I Am Lost.

[Zaphod B]

Here's the deal.

My mixes need some help and I don't know where to start.

I am using a TASCAM 2488 as my complete studio-in-a-box. My recordings are basic drums / electric bass / electric guitar / acoustic guitar / vocals.

The drums are electronic, recorded direct from a Boss DR-670. The bass is also recorded direct. The electric guitars are also recorded direct, using a Pod XT Live as a modeler and effects processor. Vocals are recorded in a less than optimal room, using a MXL V67G. I use MXL 603S mics for the acoustic guitar.

For now, this is the setup I have to use because I have no bass amplifier / cab, and my guitar amp and cab are elsewhere.

I believe I am tracking everything OK. I'm keeping the levels as close to unity as I can without clipping. I track everything dry, and only use compression on the vocals when the vocal dynamics are difficult for me to control with mic technique.

The problem in the mix is that there is no ambience - it ends up sounding like you are listening to a band playing in a completely damped and non-reverberant, small, environment. So it sounds nice and clean but too.....close? I guess that's to be expected when almost everything is recorded direct, with no ambience whatsoever.

The 2488 has an adequate library of on-board effects, inluding delay and reverbs. What I'm asking of you mixing gurus is some advice on how to open up the sound a little, and how much of what should be applied to the various bits and pieces, as a starting point.

Any help would be appreciated!

 

[Dogbreath]

Hey Zaphod,

Just a couple of thoughts...

1st...imho, I think you're tracking too hot. I've noticed on my own stuff that when I started tracking with the levels down around -18 to -12 and peaks up to maybe -6, the clarity and life came back into my stuff. I was overdriving my converters (I think) and it just seemed to lose the space (?) that I thought it should have.

2nd...also imho, I found that double tracking my guitars (acoustic and elec) gave me a bigger feel to my stuff. I generally don't full pan my guit but sometimes do depending on what my ears tell me is needed. Maybe a bit of delay to help sometimes too.
And sometimes I'll put some nice mellow chorus effect on my bass guitar. On some things it sounds like a perfect fit. Others, not so much.

I dunno man. Just a couple of thoughts that might help...........or not.

 

[Zaphod B]

Thanks, Dogbreath.

I have experimented a bit with adding a touch of flanger to the bass, and that helped a little.

I'll try bringing the levels down a bit when I track.

What I'm really trying to figure out is what kind of room ambience and/or delay and/or reverb is appropriate for, say the drums versus the guitars versus the vocals. Just running the whole mix through a hall reverb doesn't cut it.

I find my self lately listening really carefully to songs whose mixes I like, trying to distinguish what kind of ambience is being applied to the various instruments. I'm hearing stuff that, while it probably sounds strange on a solo track, sounds good in a mix. (John Bonhams' drum ambience is kind of an extreme example of what I'm talking about. Who would have thought that such a live, reverberant sound could sound so good?)

My problem is, I'm trying to reverse engineer music that has been through lots of processing, and to be honest I am clueless about the principles of creating a soundstage.

I'm enjoying the learning process, though. Seems as if I've hit a wall.

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

Use your towel!

Sorry. Couldn't resist.

Seriously, what you're saying is that you're recording everything direct and that the problem is that it sounds like you're recording everything direct .

If going live is not an option, attack it by getting creative and dimensional with the mix:

- First, back off some of the individual compression you might otherwise use, leaving a bit more dynamics in there than you might usually have. This'll give you a bit more dimensional character in the tracks giving you more options for the next bullet point...

- If your Tascam has levels automation capabilities, use it to the max. Intermix the different tracks by accentuating the best riffs in track A here, but laying back on track A there to let the track B fill take the spotlight for a few seconds. Stuff like that to give your mix some "texture" like a thick sculptured pile or shag rug instead of a mix that's a stack of compressed tracks of plywood stacked on top of each other.

