Mixing, mastering, and getting "that" sound...

M

Mercuri

New member
Ok, it's been a year since I've posted anything on this board... My last discussion was about getting "that" sound and how pissed off I was that it seemed so unachievable. One year later, I moved to Tennessee and I've gone to a couple studios in Nashville and checked the scene out. I've made a few discoveries I wouldn't have thought of before that I thought I'd relay to everyone who is trying to do this at home.

You know that "crispy" sound used in pop music, e.g. Justin Timberlake, Britney Spears, etc? The one that makes the sound "shimmer" and sound bright but not ear-piercing? That isn't some guy on the mixing board skillfully tuning the high EQ... That's HARMONICS. Check it out, people, cause it's what you need to get things to sound FULL even if you have a sparse mix. (Listen to N'Sync's "Gone" for a perfect example.)

Reverbs are used to add flavor, not wash out a sound. Don't always drown your sounds in echo to make them sound better... A touch of extremely short reverb and a gentle hall reverb will get things to sound "acceptable" without making the apparent sound obvious reverb does. I don't hear huge reverbs on a lot of things except Whitney Houston's voice, but that one is tastefully done and isn't a standard hall reverb just strapped over the channel.

EQ CONSERVATIVELY - If you have to make a drastic change in EQ, it better be to achieve a drastic sound, not to try to get something drastic to sound normal. Re-record it if the EQ doesn't sound good. Slight adjustments are more than acceptable.

COMPRESS THE S#!& OUT OF EVERYTHING. Don't make it sound compressed. Just level. Ok, maybe not everything. But do it if you want something to sound "in your face" and up front.

CHORUS SOUNDS CHEESY unless you make it not sound like chorus. I know that sounds weird. But try to stray from your standard Yamaha chorus. Listen to most chorusing on pro recordings. It doesn't sound like what comes out of your yamaha Motif.

CARVE FREQUENCY NICHES - Try to keep the kick out of the bass guitar's way, and don't let guitars take up too much of your lead vocal's frequency range (Unless they're for lead.) It's like a puzzle. The pieces have to fit.

DRUMS ARE HARD to get to sound the way they do on the radio. I have not achieved this yet and I think they're the hardest thing to capture correctly in recording and mixing.

Ok, I'm no great pro, and this advice won't apply to everything... But I thought I'd share some of my homework answers with the other students. All of this is also just my opinion and is stated factually nowhere... Take it as is. I hope this helps those out who are seeking to get a better sound out of their recordings. Ciao! :)
 
Mercuri said:
All of this is also just my opinion and is stated factually nowhere... Take it as is.
Click to expand...

Exactly...and nice info indeed. ;)

But I have to add this...
I like to do the un-norm.
Why does everyone strive for the same sound
Theres no instruction
Theres no rules
Its audio painting
I love it when folks cant say that sounds like Joe Blow
I dont want to sound like Joe Blow
Although most of the time people have a natural tendency to say its sounds like...
Sometimes I choose not to compress
Sometimes I over compress
Chourus sounds great on some things
Reverbs can do wonders, even over-reverb
Bit-Crushers, Maximizers, Compressors, Fat Eq, Parametric EQ, the list goes on......and can be used in any way, any time and create a great tune.

I do see your point however that this is normal tips for the normal songs for the normal musicians.

All of this is also just my opinion and is stated factually nowhere... Take it as is. :p
 
Mercuri said:
You know that "crispy" sound used in pop music, e.g. Justin Timberlake, Britney Spears, etc? The one that makes the sound "shimmer" and sound bright but not ear-piercing? That isn't some guy on the mixing board skillfully tuning the high EQ... That's HARMONICS. Check it out, people, cause it's what you need to get things to sound FULL even if you have a sparse mix. (Listen to N'Sync's "Gone" for a perfect example.)
Click to expand...


I'd rather not listen to N'Sync, if that's alright with you? :D Thanks.

So, uh, anyway . . . about these harmonics. I'm interested in what you have to say on the subject.

Surprize me. Wow me over. Hit me with your best shot. I'd like to hear you expound on this subject and educate me with specific details on how to achieve the kind of harmonics common with teenie-bopper music.
 
The reason so many people fail at drums, and the times I failed at drums myself, had less to do with what I did with the recorded sound but WHAT that recorded sound was.

The vital components of a good drum sound are:

GOOD DRUMMER
GOOD DRUMS

And if you want to make it sound 'modern' you also need:

GOOD TRIGGER SAMPLES :)
 
Mercuri said:
You know that "crispy" sound used in pop music, e.g. Justin Timberlake, Britney Spears, etc? The one that makes the sound "shimmer" and sound bright but not ear-piercing? That isn't some guy on the mixing board skillfully tuning the high EQ... That's HARMONICS. Check it out, people, cause it's what you need to get things to sound FULL even if you have a sparse mix. (Listen to N'Sync's "Gone" for a perfect example.)
Click to expand...

