thomas patton, post: 420665, member: 48571 wrote: It seems I always fall in to either category but I can never stay in that sweet spot.

welcome to the majority.

thomas patton, post: 420665, member: 48571 wrote: When I have the solo tracks they always seem fine to me, but in the final mix the mud comes out and I'm not sure how to go about correcting it properly

Never judge a track in the mix on its own, unless its only a solo. You mix music like a painter painting a picture of a big tree. It sounds like you are trying to paint everything with the same level of detail, then cram it all into a picture and hope we see it clearly. In the end ( the mix) you are so detailed with each part of the tree, we cannot see the tree for the forest lol.

Post a mix and we'll help you.

Thanks for responding. I'll post the most recent mix I was working on prior to posting that message. I didn't do any final mixing apart from limiting and small compression (Edit: I just remembered I did some stereo expanding. If needed I can provide a track with no effects on the master, no problem), so it is unfinished. There is also no bass guitar in this song (my buddy didn't record it before he left) so you're just getting programmed drums and guitar.

http://vocaroo.com/i/s0CgZBzq92hy

cool. now post an example of who you are hoping to sound like?

audiokid, post: 420671, member: 1 wrote: cool. now post an example of who you are hoping to sound like?

This is kind of a tricky thing to answer. Overall, I would love to have a sound similar to the CD As I Lay Dying - Shadows Are Security (2005) because though it's not a "perfect" mix the entire cd is captured so well, and I'm not the type of person to chase a 'perfect' crisp and clean style. Some say I'm more 'old school' for that but I think they're too 'new school'.

As I Lay Dying - Through Struggle
http://vocaroo.com/i/s0yoUBmFIn0S

cool. I'll help you in a problem based response.

When I hear your track in comparison, I hear your balances are similar ((y)) but, your overall mix is lacking in the lower end. Your mix sounds like everything is being rolled off from 600hz down. Your mix is thin. Do you hear this? Why do you think?

thomas patton, post: 420665, member: 48571 wrote: I believe it may be my monitors not giving me reliable results

To dig deeper, when you listen to the example of the comparison, how does that mix sound on your current monitoring?

audiokid, post: 420681, member: 1 wrote: To dig deeper, when you listen to the example of the comparison, how does that mix sound on your current monitoring?

Sorry if I'm slow at responding, I've been doing things around the house. As far as comparing overall sound with my setup the AILD track definitely sounds like the guitars are fuller with a better lower end where my mix tends to lack that. I'm posting a picture of my EQ for my guitar. You seem to have called it haha. I know my EQ is a mess, but it's all a learning process. I just started taking this seriously a month ago. Excuse my bad eq technique, but, afterall, there is a reason why I'm here.
Now as far as recording guitar goes, I recorded this track with the hi/mid/low settings (what level it is at out of a max of 10) like this 8/10-9/10-4/10. The placement of the mic was a little to the right of the cone about 1.5" from the grill which tends to cut out some of the higher end, which is why the low is so much further down. I hope this is making sense...
I've noticed this problem in all of my mixes but could never figure out a reason why.

Also, thanks for all your help so far! You're the first person to atleast look in to what I'm asking without making assumptions.

Okay good.
confirming you hear your comparison sounding fuller :love:, this means your monitors are translating the difference between what you like and what you don't like about your mix, good news, your upper freq of your monitors are working!

The above graph doesn't really matter at this point and I'll tell you why. Even though we could get into the details of your guitar, I hear an "overall" lack of low mid missing in your "entire" mix. Everything is missing there. I would find out why the "entire" mix is lacking low to low mid freq right now?

Suggestions:

Mix at a low volume!
Increase a wide curve ( 100hz to 500hz) right in the middle of this 1 db at a time until it starts to sound fuller. I bet the entire mix will improve. It sounds like you have a good handle on balancing but are clearly not hearing low mid freq when mixing your music. Look to why you are missing those freq and you will have your answer.

Does this make sense and help you?

do that and repost the song again.

