Mixin' help?

guitarmonkus

guitarmonkus

New member
Howdy out there. I have this song I just posted on purevolume.com called NOV4.

I recorded it on my Tascam DP-02, and the drums with Audacity. I'm going to add vocals tomorrow, but does anyone have any suggestions on the mix? I'll take ANY advice. In particular: How is the bass level? It's loud and in your face on my speakers, but when I play the song on anything other than my good stereo speakers I can hardly make out the bass at all. Should I just turn it louder than I think is necessary in the mix so it will be felt?

Thanks board.

www.purevolume.com/followthebirds

song is called: NOV4

Thom
 
Had to check and see if you had posted anything in here to be commented on, after you posted on mine!

The mix sounds pretty good. But, I think the bass is a bit overkill. I'm limited to listening on my headphones now but I'm pretty sure your bass is overpowering. What are the other kinds of speakers you're listening on? If they are tiny speakers, they're naturally going to be lacking much bass at all... so don't base it on what you hear on those. Take any other commercial mix and listen to it on those 'crappy' speakers as well, and you should notice a big lack in bass levels for it as well.

What you need to do is make sure you're familiar with how your "good stereo speakers" sound. Play a bunch of music you like on them and familiarize yourself with how it sounds. Then mix your tune to sound as close as possible to the commercial stuff you like. Then compare. Also compare yours with the commercial stuff on your "crappy" speakers.

:P That should help a bit.
 
The mix sounds good through the headphones I am listening through. That could however mean that it is actually bass heavy as stated above. The balance of the instruments sound good to me though.
 
Listening again, there is a very drastic change in the level of the hi-hat before and after the kick and snare come in. It goes from very loud to much quieter... maybe too drastic.

But yeah, after comparing the mix to some commercial mixes just to be sure (haven't listened on my phones for a while so my ears aren't accustomed to them), I still think the bass should come down 1 or 2 dB at least.
 
austinm08 said:
Listening again, there is a very drastic change in the level of the hi-hat before and after the kick and snare come in. It goes from very loud to much quieter... maybe too drastic.
Click to expand...

I agree, that was the first thing I noticed. I liked the hihat volume after the kick and snare came in better than before the kick and snare were present. I would also add in some more cymbals to really excite the mood of the song. Drum machine/programmed drums tend to especially lack crashes. If it's easy enough, I'd fix that.
 
This mix can definately improve...the playing sounds good.

If you have seperate stems for drums (kick,snare,toms,overheads) I would focus on mixing the kick and bass to start with.

Bass

I would highpass (remove lows) at 40 hz then boost at 60 hz and cut at 100 hz.

Kick

I would highpass kick at 40-60 hz and do the opposite of what you did with bass...I would cut at 60 hz and boost at 100 hz.

There is still lots of eqing and compression to do after this however this is a good starting point to work from.
 
The bass frequencies dont cover a wide enough range, thats probably why it sounds different from speaker to speaker, you'd have to cut the super lows and boost the low mids/mids, however I thought it sounded kinda cool real deep, but its gonna have that translation problem as is.
 
D_Vincent said:
This mix can definately improve...the playing sounds good.

If you have seperate stems for drums (kick,snare,toms,overheads) I would focus on mixing the kick and bass to start with.

Bass

I would highpass (remove lows) at 40 hz then boost at 60 hz and cut at 100 hz.

Kick

I would highpass kick at 40-60 hz and do the opposite of what you did with bass...I would cut at 60 hz and boost at 100 hz.

There is still lots of eqing and compression to do after this however this is a good starting point to work from.
Click to expand...


I'm new at the detailed mixing, how should I be thinking about compression to improve the mix? You covered the EQ pretty well, but compression? I don't think I've compressed anything yet. I know, I know, amateur question.
 
PDP said:
The bass frequencies dont cover a wide enough range, thats probably why it sounds different from speaker to speaker, you'd have to cut the super lows and boost the low mids/mids, however I thought it sounded kinda cool real deep, but its gonna have that translation problem as is.
Click to expand...

dude, thanks for listening. I'm glad someone besides me likes the real deep bass!
 
guitarplayr82 said:
I agree, that was the first thing I noticed. I liked the hihat volume after the kick and snare came in better than before the kick and snare were present. I would also add in some more cymbals to really excite the mood of the song. Drum machine/programmed drums tend to especially lack crashes. If it's easy enough, I'd fix that.
Click to expand...

That's a good idea. THis is my first time splicing drum loops together using Audacity, but I am going to add more dynamics (ie: cymbal crashes and buildups) the next go around. Thanks for listening gp82.
 
guitarmonkus said:
That's a good idea. THis is my first time splicing drum loops together using Audacity, but I am going to add more dynamics (ie: cymbal crashes and buildups) the next go around. Thanks for listening gp82.
Click to expand...

Sure thing. I liked it a lot, it had a nice vibe. It was really good for a first time with drum loops, especially since you used Audacity.
 
guitarmonkus said:
I'm new at the detailed mixing, how should I be thinking about compression to improve the mix? You covered the EQ pretty well, but compression? I don't think I've compressed anything yet. I know, I know, amateur question.
Click to expand...

Kick and bass need compression


Here are some kick drum compression recipes.

Kick Drum compression recipe # 1

Ratio 8:1
Attack 45 ms
Release Really fast

Kick drum compression recipe # 2

fast but not too fast attack time (9ms)
quick release (11ms)
Ratio 2.5:1 and adjust the threshold until you hear the kick sound you want


Bass compression

Ratio 4:1
Attack 50
Release 50
Perhaps adjust thresh to get desired sound (optional)
 
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