Feedback on this Mix Please!!!

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darkecho

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I recorded my first band about a week ago, I spent 13 hours straight recording them (from 4:30 in the afternoon to 5:30 the next morning) and here is what its composed of

Drumkit with triggered kick drum, direct in Bass guitar, rhythm and lead guitar, vocals, and keyboard (nothing is double tracked except some vocal parts.)

I would like to get some experienced opinions on how to make this sound as professional as possible, well, screw professional, just help me make it GOOD!

First mix Song #5
 
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Song is lacking mids pretty badly. I added about 2db at around 2k to 2.5k with a wide Q and it sounded much better. In short it's very muddy. Good news is everything is very muddy so eqing the mix was pretty effective.
Since I don't know if you cutt hi mids on the individual tracks after recorded or you tracked them this way I really can't say much more.


Good luck


F.S.
 
thats really weird, I didnt really do much at all as far as cutting frequencies, I did slap on some EQ to each track to try to help mold the sounds into what I wanted, maybe I shouldnt mess with the EQ if the sound is ok?

Maybe I will try another mixdown with no EQ...

i will post up another clip that has no EQ at all tomorrow, thanks!
 
You needed a fresh ear break - that's a long stint.
It is muddy. Just running through the presets in Windows media player gave some interesting re EQing.
The vocals are really intelligible - but I assume, in genre terms, they're not meant to be.
 
I really don't like this genre, so I only made it through about 34 seconds, sorry. But I agree that it has too much mid freq mud.

Rest for 3 or 4 days and don't listen to any music if possible. Give your ears time to heal and then go back at it. I am sure you had serious ear fatigue when you were done. You will hear the difference after you go back to it.

If the band is pressuring you to hurry up and get it done, just ask them "do you want it good or want it now? You can't have both."
 
the lyrics are quite intelligent, and the singer attempts to be somewhat understandible at times..

for example, in the midle part where it is just the vocals, he says:
And as the humans scattered, the spirits they did grin... monolithic structures crushed to scattered rubble... "Unleash the wolves" "Thin the Flock they Cried!" and the beasts, they did rampage..

its a song about retaliation...

but anyways...

I am not sure what to do about the mid frequency mud you are speaking of... are you saying that the bass and the highs are ok?

im not sure how to "un-muddy" the mids...... I assume most of the mids are going to be contained in the vocals/guitars
 
darkecho said:
I am not sure what to do about the mid frequency mud you are speaking of...
im not sure how to "un-muddy" the mids......
Click to expand...
Cut the frequency ranges in between 500-1000hz range on your eq by lowering these frequencies a couple decibels until the mud clears up.
When you are using eq, it's usually better to cut than boost. Of course that's not always the case. I wouldn't call it a rule, but if it were, rules are meant to be broken.
 
oh and P.S. Rokket, the beginning of the song is a bit more aggressive than the rest, you should give it a thorough listen, it gets much more melodic after about a minute or so. :) thanks for listening at all though :D
 
darkecho said:
oh and P.S. Rokket, the beginning of the song is a bit more aggressive than the rest, you should give it a thorough listen, it gets much more melodic after about a minute or so. :) thanks for listening at all though :D
Click to expand...
I promise you that when I can get to a pc with speakers instead of using my headphones, I will. It's a bit too in my face for the headphones. :o
 
Here is a new version, I went through this mixing book I bought a while ago and tried to follow it as a guideline..

It sounds like theres more highmids and treble now, the bassguitar seems to stick out at the bottom of everything better and I boosted the guitars mids a bit which seems to help a little with the clarity, the vocals are pretty compressed as well..

the only thing I like better from the older mixdown is that the kick drum seems lost now and the snare isnt too audible either, I need to bring them back out...

Second Mixdown
 
It sounds a little better. You're right, you buried the drums. Still not keen on the vocals, and I am trying very hard, but I can't understand but about two words. I caught "scattered rubble", or something like that.

The bass still lacks clarity and punch. You may want to retrack it if you can't get it to beef up.

It's sounding better this time around. I actually listened all the way through this time, as promised.
 
haha thank you Rokket!

yes, I buried the drums... I noticed that in the car today, man Mixing is hard!

I do not understand why mixing (at least panning) wouldnt be easier with headphones, I can always hear the panning better on a set of headphones than my studio monitors.. I understand that monitors would be better for listening to EQ and reverb and all that, but as far as getting the panning down, why not listen to phones?

I wont be able to re-track anything so what I have is what I need to work with..


I am having trouble figuring out how to compress things in my software (Adobe Audition 2.0) it has a Multiband Compressor and a Dynamics Processor setting but I dont know how to use compression, I do not like using the presets because I dont know what it is doing to the sound.

should I compress the bass/snare/cymbals/vocals/guitars?

a friend told me that the guitars sound like they need some more "beef" i think cause I boosted the mids..

this is such a stressmachine
 
darkecho said:
haha thank you Rokket!

yes, I buried the drums... I noticed that in the car today, man Mixing is hard!

I do not understand why mixing (at least panning) wouldnt be easier with headphones, I can always hear the panning better on a set of headphones than my studio monitors.. I understand that monitors would be better for listening to EQ and reverb and all that, but as far as getting the panning down, why not listen to phones?

I wont be able to re-track anything so what I have is what I need to work with..