Hi Thomas, thanks for posting.
As Chris said, your mix is missing a lot of low end except for the bass drum that seem to have a bit that the other instruments.
You are asking if your monitors are tricking you. It might be, but there's other factor to investigate.

1. when you mix, do you feel enough bass ?
2. When you compare your mix to commercial recordings, do they seem to have too much bass ?
3. When you listen to your mix on other systems (cars, headphones, friend's hifi system) do you hear that your mix is missing bass?
   You shouldn't dissosiate your monitors from the room. You perceive the audio of your monitors through the room which adds to the equation.
   It may be your room who emphase bass depending on the dimensions and the speakers placement in relation to your ears.
   It may also your desk who is vibrating if the speaker and set on it without isolation.
   It also may be your monitors.. but, be carefull before you make a purchase.

   As for the mic placement, if you put the mic offset from the center of the speaker, you will capture less hi frequencies.
   the best trick is to record and move the mic from the center to the far side of the cab and choose what sounds better to you.

   So the best thing to do is to compare to commercial recording and bring your mix outside the room and play it on several systems. ;)

audiokid, post: 420683, member: 1 wrote: do that and repost the song again.

Will do! Thanks for the awesome feedback. Check back in about 20 minutes and I should have it posted.

don't remove the original track. we need that to cross reference steps. pcrecord is here so you have more help!

pcrecord, post: 420684, member: 46460 wrote: Hi Thomas, thanks for posting.
As Chris said, your mix is missing a lot of low end except for the bass drum that seem to have a bit that the other instruments.
You are asking if your monitors are tricking you. It might be, but there's other factor to investigate.

1. when you mix, do you feel enough bass ?
2. When you compare your mix to commercial recordings, do they seem to have too much bass ?
3. When you listen to your mix on other systems (cars, headphones, friend's hifi system) do you hear that your mix is missing bass?
   You shouldn't dissosiate your monitors from the room. You perceive the audio of your monitors through the room which adds to the equation.
   It may be your room who emphase bass depending on the dimensions and the speakers placement in relation to your ears.
   It may also your desk who is vibrating if the speaker and set on it without isolation.
   It also may be your monitors.. but, be carefull before you make a purchase.

   As for the mic placement, if you put the mic offset from the center of the speaker, you will capture less hi frequencies.
   the best trick is to record and move the mic from the center to the far side of the cab and choose what sounds better to you.

   So the best thing to do is to compare to commercial recording and bring your mix outside the room and play it on several systems.

Thanks for responding!
As far as mic placement goes, that's pretty much what I do. I have the guitarist play different sections of the songs (palm muted parts, open chord strumming, tremolo picking, then the song as a whole) before settling on one particular location. I tend to gravitate about an inch off from the center and an inch and a half from the grill, but this changes depending on the type of song.
My speakers in relevance to the room and myself is kind of a problem for me. I don't have an entire room dedicated to my studio (yet :D) and have my set up closer to a wall than I would like it to be. But you work with what you've got available. My monitor upgrade isn't relative to my high end/low end problem, I just want to make sure I'm getting the best possible sound out of my speakers to, what can only, help my mixing. And if it doesn't help and the problem is just how I'm doing things, well atleast then I have some neat new yellow speakers to look at.
I'm glad you brought up different ways to play music. I try to test out my songs on different systems and that's how I first started noticing my problem.

Ok, so, you seem not to notice the problems in your room but you notice it somewhere else.
This could be that your room is giving you too much bass so you compensate (wrongly).
Or you just begining to be aware of it... ;)

pcrecord, post: 420688, member: 46460 wrote: Ok, so, you seem not to notice the problems in your room but you notice it somewhere else.
This could be that your room is giving you too much bass so you compensate (wrongly).
Or you just begining to be aware of it... ;)

or the opposite, bad tweeters or very loud volumes can also effect the ability to mix top end, thus, adding more and more top end to a mix. His problem is definitely overall though. Imagine turning your tweeters off? If not knowing, you would add more top end to your mix? or, the opposite, if the woofer is shot or poor, we would add more bottom end but, they would start to flap. If his room is really boomy, I suppose he would not be so consistent from 600hz down. I'm guessing he is mixing too loud and his top end is poor.

