the Mid-range

[BrettB]

Hi all,

Last week I discovered a problem while mixing a demo song of a cover band. Especially the drums and the guitar lack a lot of clarity so I started to EQ. With a little fiddling I found a snappy, bright snare sound, a punchy kickdrum and bright overheads that aren't too sharp. When I compared my original drums and my EQ'ed drums I was proud: I really thought I made a shitty drumkit sound a least a bit decent. Also the guitar had a muddy mid-rang so I clared that up and I thought I was a satisfied man.

But after listening several times I noticed I had a completely lack of mid! As well as on the drums, the guitars and the bass the midrange had some dreadfull sounds in that frequency spectrum so instinctively I had cut to much of them. Any of you had problems like this?

Again it is the obvious lesson for me to watch the mix in a whole instead of focussing to much on seperate sections. I 'solved' the problem by keeping enough mid in the acoustic guitar that comes in and I also reduced the mid cut I had with the snare. Not as bright sound I was after though now, but at least the mix sounds in balance.

 

[jake-owa]

Yup, that's the natural tendancy. When you start EQ'ing invariably the mids take the biggest hit. The ear likes the smiley face EQ curve no matter how badly it butchers the natural range of the music. I've gone back to add mids more times than I remember.

Now I'm getting the EQ out of the way with mic placement which i must say sounds a lot more natural. Too much mids from the guitar: fix it with the amp then rotate the mic axis, too much low in the bass pull the mic back a foot.