Mixing SOS

[Monkey Allen]

13. At this point there's still stuff I want to keep at the front of my mind. Reverb, compression - creative/ technical, panning, a sense of space, clashes, masking, sidechaining / dynamic eq/ automation possibilities to showcase cool parts of the song or to hide a part that needs to be in the background for half a bar. I'm continuing to use reference tracks. I'm using a variety of monitoring situations including listening in mono to see if everything is working together. I'm conscious of the overall feel, the balance overall between bass frequencies and high frequencies...and of the low midrange...the whole midrange. There's a lot of things bouncing around the brain. I think you need to keep them on tap...informing everything you do. I'll also start thinking more directly about any fx that could enhance stuff, like maybe the end of a vocal line dives on a fade out from 24 bit to 8 bit...creative stuff. Echoes, delays, features. I'm still watching my master bus. And I'm starting to think about what it could use. (if anything, I know some people have basically nothing on their stereo bus). But maybe a tape emulation, an eq, a second compressor, a limiter 50% wet dry giving weight to the mix etc etc.

14. I guess I'm approaching the end of the mix now. I've juggled stuff, I've keep things in mind and noticed everything. I'm referencing and adjusting. Ideally, I would love my stereo bus to read -6db peaks and -18db rms. I like this because with my stuff, I'm shooting for about -12db lufs or -12db average level/ rms. -10db is cool too. Depends on the song. I know edm stuff they go for -6db average level! I mean that's a specific music genre thing. Work it out for what you do. For me, I reckon say -10 to -12db rms is fine. Anyway the reason I like the idea of -6db peaks and -18db rms is that when I go to master the song (I'm in the practice of mixing down my mix and importing it into a mastering project thing in Studio One. I just find this helps with CPU because at the end of a mix my CPU is starting to get busy)...I know that I only have to raise that -18db rms by 6db to get my -12db rms for the song. This will drive the peaks to 0db and I'll have an easy job for the limiter keeping things below digital overs. But anyway, mastering is another thing. These are just numbers I feel are useful and that now make sense to me.

That's about it I suppose. And I have to say...all this stuff only became concrete in my mind VERY RECENTLY...like in the last couple of weeks. It took me a LONG time of methodically considering all this stuff for me to be able to even write it out. I'm not saying this is right or the best way to go. And I am yet to even seriously start to work like this. I would have done hundreds of mixes before. Some of them I might have fluked and they turned out ok, but if that was the case...I never really knew why they worked. I couldn't repeat the success. VERY frustrating. So the vast majority of songs I've done sound like utter turds. Anyway, you know, going forward, I err, I look forward to implementing this stuff and making songs that sound how I imagine them. I'm totally envious of all you dudes out there who are great musicians, and can record and mix so well. Your music sounds awesome and when I hear home recordings like that it never ceases to impress me. I hope I'm on the right track. Still a long way to go. What boggles my mind is how long and how many mixes I did that were just variations of the same lame method...making the same mistakes time and time again. I've read heaps of times that people say mixing is a thing that takes YEARS to get good at.

I believe it.

End transmission.

 

[Fromthenorthwest]

Appreciate that man. That song was kind of one that came after all this thread where I really tried to make a good mix with all the advice. Still think the mix is a bit clunky. Will mix it again one day. I've made some ground in my understanding of mixing, I'll go into below...

Appreciate that about Better Me Better You. I did that song about 5 years ago and it was one of about 20 songs I recorded and mixed back then. It was the ONLY song out of all of them that I felt worked pretty well as a song and a mix. The other 19 songs ranged from pretty lame to utter stink lame. I always wondered what it was that worked about it, why it worked...and why I couldn't seem to ever repeat it in other songs and mixes. And you're right about over listening. But seriously I needed to (and still do) really listen and work out stuff across the board...from writing, recording to mixing. Every step of the way.

So...