What exactly do you mean by "harmonics" here? I'm not sure I understand it in this context. And how does it work?
 
kylen said:
Queuing on the 'harmonics' secret - what are we talking about here ? Thanx :)
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Yeah, I asked my local music store if they carried harmonics but, they were all out. Can I get them on line or can I make them at home, what tools are required, cause I wanna sound like Justin Timberlake? :D
 
Did I detect a touch of sarcasm here?










...naw. Just guys dying to achieve what the cultural icons have done.

God, we'll be SO MUCH happier when we all sound the same!
 
Honer makes the most popular ones, in several keys and scales. Yup. That's the secret.

Oh sorry, I though you were talking about harmonicas... :eek:
 
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I too am intrigued and am trying to think how this idea may have come about. I have a theory and I'll test it out here; see if this makes sense.

Once I went fishing with a professional guide (I can't fish worth sh't but my brother in law made me go--or bribed me with beer, I can't remember which it was now). We found the right guide because the salmon were almost begging to hop into our boat when everyone else around us was sucking big time and pulling up dogfish and old tires. So they kept calling over the water, "Whatcha using?" because they heard us whooping and hollering (wait, maybe it WAS the beer). Our guide kept yelling back "worms" when in fact we were using cut herring bait which got us cackling even harder as we saw people plowing back to the bait store in their boats to get worms.

The point here--maybe some foxy studio engineer in Nashville who is constantly being asked how he or she gets "That" sound replies "It's all about the harmonics" with a perfectly straight face.

And that led me to thinking about MY sound which, should someone ever beg me for my secret (hope hope), my answer will be, it's all in the harmonics, and slip away mysteriously into the dark to leave them pondering in wonder and amazement.

Just a theory. ;>)
 
That's a really interesting theory. :D And there's definitely gotta' be some truth to it.

Still, I wonder how long it's going to take some of these guys before they figure it out. I think Mercury is starting to catch on. He definitely showed some promise when he mentioned the whole "drums" thing.

What I'm seeing people doing is trying to shroud it all in mystery, as if there are secrets or voodoo magic behind it all. :D Like Cloneboy mentioned, good drum sounds start with a good drummer behind a good kit in a good room. Combine that with a good, reasonably knowlegeable engineer, and it would be extremely hard for you not to get a good drum sound. No mysteries. No crazy effects boxes.

Vocals are no different. Obviously, they can be doubled, pitch-shifted, auto-tuned and compressed to smitherenes . . . but there is at least some basic component to a particular voice that makes it "recordable." Go ahead and make fun of Britney, Justin and Averill. Yea, they suck. But their voices have something to them that makes them sound the way they do.

Some like it -- some don't. But it ain't voodoo witchcraft. It's technique. And capturing sounds is the same. You use solid technique, pay attention to the fundamentals, don't over-think things . . . and you can get "that sound," whatever that is, if you're in the right situation. Going on some big quest or pilgrimage for it may or may not be useful. Unless that pilgrimage involves : a) a lot of hard work, and b) a lot of practice. Because that's the only path to being truly good at anything as far as I can tell.

After a year of searching, I'm sad to report that it doesn't look like Mercuri has gotten any further. I'm rooting for him though. I hope he figures it out.
 
Like many engineers (I'm using that term loosely in my case), I use a few reference songs to compare my overall mix and frequency content before putting a song on CD. Every time, I get pissed off because my stuff, no matter how carefully I tracked and eq'd, still sounds like crap compared to high end production stuff such as the Dixie Chicks. Well, maybe crap is too strong a word. I'm proud of the songs, but not as proud of the fidelity of the recording.

They have that perfectly smooth high end void of any harsh sibilance, and incredibly tight rear end, er..., I mean, low end. Every instrument has it's nice, clean space in the frequency spectrum, and comes out crystal clear. The vocals are always right in your face with practically invisible compression, like they had a compressor installed in their larynx.

I have narrowed it down to a few reasons my recordings come up short, in no particular order:

1) My skill and knowledge as an engineer.

2) My equipment and software.

3) My performance as an artist.

So, the key to better sounding recordings is to learn as much as you can about sound, experiment constantly, practice your instruments and singing, and buy better sounding gear when you can. The tips at the start of the thread are good to jot down, even if you never use any of them. It's part of the learning process.

I don't think we all want our recordings to sound like Brittany Spears; in fact, most us probably don't, but we want them to sound as good, and know that we COULD make our stuff sound like that if we wanted to.

However, the last 5 or 10% of the way will be out of our reach due to the high price equipment used by the professionals, not to mention that some of these pro's are just too amazing at what they do.

