Basic Mixing Help?

[MinorThreat1]

Im new to recording and mixing and need help putting all my songs together. I can record them fine but when it comes to mixing all hell breaks lose. OK how do you get the guitars more upward on the speakers and the drums more lower is it becuase of EQ? How does everyone mix just basic likesetting up guitars and drums? When i put everything together it all meshes and you cant hear one thing from the other to well. Anyone know what to do?

 

[Blue Bear Sound]

Mixing Article --> Mixing 101

 

[Chibi Nappa]

Im new to recording and mixing and need help putting all my songs together. I can record them fine but when it comes to mixing all hell breaks lose..... When i put everything together it all meshes and you cant hear one thing from the other to well.

A few guesses based on my own learning experiances:

1. You say you can record them fine, but if your mixes are having this much difficulty you might want to re-examine the recording itself. Remember that you are not trying to record instruments that sound good by themselves, you are trying to record instruments that sound good in your song. Are you judging the sound of newly recorded instruments by listening to them soloed or are you judging by listening to the whole mix? Are you judging if new tracks are recorded properly by listening on monitors, hifi speakers, or headphones? Are you judging the sound in a room you know? Before you even press record, make sure the sound works with the full mix and make sure you're listening on monitors. If you record all of your tracks properly you should be able to bring faders up with no mixing at all and have a plesant sounding song.

2. Are you using effects/plugins/processing just because you can? This was a BIG issue for me when I first started. I saw available dynamics on every track and 4 effects plugins, and I used ALL of it regardless if I needed it or even knew how to use it. The result was mud. My advise is DON'T use anything just because "all bass lines get compression" or whatever. If you don't hear a need for processing, don't do it! Even more so, if you don't understand how the plugin/effect/processor works, don't use it at all. I ruined quite a few mixes when I was starting out because I just threw compression on everything and I didn't even understand attack and release settings.