Individually sound good..together..not so much

  • Thread starter Thread starter Nonninator
  • Start date Start date
N

Nonninator

New member
Hi all, I'm a total newb. I am using a yam aw16g to lay down tracks as well as to mix as much as I can...and when I record my guitar bass , vox and so on they sound great alone...But when I put them all together they suck...vocals sound weak and just gay all around.. guitar is too punchy or too muddy depending on the song....What the hell?...I need help finding what frequencies the instruments traditionally are in....or whatever input you can give me...HELP!! PLEASE!!...all these threads say to use my own ears...but I'm not sure what to listen for
 
welcome to the fun of mixing :rolleyes:

I think EQ will be your best friend here. there are loads of tutorials online about how to use EQ to seperate parts of a mix, but basically, give each instrument its own space and make cuts to the other instruments to they don't interfere with it. I'm sure someone on here can put it in much better words than me but try the following for starters...

cut a lot of bass out of the vocals, and a bit from the guitars - this will help even out the bass guitar so you can hear what its doing. Try taking a bit of 2.5KHz out of the guitars to make room for the vocals, do this with all the instruments playing and see how much you can get away with before it starts to change the guitar tone too much. Then experiment, but remember less is often more and you're ears will get accustomed to a certain tone so take regular breaks and listen to some other music. Good luck :)
 
Nonninator said:
Hi all, I'm a total newb. I am using a yam aw16g to lay down tracks as well as to mix as much as I can...and when I record my guitar bass , vox and so on they sound great alone...But when I put them all together they suck...vocals sound weak and just gay all around.. guitar is too punchy or too muddy depending on the song....What the hell?...I need help finding what frequencies the instruments traditionally are in....or whatever input you can give me...HELP!! PLEASE!!...all these threads say to use my own ears...but I'm not sure what to listen for
Click to expand...

Are you a one man band? Or are you recording a whole band? Your best bet is good core sounds that work together before you hit record. Thats a little easier to do if you are working with a whole band, because, you've already done some of the leg work (presumably) to get the instruments to sound good together just by playing and practicing as a band. If you a re one man show, you'll have to do some experimenting to see what sounds good.

Once you've got core sounds that all sounds good together, then comes the mixing. For one, make sure all of your levels arent too high. Clipping or overloading the master output of your recorder is the first guaranteed step to a bad mix. Turn ALL the fadders down (half way or something) and see how things sound. Very GENTLE use of eq and compression can help things sit together in the mix a little better.

If you want, post up a sample of your recording and you'll get feedback.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
And don't forget about your recordings at the source check and recheck your mic placement for the sound that you want to capture..
 
Jeff_D said:
Are you a one man band?
Click to expand...

If you are, don't be surprised if things don't sit together in real life as well as they do in your head! It takes several, maybe tens of rehearsals for a band to gel, so when you are playing all the parts yourself you can imagine how many attempts its going to take to get things to sit together rhythmically and acoustically.

If you are doing everything yourself it will take a while to get things to gel, either way, using the word "gay" as a derogatory term for your music is not very cool.
 
Yay!

beatlebum said:
If you are doing everything yourself it will take a while to get things to gel, either way, using the word "gay" as a derogatory term for your music is not very cool.
Click to expand...


Sorry about the gay thing...and my performance is good I just suck at the mixing because I'm a newb. I'll let you all know how it turns out THANKS!
 
bunt said:
Mr. Southside G. posts a helpful chart to understand where various instruments fit into frequency ranges. Click the link below. You'll find other helpful information there as well, then if you get frustrated and give up, you can secure Glen's services!:D

http://www.independentrecording.net/irn/resources/freqchart/main_display.htm
Click to expand...

RAMI said:
Yes, it's a great chart. But don't read too much into it. Trust me on this one. Glen will tell you the same thing.
Click to expand...

philbagg said:
Did Glen make that chart himself? We use it all the time :eek: :D
Click to expand...
Thanks for the props, guys! Yeah, I built that chart myself, but it's just the latest incarnation of a hundred other such charts that were already out there, with information gleened from many different already-published and time-tested references. All I did was throw it all together in a user-interactive way that kinda makes at least a little sense.

Rami is right. While that chart is easily the most popular feature on the IRN website, IMHO, it's also the most useless and mis-used.

IMHO, it has three purposes only:

The first is simple; to show that just about all instruments share far more frequencies than they individually "fit into". That chart is almost all overlap.

The second, which one can derive from the first, is that an instrument's frequency range is not what's important, it's how that instument is arranged in the composition and mix.

And the third, which is really what I made that chart for originally, is that the chart, with it's extra pop-up information regarding the individual instruments, combined with the bottom of the chart containing the "adjective" ranges and the EQ map, should be used to train one's ear, not used as a guide for bypassing one's ear.

Put simply, one should use that chart as part of their ear training regimen designed to make the need for that chart obsolete. The quicker one figures out that they no longer actually need that chart, the better; and the better of a job that chart will have done.

(I actually originally built that chart as part of a longer-term project describing a method of building critical listening skills for the home recordist. The folks I had beta testing the chart app liked it so much that they recommended I not wait and release it on it's own first as well. And there it is.)

EDIT: I might also add that, according to my website analytics, there are very few people who ever actually find the second chart that is part of that applet. So I hope you guys don't mind if I use this opportunity to point out that there are actually two full-sized interactive charts available in that one applet. You just have to click in the right place to find the second one ;).

G.
 
Last edited:
Nonninator said:
HELP!! PLEASE!!...all these threads say to use my own ears...but I'm not sure what to listen for
Click to expand...

Well, that's your problem. You need to learn what to listen for. How much do you love music? Because that is what you will need to listen to for hours and days and weeks. Play your favorite CDs in your mixing/tracking room through your monitors and listen with no distractions (no internet, reading, texting, etc). Really soak up what each genre sounds like. Listen to an entire song dedicating your full attention to only the bass guitar. Then rewind and do it again for the next instrument.

It is almost impossible to build a recording without knowing what music sounds like on a personal, detailed, obsessive level.


Once you know what things sound like, you need to be able to record the exact sound you are looking for.

Again, how much do you love music? Because you will need to spend hours, days, and weeks (heck, a lifetime) changing settings on amps while agonizing over the details, tweaking the lug nuts on drums, and playing with microphones from all distances and angles until you know how to make the sounds in your head.


That is all there is to this line of work, really. Know how to listen, know what sound is needed, and know how to make the sound.

The perception out there is that you mainly have to learn technical details about running mixing boards and setting gain stages and navigating software and all that and then you can put together an album.

That's all secondary stuff. Yeah, you need to know how to do all of that, but you can learn all of it in a relatively short period of time. The only thing that really matters, the only thing that separates the guys who can do it from the guys who can't, is the ability to understand what you are hearing, evaluate what you are hearing, and act on what you are hearing in an appropriate and artistic way. There is no shortcut to that. That is what makes the artist.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top