My Mixes Tend to Sound Better Before I Mix

[demensia]

Everytime I take a song and mess with it, pan it around and add effects I completely destroy the song... They tend to sound better raw and unmixed.. I dont really have anything good to say in this thread... Just bored at work and I feel like writing.

I was listening to Jethro Tull's "Thick as a Brick" album through my monitors the other night and I felt like picking up all my shit and throwing it out the window so I could take up another less discouraging hobby such as bug collecting, or the creation of action figures using only carrot sticks and penut butter.

every time I add reverb to something, and I mean EVERY time, no matter how little.... I destroy everything.... Compression.. Either digital or analog, All I end up doing is turning the volume down and sucking the life out of everything.....this is with a light finger!

I dont even bother with chorus or de-essing or anything, I'm afraid of the terrible things that may beat upon my ear drum..

I thought it was just about time to bitch about how much I still suck after I've been at this for a year and a half or so... I was listening to some of the first recordings I did with a cheap mic and a fostex 4 track and some of it sounds monumentally better than what I'm doing with all my equipment now.

Christ.

--Demensia.

 

[pipelineaudio]

Hey cheer up, this probably means your tracking is getting pretty good. There are up and down cycles of learning and frustration, every time you get better, the next hurdle becomes MUCH bigger.

You may be at that stage where you have learned to track everything very well, so that any instrument soloed sounds GREAT. The next step is to start thinking : Ok now I can make this sound good, how can I track it so that it will FIT, and play nice with the other tracks"

This hurdle is a HARD one, and will make you want to give up, but just stick with it.

 

[Slackmaster2K]

Hahaha. I think you're on the right track actually!

I'm new at all this too, and up until about a year or two ago I would just load up every track with effects because I thought that's what you were supposed to do. How can you NOT EQ a track??? Haha.

Then one day or maybe over a course of a few mixes I started A/B'ing before and after effects and realized that by basically randomly adding effects and applying settings found on books or (ahem) websites, I was just making shit sound worse.

I then went through a period where I hardly used any effects, and I put out some really super dry mixes (like "dirt"). While they weren't very good, they were actually a lot better than my previous stuff...and I was concentrating more on making mixes work by getting better sounds.

Now I use more processing, but I try to understand why I'm using it....if I use an effect I make sure it's to achieve a certain sound.

I still suck, but I'm getting better I think we all have to go through this...especially if you're recording on a DAW where you get to start out with unlimited effects!

Slackmaster 2000

 

[Shailat]

I could take up another less discouraging hobby such as bug collecting, or the creation of action figures using only carrot sticks and penut butter.

--Demensia.

Hehehe.......That ! was funny.....I can see you with peanut butter trying to ......I give you my full attention for that !

First of all Slack said something important... all these books and website advice with parameters givin to you is bull....it's not the parameters you need but the concept. If you can understand the concept behind the processor then you can get results.
With out fully understanding what will happen as soon as I touch this dial then the chances of making it worse are more then likely.

If you have the patiance to write it out, Take me through a process of your thinking. Why do you even go for the reverb...on what instrument? how do you choose a room?
Do you understand how to edit the preset?. What will happen as soon as you touch the predelay/decay time/Diffusion?....
Tell me how you apply the effect and maybe I can help a bit..
Tell me what happends that you dont like, when you apply the effect. Only reverb. For now forget all the rest.

Map me out a mix with panning and instrumentation. Assuming your arrangment is good (and you claim that it is) I see what I can do to improve your sound.

 

[demensia]

Map me out a mix with panning and instrumentation. Assuming your arrangment is good (and you claim that it is) I see what I can do to improve your sound.

Cool Man, I have some acoustic stuff I'm about to take some time and track up.. should be done by the end of the week. Thats a great idea... Thanks!

 

[demensia]

theres an unmixed copy of an acoustic tune I though together up at

take a listen and tell me what to do!

By the way..

