trying to get the mix balanced!

  • Thread starter Thread starter bryank
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bryank

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heres my problem.......i can never seem to get the mix "just right". The bass especially. It seems i cant get it to "thump". ill raise the bass guitar level, or EQ some more, or even do some EQing on the mastering process (roll of 32hz and below, push a bit in the 50 hz area,)...............but the bass does get louder.....but it still doesnt "thump"! what do you guys do to get it to thump!

listen to this recent song i just did called "Starlight", and see if it sounds right to you guys............i feel its still lacking something, but i cant put my finger on it.

the song can be found by clicking on this link-----http://www.soundclick.com/bands/pagemusic.cfm?bandID=465137
 
Quick guide that might help you out: This was just a technique I learned working for different people. So it may or may not work for you. Take it with a grain of salt.

Actually, I'm gonna share 2 different techniques I know...

Technique 1:

1. Zero out all your gear, console, or whatever fits your situation.

2. Set up your aux section (ex. reverbs, delays, pitch shift, etc). Bring up each musicial section(ex. drums/guitars/vox etc) individually and start mixing each group with all that you feel it needs (compression, panning, fx, etc).

Then after that, cut all your faders (except auxes and keep your panning settings)

3. Bring up your kick & snare tracks (no HH, OH, toms, etc). That can give you a good place to start.

You can start bringing up your bass to the point where it dosn't cloud or occupy the kick drum's space. If you know how to trigger the bass guitar with the kick drum via the key input of the compressor, that helps add punch to your mix.

You can choose to bring up your other rythm tracks as well. I usually don't bring up rythm guitar tracks at this point yet.

4. After that you can start bringing up your vocal tracks. The idea hear is to avoid the karaokee syndrome. So at first, you may have to bring up the vocals just enough to be a little buried, but still legible. I also follow this with other lead parts (guitar licks, solos, whatever) since they are usually ment to be legible for the artistic value of the song. But that depends on how it was tracked.

5. All your desicions after that are going to be based around the vocals. So as your start bringing up your OH pairs and your HH, make sure it dosn't take away from the vocal space, but that it still contributes to the image of the drumset.

That tends to set up a quick rough mix to start from. From there you can really start getting specific and doing what you have to do to make the song gel together. That can be anything you can think of.




The second technique is a little more cohesive and a little more "overall". So it will give you different results.


1. Set up your faders half way and set up your aux section accordingly.

2. Listen to the song at least once to get a grasp of how you're going to puzzle things together.

3. Without any compression, EQ & FX, start creating a dry mix and try to get things geling together as best you can. If you're mixing at 24-bit or higher, you're ok to mix with the faders half way without noticable degredation to the sound. In fact, you might feel it breathes a little better. The idea is to keep good headroom for the mix process.

4. As you listen to the song, you can start assigning aux sends and apply whatever processing you feel is right.

The idea here is that you tend to hear all the parts together for the most part, so you tend to keep things in a global sense.




That's my two cents. ;)
 
Bryan,

I tried to give your song a go, but you only have it set up for streaming, not for download. Streaming - even the hi-fi option - is going to mess with your song so much as to be next to useless for technical analysis. If you could add the option to download - even if it's just part of the song - it would help your cause quite a bit.

Unless/until we could actualy hear and analyze a proxy of your stuff locally, we could only speculate. Yeah MP3 sucks wind, but its better than streaming.

G.
 
bryank said:
its now available for download..................
Click to expand...
OK, just gave it a listen. There is plenty of low frequency content there, in fact it sounds like you did indeed try pushing the bass hard to get it more present. I see what you're saying. The bass is almost too heavy, yet at the same time it is still stuck in the muddy/fuzzy mode; it could indeed stand some more punch.

A few possibilities to try:

First, the cymbals are extremely bright and in front, and tend to dominate the mix just a bit. Some of the small crashes actually ride over the lead guitars. They cymbals sound pretty good, but maybe if you pulled back on them just a bit in the mix, they wouldn't be quite so dominating and the bass wouldn't have to work as hard to try and get balance on the low end; as it is the overall mix has kind of a "V" EQ sound to it (Bass and hi treble boosted).

Second, do you have to opportunity to use a different bass, one with a bit less of a jazz smoothness to the attack and more of a funk attack? That could help you immensely. If the punch isn't in the bass, it won't be in the track.

Third, The bass track could perhaps benefit from some compression with envelope settings set to accentuate the initial attack. Though I'd rather hear this come from the bass itself and not the compressor, if you don't have another suitable axe for that, the compression molding may help in it's place.

HTH,

G.
 
i see. I only own one bass guitar, and i just ran it into a Korg PRX4 bass modeler, into my sound card. I might try using a differnt bass setting( it has 4 or 5 bass amp models). I also might want to try running that, an also a DI into the mix at the same time, and balance to two accordingly.

i used some compression on the bass track, and i usually set it so the attack is set to about 5 milliseconds, is this too soon?

as you heard, the bass is DEFINATLY there, and in the mix.........but the punch im talking about is the same punch that will rattle/shake a Cars rear view mirror when your listening to it in the car. i listen to alot of CDs, and my song has about the same volume of a Pro CD production, but when i hear a good quality CD, the bass lines sit in the mix just fine, but at the same time it will rattle the windows when you turn it up! MIne just doesnt do that........the bass does get louder, but nothings moving....................nothings punching....................
 
bryank said:
i see. I only own one bass guitar, and i just ran it into a Korg PRX4 bass modeler, into my sound card. I might try using a differnt bass setting( it has 4 or 5 bass amp models). I also might want to try running that, an also a DI into the mix at the same time, and balance to two accordingly.

i used some compression on the bass track, and i usually set it so the attack is set to about 5 milliseconds, is this too soon?

as you heard, the bass is DEFINATLY there, and in the mix.........but the punch im talking about is the same punch that will rattle/shake a Cars rear view mirror when your listening to it in the car. i listen to alot of CDs, and my song has about the same volume of a Pro CD production, but when i hear a good quality CD, the bass lines sit in the mix just fine, but at the same time it will rattle the windows when you turn it up! MIne just doesnt do that........the bass does get louder, but nothings moving....................nothings punching....................
Click to expand...
Mirror-rattling punch often indicates some reeeallly low bass.

Yeah, try your ideas with the modeling and the DI. This is only a guestimate, butyou might want to try tilting the balace towards the DI, using the modeling just to wetten it a bit. Also turning up the bass on the modeler may help; don't be afraid to tweak past the presets.

5ms might perhaps be clamping down a bit fast, especially on the DI. Try slowing it down a few ms and see how that works for you.

Additionally, use a parametric EQ, set to medium-narrow Q (narrow, but not too narrow). Boost it abut 10dB and slowly sweep through the bass frequencies and see if you can find a sweet spot where th punch comes out. This can often be found somewhere around 80-100Hz, but it varies, so make no assumptions, just sweep *slowly* from about 250 on down until it seems to jump out at you pleasantly. When you find that spot, pull the EQ boost down to a more reasonable level that sound punchy without being unnatural or overbearing. For extra credit, if during the sweep you find a frequency or two that jump out at you but don't sound like good punch, but rather more like muddy piles, go back with an extra parametric band or two and notch cut those frequenced with a cut of 2 or 3 dBS. That can really help to clarify the bass sound and simultanesously give you more "room" for the boost.

And finally, don't let all this fog the idea of pulling back a bit on the cymbals track(s) a couple of dB. Not only will the overall mix benefit from that IMHO, but it can possibly unmask some ~4kHz attack that can potentially be heard from both the bass string plucks and the kick beater strikes which can help the punch sound of both.

G.
 
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