Pop acoustic song under construction, need mixing advice

P

Prabhu

New member
Hey everyone,
Need some mixing advice on this song I'm making. I'm having a few guitar layers, so to avoid it all getting messy how should I apply the plugins?
should I send them all to one track and apply plugins on that? Or should I apply plugins on the master track.
How best should I make the acoustic guitar stand out? I'm using the standard eq and compression. Applying the same two AGAIN on the master track is actually making the song sound better.

I've included the songs URL and attached it.


One more thing. When I want to upload subsequent files of same tracks after mixing it again, should I start a new thread? I was hoping to get advice from the same people.
Thanks.
 

Attachments

  • You .mp3
    2.7 MB · Views: 18
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love your stuff!

It sounds like the main acoustic track is already pretty compressed - is that right?

at :45, when the snare comes in, the other instruments (including the snare) wash out the vocals -- that's a pretty hooky vocal part, so I'd try and fix that.

Around 1:09 as the acoustic solo starts, there's this huge swoosh in white noise - is that the noise floor from all the various guitar tracks being consolidated and amplified by a compressor? It really doesn't sound bad, but it's distracting. The noise then abruptly disappears at 1:32 - again distracting.

I'd be proud if I did what you just did with this, so take any suggestions as merely suggestions, not criticism:

I think I hear the tell-tale HF distortion that I associate with low-end (e.g., Chinese - although there's plenty of higher end Chinese stuff these days) mics and/or preamps - I tend to associate it with ceramic capacitors in the signal path. It also sounds like you're mixing without much headroom.

If I was working on this, first, I would probably take a simple gain plug (comes stock in most DAWs) and knock about 10 or 15 dB off each track individually as the first thing in the chain to give myself a bunch of headroom. I would consider HP and LP filtering early in the chain as well. bx_cleansweep works great for both of these tasks and it's free, and pretty CPU friendly.
My goal would be to leave a bunch of room in the main stereo output bus so that I could try various bus compressors (and then probably not use any of them).

I'd probably try taking a noise suppressor plugin - like Waves NS1 - and put it on the guitar tracks somewhere. It's easy to destroy a track with NS1, but it can also work wonders - it tends to cut away at that HF stuff. Sometimes I put that plug on each track near the top of the stack, but sometimes it's more effective after some compression has brought up the noise. I bet there are some alternatives to NS1 - I just don't know what they are (and I would like to know).

Because I've been into it recently, I'd try a tape simulator on all the tracks and again on the output - my pattern has been to use UAD Studer on the individual tracks (or sometimes stems), and then UAD Ampex on the stereo output bus. There are a bunch of other ones as well. Be wary of adding noise, since you already have it :) -- most of these plugs allow you to choose whether you want tape hiss and hum or not.

For me, either no compression or very light compression is best with acoustic guitars. I have luck with the opto or vari-mu emulations like LA-2A or Fairchild. I would probably compress the main track (be it the rhythm in the beginning or the lead at the end) individually, and the others together in their own bus.


After playing with all that, there would hopefully be tons of headroom left in the output. Then I'd either 1) send it to a mastering person exactly like that, or 2) if I wanted to make a louder mp3, I'd use a limiter like Fabfilter Pro-L or the amazing and free (and CPU-murdering) Vlad G Limiter No.6. I like those limiters, and some others, but I always like what the masterer does better :)
 
Beautiful song...but agree with above...sounds really really compressed. The acoustic should sound natural unless its the effect your going for.
 
@bruthish: Thanks man. yes it's compressed with standard settings, yet to learn how to tweak it. Anyone of the plugins for that matter.
 
@antichef:
Thanks a ton ;)

Made some more progress in the song, give it a listen.

https://soundcloud.com/the-smoking-barrels/you

I Read the feedback after uploading. Yes its super compressed, yet to learn how to tweak the plugin.

when the snare comes in, how do I keep the vocals clean? this is something I've been trying to battle for a while.

The swooshing sound when the acoustic solo comes in is because I kept the gain on the preamp super high. thinking since it's a solo I need to capture more sound. Advice on this?

Whats a gain plug? is it like a compressor?