Hey sorry this is taking awhile. It would appear that one of my plugins is causing my project file in Cubase to not open and I think it's my EZDrummer VST which I used on this track :mad::mad::mad:. This could take some time to troubleshoot. I'm downloading a Cubase update right now and trying to get this resolved. Thanks for the additional feedback about my room. I wouldn't put it past this setup for me to hear too much bass in my room then not in other settings. It's not exactly an ideal set up by any means. Give me another 15 or 20 minutes and I should have something to post.....hopefully.

thomas patton, post: 420696, member: 48571 wrote: Give me another 15 or 20 minutes and I should have something to post.....hopefully.

No rush, there is always tomorrow.

So after installing that update it seems like I'm operational again!
Here was my first attempt at increasing the 100 - 500 hz range: http://vocaroo.com/i/s0k5Nxyp84RU
I felt like I had over done it because this is where it starts sounding muddy to me. If you listen on the palm mutes the bass increases so much. But that could be the result of the guitar itself. so I lowered it a little and came back with this : http://vocaroo.com/i/s15GMSaDMBrV
Very Subtle change but maybe you can hear it. Opinions?

this sounds better, http://vocaroo.com/i/s0k5Nxyp84RU
but it also sounds like you are pulling the mids out from the original mix? Never the less, it still needs way more low end energy.

I think I am hearing where you are going wrong now. You are focusing on the guitar too much while not realizing how that is effecting your entire mix. Flatten your mix and start over. Use HPF up to 200hz on the guitar. Get rig of the bottom end on that instrument and your mix will start happening.

Knowing where an instrument "lives' is going to be of great benefit to you. For example, adding 60 hz to a guitar track won't accomplish anything more than adding useless energy in that range, because guitars don't produce frequencies that low. When you add frequencies beyond what the instrument can naturally produce, especially in the low end, you're adding "mud", resulting in other instruments having to fight for their own space as well, which results in lack of definition and clarity. Knowing these ranges, and, As Chris mentioned, using HP Filtering accordingly, will help you quite a bit.

On a related note, you may be having problems because your mixing environment is lying to you acoustically.

How many guitar track is there in the mix ?

Suggestions : when I have 2 tracks or more, I try to put the guitars to the side (L/R) and less in the center. This let space for the bass, bass drum and snare that are in the center.
I say that because I feel the drum and bass are burried behind the wall of guitar(s).

Keep doing it, it's getting better ! ;)

The more you "tune" your ears - that is, the more you do this and the more aware of frequency related problems you become, the more you can focus in on what the issues are.

That being said, it can also be a double edged sword, because the more aware you are, the more problems you will begin to find, and sometimes, you can find problems that aren't really problems at all... and you can start to go too far in trying for frequency "perfection"... to the point where you start sucking all the the life and dynamics out of the tracks and performances.

Things don't always need to be textbook perfect - you need to find that fine balance where the parts all work together, and sometimes shooting for "forensic" perfection can destroy a song. There's something to be said for a few warts here and there, because these are human performances, and as humans, we aren't perfect. It may be a slight drift in time, or sometimes it's a relaxed vocal phrasing... if you start analyzing and adjusting things to the point where every single human nuance is 'corrected", you're letting technology control the soul of the music ... and that can be detrimental to the overall feel and vibe.

I agree with Chris regarding mixing in solo mode.... and would also advise that you avoid doing this. Short of trying to diagnose or zone in on a particular problem - you should always try to mix in a mode where you can hear the other tracks, because the general idea of mixing is getting the tracks/instruments to sit well with each other, and that's a hard thing to do when you are referencing a track only to and of itself - without referencing the other things happening as well. This could be guitars, vocals, drums... it doesn't matter.

As an example, You could spend 10 minutes on a solo'd kick drum, getting what you feel is maybe the best kick sound you've ever managed to get - only to find out that it really doesn't work at all, once you add all the other parts around it.