I came back to this thread to post a few things about what I've learned and the areas I have been going wrong...so this might be a tad lengthy. But I do it because you never know, someone may stumble in here some day going through all the disappointments in recording and mixing that I've gone through and something might tweak for them. It's hard to say if stuff you read helps you or not because reading stuff or watching videos is one thing but having it click in your own brain and really understand it for yourself is another. I dunno, it may just be the way I learn or whatever. Maybe some people can just follow a video or two and bingo, they got it. Not me. I've read thousands of words and watched hours worth of videos. But none of them made my brain truly understand. It's like I had to get hands on and really methodically rationalize everything for myself. I still have a long way to go but I think finally I'm on the right path. But these are just the thoughts of a guy who has STILL to make consistently good music and who doesn't claim expertise in any of this.

Anyway here's some of the key stuff I've come to understand about recording and mixing. I'll start with what I was doing wrong time and time again:

What I got wrong:

- All manner of arrangement issues...open position guitar chords strummed all the time all the way through a song, not thinking in terms of identifiable musical styles or genres like country, funk, folk, rock whatever, poor tone selection etc. I could go on for 1000's of words on arrangement. But I'll try to just be more specific on actual recording and mixing.

- all manner of tracking/ recording issues...poor tone selection, thin sounds, boomy sounds, too low a level, too high a level, horrible acoustic guitar tones, awful bass, massive transient crazy electric guitar etc (see the bass guitar example below for a more detailed idea of such issues)

- all manner of monitoring/ headphone/ room treatment issues. No base line frame of reference that I understood or could trust. I owned Sennheiser HD600's for a full year thinking that everything sounded boomy and muddy in them. It wasn't till recently that I realized that it wasn't so much the headphones, it was my music...my recorded tracks. I started using SoundID headphone correction with Goodhertz CanOpener and started to make stuff sound as clear and defined as I could. If it sounded boomy...I eq'd so it was not boomy. It sounds really dumb. But I spent a full year basically with the HD600's sitting on the shelf because I thought they made everything boomy. This was not so. It was my poorly recorded stuff that was boomy. This mindset reversal was a lightbulb moment. Sounds insanely dumb. But making this realization has helped bigly. Once I had a reasonable frame of reference in the HD600's I could kind of compensate for my Mixcubes, my Yamaha HS8's and other headphones I have.

- not listening closely enough to the music I love...not paying super close attention to what is going on in pro mixes...simply not noticing things about pro mixes and not making key mental notes naming and labelling what I notice. I reckon this is harder than you think because pro mixes are so good they kind of don't draw attention to themselves in an obvious way...because everything sounds so good. It fools you because everything sounds so natural. You try to listen critically but wind up just enjoying the song without noticing that the kick is understated with a gorgeous, deep but not muddy thump...or that the acoustic guitar has a beautiful reverb on it or that the vocal is rolled off way up around 500hz with a reverb that accentuates only the most flattering singing tone at 4khz or something.

- not using reference tracks. I dunno about you guys but for me I had this huge part of me that unconsciously avoided comparing what I was doing to reference tracks because the disappointment was always immeasurable when you heard how good the pro stuff sounds and how provincial and amateur your stuff sounds. But lending an ear and keeping regular tabs on a pro track or two is something that you should force yourself to do. Some people don't use reference tracks and still make great stuff. But for those of us who need all the help we can get...reference up...make your stuff sound as close as you can to the sounds you like.

- Lack of understanding about levels...levels and gain staging in tracking, mixing and mastering. I'd often mix into a limiter (people DO do this but...) where peaks were already receiving reduction of up to 8 or 9db. This is just poor handling of levels to have peaks raging over 0 by that much already in the mix stage. I'd have peaks getting reduced by multiple db's...but have a weak average level...something like -25db rms. You can imagine trying to get my song to a robust enough average level...something like -12db rms. I'd just be slamming through a limiter, ripping everything to shreds.

- not having any idea about mixing drums...pretty key isn't it? Drums are the foundation of a song. Now I'm an EZD and AD2 guy and I'd just pick a kit and insert some midi and that was that. I forgot to shape the kick to suit my song. I paid no mind to the levels of the snare, the tone of the high frequencies, the drum bus level, the kick level. You name it, I got it wrong mixing drums.