"I would probably compress the main track (be it the rhythm in the beginning or the lead at the end) individually, and the others together in their own bus."- You mean you would compress the master track apart from the bus track?
*is a bus track a track where you send multiple sends from various tracks to a single track?

im sorry for the question, rookie in mixing. I'm using an ancient laptop and a 2i2...lol.
And my laptop is getting slammed with the cpu consumption. How can I bring it down?

Thanks,
Prabhu

---------- Update ----------

@fuzzniffvoyage: Thanks man. btw heard the song in your signature, pretty catchy.
 
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At this point I wouldn't be compressing the master track at all, leave it for the mastering stage. How did you record the acoustic? its's clean but I don't hear much tone - that is the wood of the guitar, this could be an effect of how you EQed and compressed it.
 
hey mjbphotos: I added a compressor to the master track because it sounded better while recording, I'm not sure if its standard practice.
I recorded the acoustic with a condenser mic. I sent all guitar tracks to a single track (bus track is it called?) and added a compressor and equalizer to it. How do I make the tone sound richer? in the settings iv tuned it to "bright keys", it's a scarlett plugin.

Thanks.
 
To get a good acoustic guitar tone, you need to record it, you can't change it after. Does the guitar have a good tone acoustically? How did you set up the mic? Have you experimented with other settings, 2-mic set-up, etc?
 
Prabhu said:
when the snare comes in, how do I keep the vocals clean? this is something I've been trying to battle for a while.
Click to expand...
There are a bunch of considerations - I'm listening to your updated version. To me it sounds like the main issue is that the compressor you have on the output bus is pulling down the levels for the entire song (including all your vocals) when the snare hits. So, yeah, take the compressor off the main output bus (but of course that will probably result in a bunch of clipping, so please read on...)

Prabhu said:
The swooshing sound when the acoustic solo comes in is because I kept the gain on the preamp super high. thinking since it's a solo I need to capture more sound. Advice on this?
Click to expand...
It's usually best to keep the preamp low and add volume later in the computer -- honestly this doesn't have much effect on the noise in most cases - in my experience turning up a preamp doesn't really make it noisier, it just raises the level of the noise of the preamp along with what's being recorded - that is to say, you hear more noise as well as more signal when you turn up, but the signal-to-noise ratio doesn't really change - you have the same problem if you record with the preamp volume low and then raise the volume later. But... you still want to record with the preamp volume low and raise the volume later because you reduce the chances of clipping in the preamp and the rest of the input chain (i.e., your converter). If you have a noisy preamp, you can improve the signal to noise ratio by playing louder or by getting a quieter preamp. :)

And I wouldn't worry at all about the balance in volume among the various tracks when you're recording - that can (and should) all be determined at mix time. You could record rhythm tracks at thunderous volume, and a lead track at a mere whisper if that made sense to do, and then later reduce the rhythm and boost the lead as needed and no one would ever know or care.

Prabhu said:
Whats a gain plug? is it like a compressor?
Click to expand...
Not nearly as fancy as a compressor - just a digital volume knob that does the same thing as the fader in your software. I would check out that bx_cleansweep if you don't already have it. I think you need to reduce the level of all the tracks by the same amount to begin with, so that you have plenty of cushion at the top - this will help solve a lot of problems, but especially the one about the vocals disappearing when the snare comes in.


Prabhu said:
"I would probably compress the main track (be it the rhythm in the beginning or the lead at the end) individually, and the others together in their own bus."- You mean you would compress the master track apart from the bus track?
*is a bus track a track where you send multiple sends from various tracks to a single track?
Click to expand...
What I said was really confusing - what I meant was to compress the one guitar track that is the most important by itself and the rest of them together. I totally agree that you should remove the main output bus compression at least for now.

Your update sounds good! I think the two things you could benefit most from right now would be a gain plugin and a noise reduction plugin.
 