These days, I pretty much limit my use of solo monitoring to lead vocals - just to get rid of potential extraneous noises that may be on the track, or to maybe take care of sibilance or something, - but when it comes to EQ'ing it, I always do so while listening to the other/supporting tracks at the same time.

Keep at it, keep doing it, it's the only way you'll get better. The one thing that all the professionals here share, the one thing that we all have in common, is that there was a time for all of us when we didn't know what we were doing. The only way to get better is to keep doing it. Listen to everything you a get your hands on... and not just one style, either. Listen to all kinds of stuff. Rock, Metal, Jazz, Classical, Ska, Punk, Disco, Folk, World, all of it. Don't limit yourself ..... take it all in. It's been my experience that each and every genre can teach you something that will translate to all styles of recording at some juncture.

pcrecord, post: 420716, member: 46460 wrote: Suggestions : when I have 2 tracks or more, I try to put the guitars to the side (L/R) and less in the center. This let space for the bass, bass drum and snare that are in the center.
I say that because I feel the drum and bass are burried behind the wall of guitar(s).

Marco is speaking from experience here. It's a method of allowing space and room to exist between parts, so that everything isn't all clumped together. This is a method he has picked up on, a process he likes to use, based on his experience - an experience that really only comes from having seriously done recording and mixing for a while. ( I just so happen to share and agree with his thoughts on this method.)

At some point, you'll also begin to develop your own style of tracking and mixing, too ... your own methods, your own workflow, your own little "signature" nuances... most veteran engineers have their own little personal tricks - And there are many: it may be a particular miking method, or a gain reduction or EQ thing, or, as Marco mentioned, panning/placement.

These are the types of things that we've all picked up on along the way; certain processes or methods that work for us - either through having been taught by someone else, or, discovering them on our own through trial and error experimenting, (lots of error...and don't discount this part, either... Learning what not to do is just as important as doing something successful ;) ) and we tuck these things into our own little bag of tricks - but this takes some time, and as mentioned... doing it a lot.

FWIW

DonnyThompson, post: 420718, member: 46114 wrote: These are the types of things that we've all picked up on along the way; certain processes or methods that work for us - either through having been taught by someone else, or, discovering them on our own through trial and error experimenting, (lots of error...and don't discount this part, either... Learning what not to do is just as important as doing something successful ;) ) and we tuck these things into our own little bag of tricks - but this takes some time, and as mentioned... doing it a lot.

The things we remember the most are those we learned after we failed because we know too well why we shouldn't do them that way again.

The worst thing to do is to do something without understanding why.
This is why this forum is so nice; ask and you shall be replied ! ;)

Oh wow! Thanks for all the replies guys, I didn't know this would turn out to be so helpful haha. So I'll just adress a few things in the responses

pcrecord, post: 420716, member: 46460 wrote: How many guitar track is there in the mix ?

I actually don't have bass guitar in this song as of yet. The friend I had to record this track is out of town now and I may have to just start a new project in the mean time to practice some more. There are only the two guitar tracks. I have found that I like the way it sounds when I duplicate the tracks, pan two out about 60% to 75% L/R then with the duplicated tracks I'll drop the volume and keep them in the center. Then when I put my stereo expansion on the master track it gives me a fuller sound and killer stereo in vehicles and sound systems while still sounding good on cell phones and ear buds. Idk if this is a bad thing to do, but it's what corrected my problem of 'why do all of my songs lose entire lead riffs on cell phone speakers?'. Idk. I'm sure there's a better way.

DonnyThompson, post: 420718, member: 46114 wrote: I agree with Chris regarding mixing in solo mode.... and would also advise that you avoid doing this. Short of trying to diagnose or zone in on a particular problem - you should always try to mix in a mode where you can hear the other tracks, because the general idea of mixing is getting the tracks/instruments to sit well with each other, and that's a hard thing to do when you are referencing a track only to and of itself - without referencing the other things happening as well. This could be guitars, vocals, drums... it doesn't matter.