- recording bass straight DI, no eq, ending up with THE most woolly, muddy, overblown, drowned in mud bass that was virtually impossible to eq after the fact. I ended up with a Sansamp pedal just taking away mud with a view to getting a simple clean deep, rich, articulate tone that could be manipulated in mixing. I decided this was better than trying to record an already distorted, growling bass. Not to say you can't do that. But in the home studio...my studio and setup, getting an articulate bass tone has been a revelation.

- singing and performance that lacks conviction...straining to sing rather than relaxing and singing calmly.

Anyhoo...

I could go on and on about the things I got wrong. To summarize: EVERYTHING...ALL areas. Every step of the way. If there's a thing I do well I think it's writing a song. They aren't great, great songs, I get that...I'm not The Beatles or ACDC or whatever, but for a guy at home you know, not bad. But EVERY other step of the way kills the song slowly, bit by bit. Bad tracking, bad mixing, bad decisions etc. Whatever is good about the song just doesn't make it to the final mix. Regardless of the song, good or bad, all I want is for it to be sonically good...to sound nice. And I've said that in the thread...it should be possible, if it's a good song, an average song or even a bad song...it still should be possible to make it sound nice.

Anyway, whatever...I'll get to the nuts and bolts of recording and mixing now. These are things that became concrete in my mind and that I understand and that I think will produce better results for me. Your approach will be different. I'm not saying this stuff is lore. Only that it could be helpful.

*** Take as given that: your arrangement is good, you've selected and tracked good tones, the performances are how you want them. And that your monitoring is squared away and you know the characteristics of your headphones, correction software, speakers etc.

To be continued...

Amen. I feel the same way about a lot of what you said, especially like the bit about each step of the way kills the song...that is sad but so true sometimes.

 

[mjbphotos]

Wow, you sure an overthinker!
3) Not sure why any one would compress/EQ a track and then render it.
4) If you've got drums in your mix, you need to do work on those first, before adding in all the rest of the tracks, And you say don't add any plugins, but you already said you'd add compression and EQ to tracks in 3). Seems like you are just spinning your wheels until you get to step 8).
5) Switching monitoring devices at this stage is a waste of time - wait until you have the mix where you want it using your primary monitoring device (whatever that is).
6) 'Remove limiter' - what limiter? The only limiter you might have at this stage is on the drums.
7) 'Mix into a compressor' - what?
8) and on... 'Masking' - stop applying selective EQ until you've got all your instruments in the mix. 'mud' won't come from one guitar in the mix, so you don't need to scoop out it's EQ until you have a build-up of those frequencies. You're spending way too much time looking at the master bus. Add your reverb busses to drums and instruments as you work through the mix, as they will change the overall perceived volumes of some parts.

 

[Monkey Allen]

Wow, you sure an overthinker!
3) Not sure why any one would compress/EQ a track and then render it.
4) If you've got drums in your mix, you need to do work on those first, before adding in all the rest of the tracks, And you say don't add any plugins, but you already said you'd add compression and EQ to tracks in 3). Seems like you are just spinning your wheels until you get to step 8).
5) Switching monitoring devices at this stage is a waste of time - wait until you have the mix where you want it using your primary monitoring device (whatever that is).
6) 'Remove limiter' - what limiter? The only limiter you might have at this stage is on the drums.
7) 'Mix into a compressor' - what?
8) and on... 'Masking' - stop applying selective EQ until you've got all your instruments in the mix. 'mud' won't come from one guitar in the mix, so you don't need to scoop out it's EQ until you have a build-up of those frequencies. You're spending way too much time looking at the master bus. Add your reverb busses to drums and instruments as you work through the mix, as they will change the overall perceived volumes of some parts.

Thanks Mike, but I have a feeling you didn't really read it all properly. Maybe you glanced over it. I can go through those points for ya...

