In Need Of Advice/Help With My Mix

K

Kroduscul

New member
(Reposting because I posted late last night with no engagement)
I'm at my wit's end and just can't figure this stuff out.
For the track itself, I was going for a late Beatles sound, like "Something, the 2019 remaster, or Across The Universe from the Let It Be NAKED album. Haven't had much problem with the rhythm section. I'm very new to compression and mixing in general. The vocals sound dry and burnt, no matter what I do. The main rhythm guitar is so harsh in the higher frequencies, but it's proven near impossible to EQ without muffling the entire sound so much I'm close to considering re-recording it.
I can't get the guitar and vocals to sit with each other. It sounds especially bad on iPhone speakers. I don't know if this is fixed with compression, stereo panning, or what. Any advice or recommendations at all is massively appreciated. Feel free to ask any questions for clarification, and thank you so much for the help.
Here's the link
 
As for the balance between the guitars and the vocals it seems there might be a slight phase discrepancy. Have you tried flipping the phase on either of those tracks or possibly bringing the guitars further away from the vocals in the mix? I would suggest checking the phase on your guitar tracks and vocal tracks, and then if that doesn't change anything try panning the guitars a little further outwards in the stereo field and drop the volume by a db or two at a time until you find a better balance. Let me know what daw you're in! I'd be happy to load up the project and take a look or maybe I could start a mix of the song using the stems. :-)
 
Nisk said:
As for the balance between the guitars and the vocals it seems there might be a slight phase discrepancy. Have you tried flipping the phase on either of those tracks or possibly bringing the guitars further away from the vocals in the mix? I would suggest checking the phase on your guitar tracks and vocal tracks, and then if that doesn't change anything try panning the guitars a little further outwards in the stereo field and drop the volume by a db or two at a time until you find a better balance. Let me know what daw you're in! I'd be happy to load up the project and take a look or maybe I could start a mix of the song using the stems. :-)
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I know what you mean. I figured compression might be a possible solution as the harsh quality peaks through most notably on the upstrokes. Maybe it just needs some taming. As for the stereo field, I had actually moved the guitar a bit closer to the center than it was before. It seemed like the guitar being too far to one side was causing it to hit the single speaker pretty hard, accentuating that harsh high frequency more.
 
I think MJ's post that you posting in the MP3 clinic may yield more results.

On the guitars, if you EQ the track with a narrow Q and hunt for the frequency that you think is the problem. Just need to make the Q real narrow so to get only that which you want to reduce,

With the vocals and the guitar, find where your vocals sit and reduce those frequencies to carve out a place for the vocals. Try to get the guitars to sit around the vocals.

Hope that gives you some idea,
 
The rhythm guitar sounding harsh on laptops or phones is something I struggled with a lot in the past, it's out of balance so try a little bit of de-essing at 3 or 3.5khz, and if removing a little of that frequency does not work with a static EQ because you said it sounds muffled then try boosting around 300hz instead to bring in the warmth, maybe boost up higher at 450, either should work but with different results, choose whatever works best for the track. If boosting up the low end doesn't work because it sounds congested/muddy then saturate the low end instead, maybe will need to compress the top end aswel (3 or 4khz upwards with a high shelving de-esser) to control trebles and pick attacks

If you get your balance right with EQ and have it fairly controlled you'll be able to pan 100% left/right without it sounding harsh/annoying/distracting. Panning closer to the center is an easy way out though but is not as interesting. Much better off understanding the dark art of eq, that way the volume changes when flipping to mono/stereo won't throw balances out of whack, which is probably why you hate what you're hearing in stereo (the 3db increase in the rhythm guitar volume along with it being too bright/harsh)

Don't scoop out 300-1k, it only sounds amazing for a short while, but wont translate to smaller speakers. If the recording is naturally scooped in that area as mine usually is (because of close miking, proximity effect and the massive boost around 5k by the mics themselves) then just give a healthy boost back with EQ to bring back all of those all important mids. (300-1k).... alternatively, reduce low end below 220hz(proximity effect) and then scoop out quite aggressively at 4-5k broadly to do the same thing essentially but then watch out for the high highs. 10khz+

Use a spectrum analyzer, a steady but gentle slope down for strumming rhythm guitar is nice with the high point being at 200hz, you can then usually trust that tonal balance to start shaping the vocal into it.

