Fuller mix help

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Schecterplayer

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I saw a video on youtube posted by garageband and beyond. The title is " mixing of breaking away" he has an exellent mix and the guitar part is just wow... I want to know if people have tips or techniques for getting such a full sounding mix
 
Schecterplayer said:
I saw a video on youtube posted by garageband and beyond. The title is " mixing of breaking away" he has an exellent mix and the guitar part is just wow... I want to know if people have tips or techniques for getting such a full sounding mix
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This whole site is about tips for getting fuller mixes. Since the title of that vid is "mixing of breaking away," I'm assuming the guy tells you what he did, right?
 
I usually use a reference mix of a style similar to what I am working on as a guide to achieving the desired result. I A/B the two mixes with a switch box and make adjustments to my mix to emulate the reference.
 
…which is not to say that your mix should exactly emulate someone else's...
 
This is true.... But do u have any general tips u can give that would make a bad mix better?
 
The problem with general tips is that they're general. They're things like, "if you want a fuller mix record fuller sounds."

The guy in the video's approach was to take a thin mix and replace the thin tracks with full sounding tracks. He really did thicken up the sound. But for the most part it wasn't done by mixing. He added thicker tracks.

So in general, if you want a fuller mix record fuller sounds. :)
 
Yeah. And despite what the guy said, you can't just take a mono track and clone it and pan one left and one right. That's still mono. It'll just be louder. You can offset one of the tracks by 30 milliseconds and sort of get a stereo effect, but the way he did it in his tutorial was wrong.

And Trip is right. "Record good tracks and mix them well" is not all that helpful, but it's absolutely true.
 
chrisharris said:
And despite what the guy said, you can't just take a mono track and clone it and pan one left and one right. That's still mono. It'll just be louder.
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Oh no. Don't tell me someone that's supposed to be helping people is telling them that copying and pasting a track actually accomplishes anything. Well, I was going to watch the video, but now I know the guy is a bozo.
 
If you want a thicker mix it may possibly be accomplished by increasing the low-mids and/or compressing things more. Parallel compression could be useful.
 
If you watch the video youll see what i mean. He does stuff to the guitars with effects and what not
 
Schecterplayer said:
And do u have any tips for " recording fuller sounds"?
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Here's the best piece of advice about this that I ever got. Mind you, I ignored it, because I tried for a long time to "fix" everything with software. But the truth is that IF you record good tracks, a song will almost mix itself. If you have to do more than light compression and maybe some reverb on a track, you may need to rethink your tracking methods. If you're having to apply massive amounts of EQ, you may want to rethink your tracking methods.

As far as "recording fuller sounds," all I can tell you is that there is at least 1 CORRECT way to record an instrument. It involves a lot of messing around with mic placement whenever you're recording instruments, so move things around and LISTEN to how it sounds recorded before you record it for real.

1. Work on mic placement;
2. Get a great performance;
3. Use the right mic for whatever you're recording;
4. Use a decent preamp; and
5. Don't fuck it up with plugins.
 
RAMI said:
Oh no. Don't tell me someone that's supposed to be helping people is telling them that copying and pasting a track actually accomplishes anything. Well, I was going to watch the video, but now I know the guy is a bozo.
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It's real basic stuff...but yeah, I was in the middle of the 2nd video when I saw that "chestnut." Some of his other advice was probably helpful, especially to newbs...his explanation about taking low mids out of an acoustic guitar and turning it into basically a percussive instrument was (I thought) excellent.
 
Wow that helps alot. Thanks! I use a marshall 100 watt ot somethig near that and a schecter c1 plus. I find that gives me warm tone which is nice but its loaded with bass right off the bat. Theres a couple songs ill post up in coming weeks that i eq'd the hell out of but to me they sound good. So i can try deleting all plug ins and starting fresh with this new knowledge then and ill see how that goes. Ald
 
Wow that helps alot. Thanks! I use a marshall 100 watt ot somethig near that and a schecter c1 plus. I find that gives me warm tone which is nice but its loaded with bass right off the bat. Theres a couple songs ill post up in coming weeks that i eq'd the hell out of but to me they sound good. So i can try deleting all plug ins and starting fresh with this new knowledge then and ill see how that goes
 
Wow that helps alot. Thanks! I use a marshall 100 watt ot somethig near that and a schecter c1 plus. I find that gives me warm tone which is nice but its loaded with bass right off the bat. Theres a couple songs ill post up in coming weeks that i eq'd the hell out of but to me they sound good. So i can try deleting all plug ins and starting fresh with this new knowledge then and ill see how that goes. Also what are as you said" good tracking methods"? Im not sure how to make electric guitar better tracked and i totally get mic placement. Is it better to quarter hi-z for electric? Or mic the amp.
 
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