- Use reverb to create depth. Don't go overboard with the verb so that it's an audible effect; rather use it just to ad some ambience to some of the individual tracks that you want to sit further back in the mix. General rule: dry will sound closer to the listener than wet will when using verb; the more verb and individual track has, the farther away it will be perceived to be. But leep it simple; just some warm ambience type of verb (small plate or warm room), and not so much where it's easily noticable as a sound in itself.

- If you have stuff hard panned to the edges, pull them in just a bit and leave the edges for your overall room verb. You can still have a wide pan (if that's really what you want), but leaving the extreme edges of the soundstage for room reverb will tend to pull the whole band back in depth just a bit and place them in a virtual environment instead of just sounding like dry, flat, linear tracks.

Somewhere in all that you should find a good trailhead to start off down the path to a more open mix.

EDIT: Oh, and don't be shy about expirimenting with your Pod and taking it well off of the presets. You'd be suprised at what a Pod *can* do when you really learn how to fly it properly.

G.

 

[Dogbreath]

Well, all I can say is what's worked for me so far and

Depending on the tune, but on my drums, I'll either run a brite plate verb (I think) on just my snare or maybe a lite room verb on the OH's. I'm not positive about the names of the effects (sorry) I just know where they are on my board and grab the 6th one down for snare and the 9th one down for OH... LOL

On vox, it varies. I've used a touch of stereo chorus with some verb before and it sounded great. Other times I've used a short mono delay and some live house verb. Basically, I just keep playing around with different stuff til I find one I like.

I know it doesn't really answer your question but I've found that I'm pretty good at wasting bandwidth around here.

OK...on to somebody with a clue...

 

[Dogbreath]

Or just disregard my post and listen to Glen...

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

Or just disregard my post and listen to Glen...

Nah, Dog. You have some good stuff there too.

G.

 

[Zaphod B]

Use your towel!

Sorry. Couldn't resist.

Hahaha, you one funny guy! I've sucked the towel pretty much dry and can't find my copy of "Hitchhiker's Guide to Decent Mixing Techniques."

Seriously, Glen, thanks. Your response contains exactly the kind of starting points I'm looking for.

My TASCAM doesn't have level automation, but I understand your point about having different tracks take turns being out front according to what they're doing. So I will have to do this on the fly.

What you say about verb and perceived distance also makes sense, as well as not hard-panning. Also, the only thing I use compression on is the vocals, and then only when the song has highly dynamic vocals.

Thanks much, I'm still learning and taking tiny baby steps. I thought that once I learned how to track decently a mix would come pretty easily. It's not that simple.

Well, all I can say is what's worked for me so far ...

Thanks Dogbreath, any and all ideas are welcome!

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

I...can't find my copy of "Hitchhiker's Guide to Decent Mixing Techniques."

You're not missing anything. Under the heading "No Ambience" it simply says "Drink a jin'n'tonnix".

G.

 

[Zaphod B]

You're not missing anything. Under the heading "No Ambience" it simply says "Drink a jin'n'tonnix".

G.

...and I heard it has something to say on the topic of recording Vogon poetry: "Don't."

 

[Zaphod B]

EDIT: Oh, and don't be shy about expirimenting with your Pod and taking it well off of the presets. You'd be suprised at what a Pod *can* do when you really learn how to fly it properly.

G.

Missed this edit earlier.

I love experimenting with the Pod. I've created several user channels with a few models of amps with which I am familiar (from using the real things), and I can get very good, realistic tone with them. (Modeler haters, please stuff it for the time being, OK? ) Having all those effects models available is like being a kid in a candy store.

One problem I discovered from my early recordings was that I did not have the Pod's cabinet / mic / A.I.R emulation enabled - I hadn't set the mode correctly. So that mistake gave me a very flat, damped, dry sound. The A.I.R. setting allows some small-room ambience in the guitar signal chain and it really opens it up.