(note I actually still prefer to close mik, even though I need to do extra work with EQ. it leaves me with more transient heavy tracks, with a drier more up front sound) But it does make it difficult to mix at times......................but it's much easier to take away something that I captured too much of than to try to add something I did not get enough of. (ie: taming transients and wetting up with some room verb is very easy to do in comparison to increasing transients and trying to dry up a recording)
 
Nisk said:
As for the balance between the guitars and the vocals it seems there might be a slight phase discrepancy. Have you tried flipping the phase on either of those tracks or possibly bringing the guitars further away from the vocals in the mix? I would suggest checking the phase on your guitar tracks and vocal tracks, and then if that doesn't change anything try panning the guitars a little further outwards in the stereo field and drop the volume by a db or two at a time until you find a better balance. Let me know what daw you're in! I'd be happy to load up the project and take a look or maybe I could start a mix of the song using the stems. :-)
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Sorry if this sounds insensitive, but that makes no sense. Two different signals will have a constantly, as on the order of sub-milliseconds, changing phase relationship.The only way there would be a phase problem between them is if there was bleed from one track into the other. Also, you shift phase and invert (flip) polarity.
 
I think this is a great tune.
The guitar needs to be mixed a bit into the other channel. Hearing it 100% on one side only is a nice idea that just doesn't work. Hearing doesn't work that way. You hear everything with both ears at least a little bit. Put a little of the ocean waves in the other channel too. You can keep the side to side separation, just bring a little of each across to the other channel. I think it will give the piece a little more balance.
I did a little multiband compression, a touch of over all reverb, mix a bit of the each channel in with each other. I did a fast messy mix to give you an idea of what I am talking about, just a fast mix using the stereo track you provided, I hope you don't mind.
 

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  • OCXIV4 messsed with.mp3
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The problem frequency in the rhythm guitar is at about 3.8 kHz. When I apply a -2.5 dB 1/3 octave filter there it sounds much better and more like the target style. Of course that should be done on the guitar channel and not the whole mix. There are other things I'd change, but I think that would help things quite a bit.
 
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I’d say, try mixing from the vocal first.. bring everything up slowly around the vocal
 
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The guitar on the left cuts through no problem, so you can turn it down half a taste, and vocals up half a taste. But I liked the ideas about moving some of the rhythm guitar sound over to the right, and cutting a bit of ~3.5KHz.

Nice song. You're closing in on it.
 
dobro said:
The guitar on the left cuts through no problem, so you can turn it down half a taste, and vocals up half a taste. But I liked the ideas about moving some of the rhythm guitar sound over to the right, and cutting a bit of ~3.5KHz.

Nice song. You're closing in on it.
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Thanks so much. Appreciate it
 
You're overthinking all things EQ. Think of EQ as a blunt tone tool in general, and a "fixer" specifically for overly dominant tones. I won't bother getting into frequency layering theory, as the discussion is too large and I'm too busy doing everything else - but the main point of that is to "aim" each instrument (or parts thereof) at their core sound, and then, across the spectrum, have each occupy its "best sounding space".

NOTHING I heard here sound all that "out of whack" - from an EQ standpoint. Sure, you can tweak to your heart's (or ear's) content, but nobody is listening like a mixer listens.

Where things are slightly awry is relative levels. The drums, in whole, need to come a bit more forward on the stage. The bass needs to lock in w/ the percussion - and be noticed, but not featured (as it is in the above mix). In this song, it's support infrastructure and doesn't need to be prominent.

Your guitars are also a bit too "narrowed" on the stage. Your complaint about them not melding well with the vocal is largely due to the fact that you positioned them as pinpoints far "off vocal". That's why they sound "too separate".

Material is lovely. Performances are on point.

... just get the relative levels better matched so that the cohesion to the mix is cemented - and once that is done?

Throw a soft limiter across the two buss to better glue it all together and bring the overall volume up a tad.
 
Most of it has been covered. Nice tune. The tuning on the vocals gets a bit sketchy on the high falsetto parts, especially when you very first start going up there.

I would suggest trying to tame the wobbly, quivery vibrato on the vocals a bit. (I know this is not a mixing fix.) You have a nice vocal tone, but that quivery vibrato produces a bit of an uneasy quality when I hear it. That's just my opinion, of course.

Overall, I think it's pretty close. It sounded as though the lead guitar could be a little less wet when it came in. Thanks for sharing!
 
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