3) I said I have read or heard that some people do this. That's what I said. Ever heard of 'yep' the guy from the Reaper Forums who made that awesome "Why Your Recordings Sound Like Ass?" thread? Epic thread. Great teacher. He mentioned that. I'm sure you can imagine why someone could do that. As yep described, it would just be way of tidying up tracks. Something you could do. Nothing drastic...a little eq, a tiny bit of compression, render, done. You've just applied some light correction to all your tracks before the mixing starts. No big deal. Do it...don't do it. It's been mentioned as a possible strategy. I stated that I don't do it.

4) No, I didn't say that I apply compression and eq. See above. As for drums first...yes, I said that I start with drums first.

5) Your opinion. Fair enough. Another opinion...use what you've got. Get a variety of impressions early on. Can't see much wrong with that. It's just general intel helping to inform you from a variety of angles.

6) About the limiter...if you read what I wrote on that you'll see that I said it could be a reasonable strategy once you have a basic mix to get it up to a solid level...say close to where it'll roughly end up...and send it online or to your phone. Use a temporary limiter to get the level up. No other reason for the limiter. That way you can eyeball the mix on a phone. Maybe you'll see things that are problematic early on and you'll be able to address them. Naturally, once you've done that you...get rid of that limiter. You only used it to drive some volume into the mix. Again, no big deal. Just something you could try.

7) Mix into a compressor, yeah. You've not heard of this? It's pretty standard. Some people do it religiously like into something like "The Glue" or the Waves SSL Master Compressor. Slow attack, fast release...shave off 1 or 2db. Some people religiously don't do it. Some people do. I like the idea.

8) Anticipate masking. Be aware of potentially problematic clashes. I don't think I ever said to go instrument by instrument and scoop out all the mud arbitrarily. In fact I constantly said to spend a lot of time "noticing things" as you go. Noticing the relationships between parts. Be informed by what you notice and act accordingly.

I hardly think any of what I wrote implies I'm spending any more time than's necessary 'looking at the master bus'. I'm certain with a little more reading for comprehension you'd see that. As it stands you seem a little pissed off. But I don't think you would be had you read properly what I wrote. I mean, man, I clearly pointed out that I'm no expert and that this stuff is stuff that helped me get various concepts to gel in my head and that if it helped anyone, then great. Is there any reason why you kind of disregarded that and weighed in with your overthinker, what?, waste of time stuff? How about 'not bad Monkey, not bad for a beginner but I differ on some of your ideas, here's my thoughts...'?

What you said breaks down into 2 categories:

a) misunderstandings/ lack of accurate comprehension about what I wrote.
b) stating my opinions are wrong and yours are right.

 

[mjbphotos]

Thanks Mike, but I have a feeling you didn't really read it all properly. Maybe you glanced over it. I can go through those points for ya...

When you write seriously OVERLONG posts, no one reads every word. Not 'pissed off' at all. Everyone's got an opinion, but not everyone posts a thousand lines about it.

 

[Monkey Allen]

When you write seriously OVERLONG posts, no one reads every word. Not 'pissed off' at all. Everyone's got an opinion, but not everyone posts a thousand lines about it.

Ok man, so you're obviously seething because I wrote too many words. You easily could have looked at the walls of text and moved on with your day. But instead you decided to scan a few sections, misconstrue what I said multiple times and post some thinly veiled passive aggressive attack based on what you thought I said. That's on you. Sounds like what you really wanted to say is "Hey Monkey nobody's gonna read all that shit". And we both would have had a good laugh. Not everyone posts a thousand lines, no, you got me there. But some people do. And some people do read it. I specifically pointed out at the start, a few posts ago that things would be 'lengthy' and that who knows, it might help someone. That's all man. Now, I won't hold it against you because you've actually been genuinely helpful in this thread many times. Take it easy.

 

[grimtraveller]

seriously OVERLONG posts

It was definitely long.
But it wasn't overlong.
It was a lot shorter than even a short book !

no one reads every word

Never deign to speak for the rest of the human race. I read every word. I didn't agree with every word, but I read them, thought about them and found the whole thing interesting.

