't too many commercial records mixed on a PC DAW. Try the different methods you have available and ultimately let your ears be your guide.
 
Re: Re: damn chestrawk!

chessrock said:


Actually, it's a slap-back delay.
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Damn. I risked coming away looking like a dumbass, and won ;) (or lost? :confused: )

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?
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That's another reason why I and people like twonky put you on the pedestal chess. You think weird, like us ;) ;) But unlike me, you get it to work! :D

Good points by the way; they make sense to me, like your other posts about surgical EQ... and spectral analyzer blah blah blah nonsense :p :D

Before this sounds like a huge ass kissing in the general Chicago, IL direction, I'll have to say that was a good post on the room noise, rsmith. Something we'll have to do to our control room, too.


Chad
 
twonky said:



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



Twonky
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Go crazy with the compression. It goes a long way. Then you can start to pull back once you've got the hugeness you seek.
 
RSMITH123 said:
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
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Well, after reading your problem, I was eagerly scrolling down to get to the end to write my response, only to find that RSMITH beat me to it! You definitely have a problem with the interaction of your monitors and your room. Best solution is to fix your room - another whole huge topic.

But in the meantime - you have to constantly be referencing your mixes with commercial CD's you trust. This will let you adjust to the room somewhat and balance the highs, mids, and lows to conpensate for what you aren't actually hearing in your room (or hearing too much of). You may also want to invest in a pair of flat headphones (like the Sennheiser HD580) to further check the mixes and eliminate some of the room anaomalies.
 
Re: Re: Re: damn chestrawk!

participant said:
That's another reason why I and people like twonky put you on the pedestal chess. You think weird, like us ;) ;) But unlike me, you get it to work! :D
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This is pretty cool. I feel like Harvey now. :) :) But seriously, I appreciate it. I'm a big fan of Crawdad. He's kind of my bbs hero like I am to you, so it's all good. He's kewl cuz he likes tewbs as much as I do. :)
 
"If you have the option to mix thru a hardware mixer that is one solution. Another is to submix in groups of 6 tracks. According to Sjoko2 that seems to be the most that DAW's can handle before negative artifacts arise."

Tex, you're breaking my pore, pore heart. I've never heard of this before.

Submixing? What's that?
 
Waiting

i am waiting for my tracks top be approved at Mp3.com so I can show you guys what I am talking about.

In the meantime, I was messing around w/ T-Racks, now before everyone starts flipping out about that, I was just messing around to compare my unmastered mixes to a faux "mastered version" and I am starting to think that my mixes arent quite as bad as I thought and that a real mastering job could really help things out.

That being said, I want you guys to give me your thoughts. Even though you guys are all really weird.

So anyway, as soon as I can get them on here, I will post the songs in question.

Thanks agian, for your smart Assed comments your obtuse remarks and of course you help.

Twonky
 
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Re: Waiting

twonky said:
i am waiting for my tracks top be approved at Mp3.com so I can show you guys what I am talking about.

In the meantime, I was messing around w/ T-Racks, now before everyone starts flipping out about that, I was just messing around to compare my unmastered mixes to a faux "mastered version" and I am starting to think that my mixes arent quite as bad as I thought and that a real mastering job could really help things out.

That being said, I want you guys to give me your thoughts. Even though you guys are all really weird.

So anyway, as soon as I can get them on here, I will post the songs in question.

Thanks agian, for your smart Assed comments your obtuse remarks and of course you help.

Twonky
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Hey Twonky, study up on the FFT filter in the master effects. You can use it much like Free Filter for getting closer to your reference material's sound. After that, tweak to taste.

This has been your Samplitude tip of the day. :D
 
Submixing? What's that?
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Dobro, that is simply creating smaller (sub)mixes that you eventually combine for the final mix. This means instead of the computer chugging to sum 24 tracks it would only to have to work on groups of 6 at a time. On a 24 track project you would then haved 4 submixes to combine for the final mix.

This is pretty anal stuff and it's something to try if you just aren't satisfied with your mixes in comparison to the raw tracks. Some people may notice no differences if their tracks don't really have enough polish to be lost in bad summing algorythms.
 
SO Uuuuhhhhh....

Is anybody going to critique this mix...er.....wut?

C'mon did you guys forget how important the Twonks happiness is?
 
TexRoadkill said:


Dobro, that is simply creating smaller (sub)mixes that you eventually combine for the final mix. This means instead of the computer chugging to sum 24 tracks it would only to have to work on groups of 6 at a time. On a 24 track project you would then haved 4 submixes to combine for the final mix.