I am having trouble figuring out how to compress things in my software (Adobe Audition 2.0) it has a Multiband Compressor and a Dynamics Processor setting but I dont know how to use compression, I do not like using the presets because I dont know what it is doing to the sound.

should I compress the bass/snare/cymbals/vocals/guitars?

a friend told me that the guitars sound like they need some more "beef" i think cause I boosted the mids..

this is such a stressmachine
Click to expand...
Tall order, but let me give you what I can with my limited knowledge:

Headphones: it is not recommended that you use headphones to mix due to the proximity of the speakers to your ears. Since they are closer, they tend to accent things like bass, and can give you a false sense of proper balance. Most of what I read about a stereo field is that 6 feet between the speakers is usually the desired distance. You can see that is radically different than the centimeters your headphones sit off your ears.

Compression: Compression is used when you want balance in the wave forms of the track. It tends to squash peaks, which in turn will bring up the quieter passages and give the overall impression that the volume is balanced throughout the track. I am not very good with the settings on most the compressor plugins, so I won't even try to teach you how to use it, beyond tell you to do what I do: use your ears. They will let you know when it sounds right. Just don't use it on the master fader of your mix!

As far as giving your guitar sounds "more beef", since that term is relative, meaning different people have different ideas about what "more beef" is, I can only offer a couple of suggestions about how to obtain it. Boosting the mids can give you more beef, as long as you don't have too many mid range instruments in the mix with the guitars. I've found the best way to give the guitars more beef is to double track them. You can experiment with different amp settings, different guitars, but doubling the number of tracks will give you more beef.

Caveat: mine is only one opinion. Opinion is all it is. I have limited knowledge and limited experience. I may even be completely off what I am telling you.
There are really no set rules, and what I give you is what I know and what has worked for me. I am far from the best, but I am willing to give you what I have.
Good luck!
 
hey bud,
you got that drum trigged? what did you use as soundfiles?
I bet you have difficulties listening to the panning of your instruments via monitors because:
1- your monitors aren't at ear's heigh, pointing just behind your head, with a 60 degrees angle
2-they are on your mixing table--> get them up! there has to be space between the table and your monitor, or else the bass will come to your ears first, which is really bad. Getting my monitors off the table and well placed came to me as a revelation, you will EAR what happens much easierly.

This is METAL, it as to be clicky and clear, first compress your kick with a ratio of like 20:1, fast attack like 5-10 and release like 80ms, setting the treshold where it's the most effective.
Then, extrem eq, cut at 400 a lot, BOOST somewhere near 2500 or 3500, your kick has to CLICK, not wooooffff. be careful not to kill the bass freq tho. you could try duplicating your kick track, keep one bassy, one normal, and one with only the click sound, with lowpass and highpass filter, then mix all together and reeq a touch.

Work one instrument at a time, but be careful that they do not overlap.
your guitar should be boosted between 4000-7000, maibe a bit at 10 000 or so. compare it to:
http://www.myspace.com/asbloodrunsblack
see how their guitars BITE.
You have no high end in your instruments.
your snare is not loud anough and buried, missing high end again I think. you might want to go at http://www.kvraudio.com/get.php and find a free exciter.
Don't overdo it, tho.

that's about it from now, see if it helps
 
thank you both for the info!!! I am going to go home tonight for a third attempt at this mix! Thanks again, I will post up the results.
 
No prob rokket!
I tried to make visual where your problems are (darkeko) so I attached a file to this message (a freq line) white line is your file, not eqed, Green line is something I did 2 minutes ago. See the 2 peaks between 2000 and 5000? they are creating some sort of filtering problem, flange-like sound, find where it's from and kill it. The peaks between 100 and 500 don't do the flange sound, but make it unbalanced, bassy sound. (boosting the lows reduces the highs, as simple as that) find where it's from too.

killing the 2 high peaks kill the flange sound, killing the low peaks increases the high end
 

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oh and also, I have my monitors on stands to elevate them (although for somereason they do not seem to be the same height, I need to place them both on a level surface and adjust..

what is Ear Height? should the middle of the unit be at my ear, or should the tweeter be at my ear, or the bigger speaker at the bottom?

and Rokket, you said that 6 feet between the speakers? so does that mean, an equilateral triangle with each side being 6 feet and one of the points being my head? thanks
 
darkecho said:
oh and also, I have my monitors on stands to elevate them (although for somereason they do not seem to be the same height, I need to place them both on a level surface and adjust..

what is Ear Height? should the middle of the unit be at my ear, or should the tweeter be at my ear, or the bigger speaker at the bottom?

and Rokket, you said that 6 feet between the speakers? so does that mean, an equilateral triangle with each side being 6 feet and one of the points being my head? thanks
Click to expand...
6 feet is only a benchmark. Let me get you a link to proper setup...
 
Rokket said:
6 feet is only a benchmark. Let me get you a link to proper setup...
Click to expand...
"You should move any obstructions, like that 19" rack over by the right speaker for example. The obstructions cause the sound to be deflected and creates comb filter effects. You also want to be somewhat close while listening to near-field monitors because they are made for working in close.

You should position the speakers anywhere from two to five feet away from the listener and about 3 to 4 feet apart. The center point (between the tweeter and woofer) of the speaker should be at ear level. Ultimately you want to create an equilateral triangle (equal length sides) between your head and the two speakers. Finally the monitors should be angled slightly inward so that the tweeters are aiming directly towards your ears."


Read the whole article here
 
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