Everyone's got an opinion, but not everyone posts a thousand lines about it.

I think a mixed economy is a useful one. Sometimes, what needs to said can be said in few words. Other times, it needs a lot of words. I'm comfortable with both.

 

[Monkey Allen]

It was definitely long.
But it wasn't overlong.
It was a lot shorter than even a short book !

Never deign to speak for the rest of the human race. I read every word. I didn't agree with every word, but I read them, thought about them and found the whole thing interesting.


I think a mixed economy is a useful one. Sometimes, what needs to said can be said in few words. Other times, it needs a lot of words. I'm comfortable with both.

Thanks man. It's just the ramblings of a guy who has had huge issues with working out mixing and it's a pretty detailed account of a lot of the stuff that I think has helped my mixing outlook. They aren't the words of an authority. Never claimed to be. They're the words of a beginner trying to bumble through this difficult set of skills. I think tomorrow I'll post up here 2 mp3's of a song. Like an A/B mix comparison thing. The first mix is me yet again blundering through the process, as I have time and time again. It sounds like most my mixes...it's poor. The second mix follows most of the stuff I just rambled about. It's the first mix I've done that mostly follows that rambling. I think the 2nd mix is a significant improvement. I'll post them tomorrow and anyone who wants to can judge. Or not. No worries.

I always hoped that mixing would come easily or I'd learn it by osmosis or something. But in the end it seems like what is helping is very methodical thinking. People learn and get things concrete in their brains differently. Probably for me, writing it out thoroughly so I can see my own thoughts on paper might help. Lord knows I've watched countless videos and read thousands of words myself. And that's one thing...but to then process all that and use your own words to write it all out, well maybe that's another thing.

Anyway, I'll post the 2 versions of the mix tomorrow for anyone interested.

 

[JamEZmusic]

These forums need lengthy thought provoking posts like yours every now and then. Discussions and ideas don't flow without them.

I was dissapointed in a few people here driving people away and shutting them down recently. We lost somebody very valuable recently because of it.

Still, it's not as bad as gearslutz so I'm thankful for that.

 

[LazerBeakShiek]

Ok man,

SOS

 

[Monkey Allen]

SOS

I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do

 

[Monkey Allen]

Here's this song I was mentioning. I see progress in the mixing. The version 1 mix sounds too crowded together, too woolly or boomy or muddy. The version 2 mix has more space, sounds tighter and sounds like an improvement, to me anyway. So the first mix was done 3 weeks ago or so and in that time I've been trying to methodically think things through to get better mixes. I made a, well I wrote out a list kind of thing...much of it typed here the other day. I have a lot of time on my hands at work. The second mix was just a few days ago. All that crap I wrote in the recent posts was the stuff that I think helped get from version 1 to version 2. That's the stuff I tried to apply to mix 2. Naturally, I'm sure not saying the version 2 mix is a stunning, amazing mix. Just an improvement. So, check the mixes out if you want and let me know what you think.

 

[Fromthenorthwest]

Definitely sounds a crisper on the second one. The drums are really tightened up.

 

[Monkey Allen]

Anyway you're way overcomplicating everything. Get away from all of these (tricks and techniques and hacks)

All of those tricks you mentioned above are useless unless you are at a specific level (already pro)

Well, yeah, like you know, if I type stuff and describe word by word things that are ultimately done quickly and intuitively, it reads as overthinking on paper I guess. People have written 500 page books on mixing. I wouldn't say they are overthinking. If you know what I mean.

What were the tricks and hacks? Sure, I agree I outlined some techniques. But tricks and hacks? Sounds a bit cheap, yeah? Like a youtube video spruiker. Basically I advocated using your ears, noticing things and acting accordingly. Were there gimmicks I suggested?

 

[Monkey Allen]

Definitely sounds a crisper on the second one. The drums are really tightened up.

Yeah I think so too. There's an improvement. I put it down to more methodical thinking, of the kind I rambled on about a few days ago.