This is pretty anal stuff and it's something to try if you just aren't satisfied with your mixes in comparison to the raw tracks. Some people may notice no differences if their tracks don't really have enough polish to be lost in bad summing algorythms.
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I think this point has been exaggerated beyond all useful proportions. At the stage in the game most people here are at, their dull mixes have more to do with their monitors, monitor-room interaction, lack of EQ experience, and lack of compression than anything else. The "summing" issues people think theyre hearing are usually do to the thing I notice most about small mixes: lack of panning. I have found doubling and tripling tracks, delaying them slightly and EQing them differently to be indispensable in terms of getting a thick, wide, defined sound. This is a critical point and almost always the first thing I focus on (along with volumes) when mixing. Strategic placement of guitars, OHs, vocals, keyboards, samples, etc to get the dif planes covered --front- back, L/R midside, L/R full, and top-bottom (which is EQ) by using the entire stereo field instead of half.
I know bec I monitor presently with events, which have good imaging once you learn them but exggerate the stereo field considerably. So for a while I thought I was fine, not usually panning more than 60% from the center which sometimes translated ok and sometimes did not. When I started using the whole field, not only did my mixes take on a new dimension, there was less need for EQ as instruments had more of their own space. There was less need for compression as tracks didnt have to fight to be heard. And things started sounding more organic and less forced.
 
Re: SO Uuuuhhhhh....

twonky said:
C'mon did you guys forget how important the Twonks happiness is?
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LOL. Aw, man, you're killing me, Twonk. :)

I like the simplicity of your mix and arrangement. It sounds really good and uncluttered. My only beef is with the drum sound.

And that just might be a matter of personal taste, so don't take me too literally here. To me, they lack that punchy low end, and the crisp detail in the cymbals that tend to round a mix out. To me, drums and percussion are the most important ingredient when it comes to giving balance fullness to a mix. I do know a lot of people, though, who purposely seek a low-fi sound for drums, though, so maybe that is what you're going for.

What kind of setup was it? How many and what kinds of mics did you use, and how were they set up? And how were they mixed?
 
Thanks Chess,

See there-in lies the tricky part of that song. We were really trying to get that super flat, Fleetwood Mac/ Rumors- Eagles/I cant tell you why sort of air tight drum sound.

I think we got it, we basically used an old Whitehall jazz kit put a towel on the snare head, stuck a pillow in the kick and the toms sucked anyway.

Beta 52-Kick
ADK A51 consenser-Snare
57-toms
CAD e200-overhead

So I guess the drum sound sound is a bit of an aural illusion, as it definitly does not say "Bodacious Drum sound!!!" But I can't help but thing the rest of the stuff could be shinier.

I have been listening to a lot as well and dont get freaked out by it quite as much as I did last week.

The other problem is that I was more concerned about the other song which MP3 STILL hasnt approved. That one was recorded in a church w/ big fat sounding drums and guits and stuff. Thats the one I think needs to be rounded. Of course this neither here nor there because you guys cant hear it yet.

I have excepted that the song your heard will be a bit of an annomoly because of the style of sound we were going for.

I appreciate your comments, and will get the song i really want you guys to hear.

In the mean time feel free to give me your thought on the one thats up now.

Twonky
 
just a suggestion here...

...but why don't you sign up at nowhereradio.com? I believe a regular HR poster owns and operates that site. Many people here use it for .mp3s.

HTH


Chad
 
I see now.

I realize that drum sound is really coming back in. We were talking that up on the "Wilco Yankee Hotel Foxtrot" thread. That sound is really starting to grow on me now, and it's really because of that particular CD.

In that case, here are my suggestions:

* This might just be the poor quality inherent in mp3 conversion, but the cymbals sound a bit phasey. If the original sounds that way, then go back and remix the drums, making sure that any phase issues are addressed; ie - line up the wave files and make sure the waves are in sync where the cymbal hits occur. Again, this is something common with mp3 conversion, so this might not be necessary.

*On the mastering side, try this:

-2 db low-shelf eq starting at 250 hz.

One more -2.5 db low-shelf eq starting at 1,404 hz.

(Use a "q" of about 1.0 on both)

Now, using a narrower q (about 2.0 or so) bring 1,000 hz down by about 2 or 3 db or so.

Now, pull out the Waves' L1 (or similar soft limiter / loudness maximizer). Set the threshold to -7.5 db or so, and the output to 0.

There, now doesn't that sound a little better?

(I just tried this in Sound Forge, by the way. :) )

Lastly, since you're not going to be relying on a crisp drum track to give it some high end in the 4K + range, then I would pull out the tamborines, shakers, or whatever else you might have and experiment with them. You'd be surprized what a little tambo/shaker can do to really open things up and bring them to life . . . especially in a mix like this one.
 
Q?

Hey Chess, I forgot to ask earlier, WTF is a Q?
Were would I find it, I have LOTS of plugins, is it in there?
 
Q is the range of frequencies that is affected when you cut or boost. Visually speaking, it is the width of the curve. Q is also often given in octaves. I forget the formula, but the smaller the Q, the wider the bandwidth in octaves. It is in every parametric EQ plug I've ever used, although it is sometimes referred to as "bandwidth".
 
Aye!

Thanks.

This is Scary guys! You're making Twonky more smarter!
 
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