 

[zacanger]

Wow, so many dorky Hitchhiker references.
How's the sound coming out of the drum machine, generally? I avoid drum machines generally, so I'm not used to mixing them. Also, if you can do anything for the bass, do. I used to record the bass directly, but I got a cheap bass amp to run it from and helps out so much. It can be the crappiest thing on earth (mine really is), but it'll still add a lot of fullness.

 

[Zaphod B]

How's the sound coming out of the drum machine, generally?

Actually, it's pretty good. There are many samples of snares, toms, kicks, and cymbals, as well as Latin and eastern Indian percussion.

 

[TragikRemix]

hey Glen, when is that new tutorial coming out???

and for zaphod; yeah, deff cut down a lil, i was doing the same thing, recording way too hot. what did i know, i figure, ok its not clipping..

remember, there is a huge spectrum of sound.

there is also tons of space left and right in the mix. i dont think i keep anything center except, well, maybe kick sometimes.

do you have an mp3 for us? i'd like to hear something so i could maybe point you somewhere.

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

hey Glen, when is that new tutorial coming out???
...
remember, there is a huge spectrum of sound.

Funny you should mention those two things in the same post.

As part of a piece on critical listening that I'm working on, I'm currently building a user-interactive frequency spectrum chart. I'll probably put the chart up as a seperate web applet when it's done, hopefully sometime between now and Halloween (appropriate, since it has some orange and black in it ) Then the critical listening stuff - including a self-contained version of the applet - will come a few weeks after that.

This all depends upon my work load, though, as this is all stuff I'm doing in my free time.

G.

 

[TragikRemix]

take your time man, and thanks for sharing your knowledge!

 

[Erockrazor]

Nothing I have to say that hasnt already been covered ... but! maybe an analogy can help!

If you go into an empty closet with your eyes closed and yell , you can have an idea of the space you are in.

If you go into an empty warehouse with your eyes closed and yell , you can have an idea of the space you are in.

Your ears peceive what kind of space youre in. The reverberation or echo of the big warehouse creates a picture of OPEN space. The much less reverberant room will sound like a CLOS(ED)et. I'm trying to reinnerate that reverberation commonly is perceived as open space. Adding reverb to various parts of your mix may be a good idea to start trying to open up your mix.

All credit for the analogy goes to my audio professor.haha.

Good luck getting that sound youre looking for , youll find it. Good Luck.

 

[TexRoadkill]

When it comes to opening up the sound stage I prefer delays to reverb. Reverb can actually obscure your panning and give everything a more mono sound. Pan the dry track to one side and pan the delay over to the other and mix in the delayed track to taste. A delay of less then 40ms will help give you a wider feel without sucking everything into the middle. Then add just a touch of room reverb to tie in the tracks together. Works great on guitars and backup vocals.

If you need to spice up a center track like lead vocals or snare you can add a touch of delay to each side. Set each delay to be a few ms different from each other.

 

[Zaphod B]

Nothing I have to say that hasnt already been covered ... but! maybe an analogy can help!

If you go into an empty closet with your eyes closed and yell , you can have an idea of the space you are in.

If you go into an empty warehouse with your eyes closed and yell , you can have an idea of the space you are in.
Good luck getting that sound youre looking for , youll find it. Good Luck.

Thanks, Erockrazor. Right now my mixes sound like you're inside a small closet, filled with winter coats. It's much too close-sounding.

My challenge, since almost everything is recorded direct, is to simulate some openness in a way that sounds natural to my brain.

 

[Zaphod B]

When it comes to opening up the sound stage I prefer delays to reverb. Reverb can actually obscure your panning and give everything a more mono sound. Pan the dry track to one side and pan the delay over to the other and mix in the delayed track to taste. A delay of less then 40ms will help give you a wider feel without sucking everything into the middle. Then add just a touch of room reverb to tie in the tracks together. Works great on guitars and backup vocals.

If you need to spice up a center track like lead vocals or snare you can add a touch of delay to each side. Set each delay to be a few ms different from each other.

Excellent - good, specific advice. Thanks!