mastering this mix

  • Thread starter Thread starter cabbage
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C

cabbage

New member
Hey there,
Im a newbie and have been having heaps of problems with the distortion in my mix. Youve all helped with your advice but i just cant seem to get it right. If any of you could help out it would be heaps appreciated.
here is the link for my song.



cheers,
C
 
please, anyone.. all i want is to get rid of the boominess and distortion that i hear on smaller speakers, whilst importantly keeping it sounding thick. i dropped all the lows before and it just didnt have any depth.
frustration and inexperience is taking over.
C.
 
cabbage, don't feed the bear, but do read his article. It's very informative. Sounds like everything is mixed pretty loud. Have you tried to bring everything down abit before mixing? Maybe bring individual tracks down a couple of db before trying to mix, then see what happens. I like the song, it just seems loud. I've read a lot about giving yourself headroom, and this seems to give you more to play with when mixing.

I am no master, so take it as some advice from someone who read something somewhere that may or may not work. My stuff sounds better if I record and mix at slightly lower volumes, then bring it up later, as most of the time it end up pretty loud anyway.

Just my $1.50 worth.
Ed
 
Also, without knowing your setup... bear in mind that not all DAWs do summng in floating point. That can really bite you in the backside if you start out with levels that are way too hot on individual tracks.

I'm not quite sure what you're hearing, though. I'm having a hard time hearing much of anything on that MP3. Too much swirling....
 
I'm not quite sure what you're hearing, though. I'm having a hard time hearing much of anything on that MP3. Too much swirling....[/QUOTE]

swirling? not sure what you mean, but how do i fix it?
Also- dogman
do mean highlighting it all and bringing it down a few db. Is that different to just bringing the master down? why?
cheers,
C.
 
Swirling refers (in this case) to phasing in the high frequencies. While it can be caused by any number of things such as mic placement, odd reverb settings, etc., in this case, it sounded more like MP3 artifacting, often caused by:

* using too low a bit rate when generating the MP3
* using channel linking on dissimilar (e.g. split mono) recordings
* not using channel linking at lower bitrates with normal stereo recordings

Also, note that I was listening to this on my laptop's speakers, where that sort of distortion tends to be magnified substantially.... I should probably listen again on my reference monitors when I have a minute and am more awake. It may or may not be an issue.
 
if you could have a listen on your monitors and tell me what you think i should do it would be heaps appreciated Dgatwood.
thanks,
C.
 
Also- dogman
do mean highlighting it all and bringing it down a few db. Is that different to just bringing the master down? why?
cheers,
C.[/QUOTE]
In the master, all the levels are already up, I assume. If you start with all the levels down a bit, maybe no higher than -3db, maybe even lower, It will still get loud when mixed together. You may have to bring things down more than -3, that is just a number to start at. If you have avery single track near 0, and then combine them, everything gets convoluted as the sounds fight for space. You will have to experiment, and listen as you mix the individual tracks, so you get vocals and such where you want them in the mix, but sometimes it requires bringing other tracks down in volume, not always raising the volume. Just gives you headroom to use.

Hope that explains it a little more clearly, if not, ask again, and I, or someone else will try and help.
Ed
 
It doesn't sound that bad to me. I think the distortion you're hearing on the hard strumming parts is most likely due to the way the track was recorded (mic position, input level, etc.) rather than something you can likely fix in the mix. If anything, you might try reducing the level of the guitar track during those parts a little bit to get it to sit back a bit more. You could also try rolling off some of the lows on the guitar track--not so much that it affects the body of the sound, but just to clean up the low end a little bit. Run the frequency out until you really hear it affecting the tone, then back it off.

But really, I don't hear much distortion in it to begin with.
 
cheers alex,
trouble is that on my monitors i dont hear much distortion either, but when played on some speakers the song is barely audible. My main concern is that if i sell a few of these demos at a gig, for some people it my not work on their systems. it really is impossible to listen to it on some..not just bad, impossible. why? and how to fix?
C.
 
Do you have a meter on your master fader that can measure peak as well as rms level? If so, what are the relative values. Your best bet may be to send it out to have it professionally mastered.
 
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