Assuming your arrangment is good (and you claim that it is)

I never claimed that so dont expect anything

-- demensia.

 

[Shailat]

This will take a while. I have no monioring system at home or ability to put it on a cd.

I'll send it to work and repost at the first chance I get to hear it.

 

[sonusman]

I just recently did a down a dirty recording for a guy. 3 hours to record, mix and print a CD of a song. It had drums, bass, one guitar, and one vocal. The song was a Valentine's Day gift for his wife.

Anyway. Obviously no time to really "check" anything while tracking. In these cases, you go with you gut and make VERY course adjustments in mic placement and/or instrument sounds. So, most of this stuff was "throw the mic in front of it and make sure it isn't horrible" type of production work.

So we track it and then I have 15 minutes to make a mix of it. We were mixing in a Yamaha O2R digital mixer (it is WELL documented on here how much I detest the sound of this console!!!). So anyway, it just seemed like no matter what I did to the tracks, whatever I did do made it sound worse. Yes, a little low shelf roll off on the guitar a vocals worked out okay. But nothing in the forms of compression, reverb, etc. seemed to add anything "cool" to the sound.

Was it tracked to well like possible pipelineaudio suggests? Hell no!!! It was tracked "ok" at best!

Don't ignore how well your tools work! There are eq's that just don't sound good. Mackie comes to mind! The Yamaha O2R's eq's are horrible. Same with certain compressors, reverbs, delays, etc...... In this case, the O2R just didn't have the "right stuff" to do quick work. I could have done a much more effective job in the same amount of time using damn plugin's! But no time to transfer the tracks into the computer for mixing in this case, so I HAD to use the O2R. But it did amaze me just how horrible it's on board DSP really was. Even slight amounts of compression on the vocal sounded horrible!

The thing was, I just completed a big project for another band. Mixed entirely in Sonar with mostly Wave's NNP plugin's. I was just too used to better tools. These tools do a better job set wrong than anything the O2R could do at it's best!

So, don't forget your tools. If you have just crappy ol' stock plugin's to work with, you would probably be better off doing as little DSP as possible. I have yet to hear a software reverb that approaches mid level hardware reverbs on 99% of things it could be used for. The stock compressor in Sonar is pretty much unusable. It's eq's are harsh. So, I avoid those plugin's at all costs! The Waves stuff may be more taxing on the system, that is precisely why they sound so much better.

Even on analog mixing consoles, the tools available can sometimes hurt more than help. Thing is, bad eq's are bad eq's. If you just have some junky dbx 266 compression piece of crap, you might as well not have a compressor. Avoiding all that stuff removes most of what can contribute to horrible audio.

Okay, I have covered the gear part. Unfortunately, that is the LEAST of your concerns!

As Shailat and Slackmaster have suggested, it may not be as much your tools as HOW you use them! I wrote some long ass thread long ago that pop's up here and there that covers this. It is always best to do a "faders up" mix first to hear EXACTLY what the problem areas are BEFORE you start twiddleing with stuff! Do the best mix you can without doing anything other than adjusting volume and possible panning some things and see what it sounds like. Since I wrote that thread long ago, many guys have emailed me stating how their mixes sounded better than the mixes they spent days working on with a bunch of unneccesary processsing.

Like Slack, I went thought a period when I switched to digital mixing where I used as little processing as I could. At the time, I didn't have very good digital mixing tools, and it seemed like anything I did with them made things worse. Now I am back to using more processing, but have a much better handle on what works. I also have better tools to work with.

I agree fully with Shailat about the fact that you need a FIRM understanding of what your tools will do for you. Forget all those suggested settings you read. Anybody posting crap about how to "set it this way to start" is either too lazy to explain just WHAT a eq or compressor will do, or doesn't have the foggiest idea themselves! I could go on for hours about the differences between putting an eq before or after a compressor! I would lose you quickly in that conversation if you didn't fully understand what both are doing and how they relate in a musical context.

