ruebarb
New member
Having read Sonusman's post and being thourghly awed (what the hell took you so long - man???? Now I've got to remaster everything on my new album!! - just kidding 
) - I must impart my stupid little thing I do (sometimes I'm forced to, thanks to my stupid monitoring room right now) 
I don't have money to spend on frequency analyzers and I can't really tell off the top of my head how a mix is compared to everything else. I mean, if it's really bass heavy, I can tell, but often with my monitors and my current situation (recording in a practice space with new gear I'm not familiar with) - I'm forced to improvise a bit on mixdown. Tonight, I came home and fed my minidisk bounce of a demo into my computer, maximized it (cause I don't have a decent indicator of peak level on a handheld minidisk) and voila - too much low frequency rumble in the acoustic. Don't know how I missed it, except I obviously need to boost the bass frequency response on my Event 20/20's here, I suspect.
so I use a free shareware program (goldwave) to play with the EQ a bit on the two track mixdown. That's better - now for the final test. I make an MP3 and run it thru Winamp and look at the graphical representation. I've noticed most sub-par stuff never even hits past the mid-range frequencywise - and most of the sound is in the lower spectrum. Of course, with cassettes and cheap 4 tracks this is to be expected with reduced frequency - less highs usually due to noise reduction. However, I'm using ADAT-XT20's and an Rode NT-2 thru a Mackie 8-BUS board. Three crisp sounding pieces and I get low-end rumble - so that means I'm a moron.
Go back and eq one more time - a bit better - a little color at the end of the meter in Winamp - sounds a bit more decent. There you go. My little secret.
One thing to BBE devotees - we often go around this board about how if you use a BBE, you don't have stuff mixed right, etc, it's a crutch,...poor equipment - whatever. One major point that always gets missed is that you can do without it if you have a really good graphic equalizer - and you NEVER want the BBE to replace a graphic equalizer for mixing. I kept reading Sonusman's comments and thinking - "jeez - I can't push my highs any higher - I'll loose the mid-frequency I'm trying to boost) - but we're not talking individual channels on your board with your 4 band sweepable EQ. I'm talking about the control you get during mixing or mastering boosting each individual frequency on a 31 band EQ. That'll get you some better sounding stuff.
I was able to use a cheap 7 band shareware tool to get my mix a bit better then before - imagine if I had gotten 31 bands or something? That's both knowledge and confession there. I think I should stop now and go to bed as I'm rambling, but hopefully you'll all get the point. Then I'm going to print out Sonusman's thread and take it to the crapper studio tomorrow. I've got more demos to do! Peace
) - I must impart my stupid little thing I do (sometimes I'm forced to, thanks to my stupid monitoring room right now) I don't have money to spend on frequency analyzers and I can't really tell off the top of my head how a mix is compared to everything else. I mean, if it's really bass heavy, I can tell, but often with my monitors and my current situation (recording in a practice space with new gear I'm not familiar with) - I'm forced to improvise a bit on mixdown. Tonight, I came home and fed my minidisk bounce of a demo into my computer, maximized it (cause I don't have a decent indicator of peak level on a handheld minidisk) and voila - too much low frequency rumble in the acoustic. Don't know how I missed it, except I obviously need to boost the bass frequency response on my Event 20/20's here, I suspect.
so I use a free shareware program (goldwave) to play with the EQ a bit on the two track mixdown. That's better - now for the final test. I make an MP3 and run it thru Winamp and look at the graphical representation. I've noticed most sub-par stuff never even hits past the mid-range frequencywise - and most of the sound is in the lower spectrum. Of course, with cassettes and cheap 4 tracks this is to be expected with reduced frequency - less highs usually due to noise reduction. However, I'm using ADAT-XT20's and an Rode NT-2 thru a Mackie 8-BUS board. Three crisp sounding pieces and I get low-end rumble - so that means I'm a moron.
Go back and eq one more time - a bit better - a little color at the end of the meter in Winamp - sounds a bit more decent. There you go. My little secret.
One thing to BBE devotees - we often go around this board about how if you use a BBE, you don't have stuff mixed right, etc, it's a crutch,...poor equipment - whatever. One major point that always gets missed is that you can do without it if you have a really good graphic equalizer - and you NEVER want the BBE to replace a graphic equalizer for mixing. I kept reading Sonusman's comments and thinking - "jeez - I can't push my highs any higher - I'll loose the mid-frequency I'm trying to boost) - but we're not talking individual channels on your board with your 4 band sweepable EQ. I'm talking about the control you get during mixing or mastering boosting each individual frequency on a 31 band EQ. That'll get you some better sounding stuff.
I was able to use a cheap 7 band shareware tool to get my mix a bit better then before - imagine if I had gotten 31 bands or something? That's both knowledge and confession there. I think I should stop now and go to bed as I'm rambling, but hopefully you'll all get the point. Then I'm going to print out Sonusman's thread and take it to the crapper studio tomorrow. I've got more demos to do! Peace