 

[JamEZmusic]

Well, yeah, like you know, if I type stuff and describe word by word things that are ultimately done quickly and intuitively, it reads as overthinking on paper I guess. People have written 500 page books on mixing. I wouldn't say they are overthinking. If you know what I mean.

What were the tricks and hacks? Sure, I agree I outlined some techniques. But tricks and hacks? Sounds a bit cheap, yeah? Like a youtube video spruiker. Basically I advocated using your ears, noticing things and acting accordingly. Were there gimmicks I suggested?

Yeah man, I take it back. I read through all of your posts properly. You pretty much work very similar to me actually. I took snippets of information from the recent comments and jumped to the wrong conclusion. I shouldn't have done that sorry. Edited out my original ignorant post.

2points though.

first point, you can EQ a bass guitar. A HEFTY 250hz very narrow notch EQ is just what's needed a lot of the time for me. I would assume it might be the same for you seeing as we are both talking about DI recordings(so not a specific room resonance problem), and what you are describing about the bass guitar being muddy/awful sounding. I'm not even talking about a 5 or 6db cut at 250hz... I'm talking like 20-30db cut (tight). I use the upper part of a DI'd Bass (170hz-5k) to trigger a sansamp or guitar rig preset... or even just to re-amp out of my guitar cab with heavy distortion then mould it back in with EQ.

second, I don't think it's a good idea mixing into a limiter for loudness, you choke the mix without even realising it. I do mix into a limiter but that is for other reasons, I want my fader down low that is feeding the master so I can A/B stuff easy plus not overloading my room correction software. But to mix into a limiter during the mix process has been kind of dangerous to me, not too bad if you keep flicking backwards and forwards to a reference though.

 

[Monkey Allen]

Yeah man, I take it back. I read through all of your posts properly. You pretty much work very similar to me actually. I took snippets of information from the recent comments and jumped to the wrong conclusion. I shouldn't have done that sorry. Edited out my original ignorant post.

2points though.

first point, you can EQ a bass guitar. A HEFTY 250hz very narrow notch EQ is just what's needed a lot of the time for me. I would assume it might be the same for you seeing as we are both talking about DI recordings(so not a specific room resonance problem), and what you are describing about the bass guitar being muddy/awful sounding. I'm not even talking about a 5 or 6db cut at 250hz... I'm talking like 20-30db cut (tight). I use the upper part of a DI'd Bass (170hz-5k) to trigger a sansamp or guitar rig preset... or even just to re-amp out of my guitar cab with heavy distortion then mould it back in with EQ.

second, I don't think it's a good idea mixing into a limiter for loudness, you choke the mix without even realising it. I do mix into a limiter but that is for other reasons, I want my fader down low that is feeding the master so I can A/B stuff easy plus not overloading my room correction software. But to mix into a limiter during the mix process has been kind of dangerous to me, not too bad if you keep flicking backwards and forwards to a reference though.

Well thanks for saying so. A retraction like that shows character. I should point out...again...I don't mix into a limiter. I said that I could use a limiter at some stage (I don't even do this, but just suggested it could be something to try) only temporarily and only to drive volume into the mix so you can send the mix to a phone, listen on a phone and see if there's anything catastrophic that needs attention. That's all. I mix into a compressor, not a limiter. The limiter was only in use for however long it takes to mix down a rough demo mix with some volume. Then the limiter is gone...IF you want to even do that step. I don't do it. Phones can be revealing, is my theory. Why not mix down the basic mix and send it to a phone, have a listen and see if there's anything that stands out as problematic? Just a theory. Or a thing to maybe try.

On the bass, yeah I've had a lot of problems with DI bass. But I did finally fork over a million dollars for the Sansamp pedal and it helps you to get rid of large amounts of boom and mud right off the bat. Progress is a hell of a thing, because in the past I'd never really have even noticed I was recording massive amounts of boom in the bass.