That said, it doesn't mean your home recording can't be played on the radio. If you music is interesting, stirs the emotions of the listener, and sounds at least "good", it should be totally marketable.
 
I just want to know what Mercuri means when he uses the word 'Harmonics' in the context he did. Maybe he'll drop back by...

In the mean time, hehe here's a fun guessing game - 'What did Mercuri mean ?' :confused:

In the style of Jeopardy: HARMONICS
Q: 'What does a tube sometimes generate?' bing
Q: 'What are the tones that accompany the fundemental?' bing
Q: 'What happens when you pinch a guitar string while playing Susie Q?' bing
Q: 'What happens when you excite the audio with a BBE processor?' blap
Q: 'What are you left with when you put on a 4K HP filter?' bing
Q: 'What is the study of HARMON ?' blap

:D

Come Back :)
 
Whoa

Whoa whoa whoa guys, chill chill chillllllllll outttttttt.........

Did anybody stop to guess that maybe Mercuri works two jobs including running a business and it sometimes slips his mind to scan the BBS's for responses to his posts??? Sheeeeeesh.

Ok now that I'm done talking about myself like I'm not even here...

Chessrock: "After a year of searching, I'm sad to report that it doesn't look like Mercuri has gotten any further."

Good grief Charlie Brown, do we always make a habit of making uneducated reports?

Ok, here's the bit on harmonics... Get a spectralizer. Most of us keep making the stupid mistake of cranking up the high-end on our mixes, EQ'ing the highs to get clarity. This ends up hurting ears because it just makes the same frequencies LOUDER.

We don't want that. We want MORE high end, not a louder one. A spectralizer (yes, BBE and Aphex make these... but use these two in particular with caution) generates NEW high frequencies that don't "double up" with the old ones, but instead "harmonize" with them. The result is a bigger, crispier high end, but not an earpiercing one, if used carefully.

Tubes help do this, in a broader spectrum. That's why a lot of people like them. It helps keep things from sounding clean and clinical, something I really don't like in mixes. I'm not trying to sound like everyone else. I'm just trying to sound good on speakers without having to crank the volume, people. I have never been told my mixes sound like anyone else's.

Why do people always get all self-righteous about their own sound that they are trying to achieve when someone mentions "that sound"? Ask yourself what "that sound" means to you. BIG question here, lots of interpretations. To some people, it's getting the Britney Spears or Backstreet Boys' overused snare sample, a heavy bassline, pop synth pads, etc etc. Well, ok, that may be your idea of "that sound", but it's not the one I'm talking about. Lance had it. "That sound" to me is where the entire mix sounds good to the common ear, no matter what sound is coming out of the speakers. Nothing makes you cringe because it doesn't sound "right" or full enough. It can be any style of music. I've heard a TON of classical recordings that had "that sound", and I've heard a ton of rap tunes that had "that sound". It's not a flavor... It's what makes the flavor taste good.

Ok, and to tack on something regarding recording and technique: the answer to this is one big fat DUH. Of COURSE you need to be good, and of COURSE your source has to sound good. DUH DUH DUH. Why do we reiterate this in a thread regarding specific facets of technique?? People already understand this, and it's something learned in time. In the meantime, there are other components to recording a good sound that require attention. I will hack the next user that posts anything like "it's technique, man!" and make it so their web browser permanently displays 'MY MOMMA WEARS BOXERS' on the top of every page they visit.

Cloneboy... Listen to Neon by John Mayer. That is what I mean by "modern" drums. Subwoofing punch, sharp snare, etc. Real drums, not triggers. I don't like sampled drums unless that's the sound that's trying to be achieved.

Okay!! I'll try to check back more often so that it doesn't seem like I'm trying to present any sort of "mystery". I hate it when people do that intentionally, so I'm trying my best not to. PEACE.
 
No, no... We're all just blowing off a little steam at your expense.

I'm sure everyone would agree that upper-level harmonic distortion is extensively used (and abused) in modern music.

So much so, that I'll even throw in an experiment for everyone -

First, choose some sort of harmonic exciter or plugin.
  • Get a mix cooking
  • Get your exciter set up as an aux (Note: I understand this flies in the face of reason - Just trust me for a minute and try it)
  • Low cut this aux return so there's really nothing there below around 2 or 3kHz
  • Run some stuff to it - "Warmer" sounding stuff to be particular - Bass, vocals, acoustic guitars, etc.
  • You should be left with a grainy, distorted sounding mess. Proceed to compress the snot out of this mess -
  • You should now have an overly compressed distorted mess. If you have a stereo wdth enhancer, throw it on after the compressor and widen your image a bit.
  • Mix this in under the rest of your mix.
  • Adjust compression, stereo width, etc. to taste.
A/B this channel A LOT to make sure you're not overdoing things. And of course, pay attention to latency.
 
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