Things you really need to understand!:

Gain structure and dB scales

Fletcher/Munson Relative Loudness Curves

The basics of what equalization is and the different TYPES of eq's and what their controls do

The basics of what compression does and the different TYPES of compressors and what their controls do

A laymens understanding of acoustics (even a laymens understanding is proving to be a LOT of reading.....)

With these basics, you will hear audio in a whole different way! The approach you take towards audio production will be totally different than it is right now. You will make much better decisions while tracking and mixing.

Good luck.

Ed

 

[Shailat]

theres an unmixed copy of an acoustic tune I though together up at

take a listen and tell me what to do!

demensia.

Heard it on my computer speakers. A better way is for you to send me a CD with all the tracks separated as wav files and I'll show you an option or two of how to spruce it up using dynamic processors and effects.

 

[demensia]

Whoah Ed, thats stuff I didnt think was important at all... I figured the different types of eq were all personal preference.

Gain structure and dB scales

-- I have no clue about them..

Fletcher/Munson Relative Loudness Curves

Christ, I've never even heard of them.

Compressors I feel I have a decent working knowledge of... and Acoustics is something I definatly need to look into, and damn, I would have never thought to read about gain structure, dB scales, and the Fletcher/Munson Relative Loudness Curves.


-- Thanks for pointing in the right direction.

 

[lomky]

I'm getting into that same boat. I'm recording a really cool bluesy punk band, to my ears the tracking went very well (my best yet, not saying much though) now I'm scared to play with it 'cause I don't want to f*ck it up.

 

[Downside Studio]

One basic rule for me is when tracking I must have a near perfect sound just using the inline's high and low controls. No parametric bands should be used.

I sometimes am very surprised how good a rough and untreated mix can sound. For commercial release compression etc. has to be used in most cases to make it conform the market specs.....although about three weeks ago i had my first client who was deeply apolegising for the trouble, but actually preferred the unmastered version to be released. He was quite surprised that I encouraged this!

 

[dantell]

It's the Effects Dude!!!

You just need to get the best quality raw sound you can get and forget about the effects. Adding EFX to each track is going to muddy up the mix. I should know, I just went through destroying all my songs with reverb, delay, chorus, and all the other shit. I now only use EFX on one track....period, Just the vocal track or if it's a hard guitar driven tune I'll chorus the guitar.
Simple. If you are recording a Mesa Boogie Half stack, why would you want to alter the sound? It won't sound like a mesa boogie anymore. Listen to professionally recorded music today. There are very little effects added.
Good Luck

 

[Downside Studio]

Re: It's the Effects Dude!!!

Listen to professionally recorded music today. There are very little effects added.
Good Luck

Well cheers for the good old (and new) expensive lexicons....what people seem to think of as untreated and dry signal, is actually well effected in most cases. it's just the outstanding quality of these expensive units that make it sound like acoustics instead of reverb tails. You'll be surprised what it sounds like when you bypass all the effects on modern mixes.

Or listen to Phill Collins!

 

[volltreffer]

Yes - learn to listen more thoroughly...

There is LOADS of dynamics/effects, and you should be able to hear them. The problem si rather not to overdo...

Don't take this as an insult

aXel

 

[demensia]

Don't take this as an insult

Hey don't insult me asshole!

 

[volltreffer]

I tried to talk to dantell...

You, I wanted to insult

aXel

 

[..:.:MeCCaH:.:.]

keep ya head up.

One key thing about learning how to mix is to have experience. You will NOT get a perfect mix overnight, especially if you only been doin this for 1 year & a half. Yeah, the internet crap is ecxactly what it is. Don't depend on other people's personal mixing methods. Mixing is one of those things you get right just by playing around with your mix. Maybe you're puttin too much highs in your mix. Try not to over do the bass. If anything, try to lower the frequencies of each track before you decide to raise any of them. I'll post more info tommarrow. Hope I helped a little. Don't give up though, you're doin' everything else right so far.

1one