I know I wrote a lot and it's hard to kind of reference or comprehend it all accurately. And that's probably half my fault...poor communication. On the limiter though...nope...I don't mix into a limiter. That's not what I said! Ha!

Anyway, whatever. It's a long way to the top if you want to rock and roll, alone, in your spare bedroom, on the weekend. I'm light years away from proper mixes and proper music. I'll be hacking and blundering through till I'm dead.

 

[JamEZmusic]

BIG advocate of bouncing your track down to a phone, but the laptop reveals pretty much everything I need it to. It's important for sure. I am never going to upload a mix of mine if it sounds in any way harsh on a phone speaker.

A mix is only ever done when it translates. from phone to hifi.

I've had arguments with people on here all the time about it. I'd rather ditch a mix if it sounds bad on a phone. Then try again.. multiple times if necessary. The better I get the less I'll need to try again and this is what motivates me.

We learn and process things the same way. I've been the same with everything throughout my entire life. It takes me a long ass time to learn things too. But when stuff clicks..... oh boy.

You're not light years away from what I heard. Almost there actually. If you can effortlessly get to that standard pretty quickly with a standard mix then taking the last few steps to glue it together and get proper depth should in theory.... be a piece of cake

 

[mowtontom2]

Just my 2 cents, best advice I ever got in regards to the mixing stage (from a Grammy winner), never listen to much. Once you have a generally translatable mix set at time limit (say four hours ect.) and then be done with it. As far as the song you posted... The bass needs to be more prominent, it's a funky tune... The Vox need some processing, to dry, but overall it sounds nice. DON'T overthink/over mix it.
Cheers

 

[Monkey Allen]

Yeah agree about the vox. The mix took me a couple of hours. The 2nd version once done, also in a couple of hours was tweaked a couple of times. I think the same about the vox but thought it was mostly weak because my lame singing. I'm no Jim Morrison or Frank Sinatra, unfortunately. But you're right...too dry...needs a different approach.

EDIT: Just to generally conclude: I just went and listened to the raw tracks of that song I posted a few posts ago. The raw tracks are horrendous. The Addictive Drums sound awful. It's some Vintage Soft Rock trash sound. It sucks. It's all on top of itself. The kick is ill defined. The snare is all over the frequency spectrum and sucks. The hats sound like a 2006 Limewire 64kbs mp3 file. And not in a good way. In a shit way. All the drums sound like that. They sound nothing like real drums in a real room. The kick lives around 100hz. It's just overblown shit. The whole kit sucks. The bass I recorded sounds completely lame. It sounds like I strung some fishing line leader on my clothesline, ran a current through it, amplified it through a tin can on some string and plucked it with a coin. It's so lame. It resembles none of the bass sounds I like. The electric guitar rhythm is a complete stonkered nightmare. Unmitigated disaster. Sounds like no guitar I've ever heard and liked and appreciated. The lead and licks suck. Thin in the high end and muddy and lame in the low mids. Just unreal. Most people couldn't record such trash if they tried. The vocal is crap. Lame. Shit accent, shit inflection, no inflection. Sounds like it was recorded in a padded cell out of pure boredom with a Tandy mic for $12.95 including tax . It's clear to me that I know what tones I like...but I utterly suck and making those tones myself. Can't dial in guitar tones. Don't know how to dial in drums. Fail to copy tones I like from songs I like. This means that if that mix I posted sounds even remotely decent then it's not mixing I suck at. It's finding, getting and recording the right sounds. So I have to shut the hell up about all this mixing bullshit and completely rethink everything from the ground up. I simply don't know how to get the right tones/ sounds. Words can't describe how bad the raw tracks are. That's the cold fact. No wonder it's a living hell trying to mix them.

EDIT 2: Funnily enough, I think this is the EXACT thing I pissed and moaned about a couple of months ago in this very thread. So it shows I didn't heed my advice at all. I identified my raw tracks as the real problem but didn't do anything to address it and just continued to record lame sounds/ sources and then tried to mix those lame raw tracks in total frustration. Talk about dumb.