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I'm in agreement with the others for the most part--go easy with the compressors, and definitely take it off the master bus. I record acoustics a lot, and I would say don't raise the gain up on the preamp too high. You want a nice signal that isn't driving the preamp hard--there's no point. If you had an esoteric preamp that could handle being over-driven, then maybe drive it, but I'm guessing you don't have a boutique, massive headroom pre. I also would rethink your use of panning--put that solo guitar more towards the center, and avoid some of the trick quick pans that you are using for the backing vocals. That can be disorienting. Also, think about adding some reverb to taste on the solo acoustic. Also, is there any way you can use volume automation? That's something to consider . . . to me, the less compression you use, the better. Too often it's just assumed that everything needs to be compressed, and usually too hard. It's a good song, and you're on the right track, so stick with it, and keep posting updates.
 
update

hey everyone,
attaching an update, start to finish track but without vocals, bass etc.
@antichef: I got the bx_cleansweep. used it one track and pushed the input gain way up.
how do you work it?

do I need to use it on each track and how? You mentioned il need to use it on each track to bring down the volume. right now I have used it on the master track, turned up the input gain and I have lot more headroom now, if this is what you mentioned.

How do the electric leads sound right now? How do I fatten them, and yet they should gel with the mix?

How do I work the equalizer? Theres a low, mid, high etc, how to work this. I have one on the master track right now, set to a setting which says "bright keys". It makes the mix listenable but too crisp. I have it in the other send tracks . I have one send track each for vocals, acoustic guitars, and electric.View attachment You .mp3

Around 1:38 the song drops, but the acoustic goes way low. How do I keep the volume uniform?

compression: you mentioned "what I meant was to compress the one guitar track that is the most important by itself and the rest of them together". I hav so many tracks... compression is still eluding me. im still using standard settings.

@Tim: Hey I corrected the vocals, you were right too much panning. removed them sounds better now. And whats volume automation?

Thanks.
 
Volume automation is one of the reasons a modern good mix' track volume levels at any point sound uniform. It's possible to do intricate track volume changes with most modern DAWs (Digital Audio Workstations). and once you start using it, you can get rid of a lot of unnecessary compression use.
You're asking a lot of fairly involved questions ( and that's fine), so I'll try to stick to the parts I addressed, but I would recommend getting a book called Mixing Secrets For The Small Studio by Mike Senior. What he says about how compression works alone would be worth it for you. You need to tweak the compressor settings--try soloing the guitar track and open the compressor and start experimenting. Also see what it sounds like with no compressor. Remember, though, that if you switch off the compressor and the volume goes down, the uncompressed sound is going to sound not as good--a psychological event of perception, not that the uncompressed sound is bad without compression. Turn it back up.
Same goes for EQ--solo a track and see what happens. One thing for sure--use a high pass filter on the track. There's likely a preset on the EQ for this. Engage it and watch the parameters change in the EQ window. The bass will go away. Hope this helps.
 
Hey, I just wrote out a long reply and it got erased. God damn it.

---------- Update ----------

Well goddamn, there it is. Nevermind.
 
Better, but you're getting some booming out of the acoustic I believe. Roll off the bass under 200 hz or so. Better yet, solo the acoustics and engage a high pass filter EQ. Look at the low end of the graphic--there should be a dip that drops down in relation to a frequency--say 60 hz or so. Move it over gradually towards the right so the drop-off frequency increases, say from 60 t0 70 then 80, 90, until any booming or feedback like noise disappears . . . of course, this means nothing if your monitoring system isn't half-way decent . . . how are you monitoring, and what is the room like where you are recording?
 
Hey man, you KNOW I love your work. But there's one thing that needs to be addressed before you can even get down to a proper mix, which is that the instruments are not sync at all. The acoustics are all out of time with each other for most of the first 2/3 of the song. No matter what you do with the mix, EQ, compression, etc - if the instruments are not in time with each other, it's never going to sound balanced, crisp, or powerful.
 
He is a bit out, but the biggest problem is he's flying blind--having to ask how EQ works means that everything is guesswork. That's why I recommended that book--there's something to be said for sheer immersion in reading about a subject you want to really excel in . . . .
 
Hey Brian,
I just listened to your tune above--really nice! well recorded, and well mixed. It sounds very good on my monitors, I must say. What are you using to monitor with? How is signal going in? Prabhu, if you're reading, how one listens and records is the biggest thing--the room you're mixing in is what determines if you're hearing things right or not.
 
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