I will admit that I do have a problem to where I get so frustrated I spend an hour working on a guitar track and trying to find out where I'm going wrong only to listen to everything together and there's just so much of everything it sounds like garbage. I'll remember your advise about keeping away from soloing tracks out. I think I need some recommended reading. It's obvious that I'm doing some stuff wrong and I think it all boils down to not having the understanding of how and what to focus on in the mix. I can only assume a lot of things just come from experience, but there's a lot of education I feel I'm lacking that I should read up on.

audiokid, post: 420705, member: 1 wrote: Flatten your mix and start over. Use HPF up to 200hz on the guitar. Get rig of the bottom end on that instrument and your mix will start happening.

I'm going to start a new project from scratch. reevaluate mic placements and settings on the mixer. I'll keep all these things you've told me about whats going on in my mix and reference this thread while mixing/mastering. Thanks for all of your help!

If I had an electric guitar sound that bright in the studio, I would definetly explore different placement technics and maybe use a ribbon mic to capture softer sound. with a sm57, keep away from the center of the speaker. If you must, roll off some HF.

Leaving the center with less guitars to let space for the drum and the future bass is one way to avoid instruments fighting together.
Other ways are, EQ and Reverb

Keep posting new versions, we will assist you ;)

I'm almost positive you could mix this entire track without re recording it. Well, at least for this drill.

Learning about mixing:
At this point, you are prematurely missing great opportunity to learn more if you choose to retrack this before more research as to why your mix is thin sounding. If this were me, continue to improve what you have and learn from your mistakes.

I say this because:
The drums sound like tin and we already know they are samples, correct? If this is the case, problems in your mixing approach are very evident. No-one samples drums like this and gets away with it. ;) yet, you are doing something to the low mids that have nothing to do with tracking? If you don't identify that before you start over, well, bad habits make us spend unnecessary money to say the least.

The biggest mistake people make during the mix stage is lack of HPF and how instruments sit within a whole mix. Bad habits are developing as we speak.

thomas patton, post: 420741, member: 48571 wrote: Then when I put my stereo expansion on the master track it gives me a fuller sound and killer stereo in vehicles and sound systems while still sounding good on cell phones and ear buds.

This caught my eye.

And it may be one of the reasons you are getting "thin" sounding tracks.

When you use stereo enhancer plugs, you are manipulating the stereo field and pulling focus away from the center, which can also pull power and weight away from the mix. Instruments like bass guitar, kick drum, snare, and other center-detente instruments will lose punch and focus. Stereo enhancers need to be used in very slight amounts.... many engineers don't use them at all, because of the potential for phase-related issues.

My recommendation is that, at least at this point, you concentrate on mixing fundamentals - things like Hi Pass Filtering, working EQ within the natural range of certain instruments, track balance, panning and placement, and getting a mix to sound good... without the use of stereo enhancement processing.

IMO of course.

thomas patton, post: 420741, member: 48571 wrote: ... Then when I put my stereo expansion on the master track it gives me a fuller sound and killer stereo in vehicles and sound systems while still sounding good on cell phones and ear buds. Idk if this is a bad thing to do, but it's what corrected my problem of 'why do all of my songs lose entire lead riffs on cell phone speakers?'..

This smacks of phase problems. Take your stereo mix and print it as dual mono, then listen to it on all the playback systems that you used for the stereo mix. Any tonal difference?

fwiw, I mono'd his track at the beginning and it has phase problems but they are small in comparison to how much low mid is missing, regardless. As Donny said, stereo enhancing tools can do more harm than good, especially the kind that play with your phase. The one I use doesn't shift the phase to give that illusion, it works like an M/S volume which can be good or bad. Problem you get with that effect, the sides need to match with the centre volume. The effect is really spacious but a huge let down when you mono the track. Widening enhancement tools are really only for specialized apps.

audiokid, post: 420747, member: 1 wrote: I'm almost positive you could mix this entire track without re recording it. Well, at least for this drill.

Learning about mixing:
At this point, you are prematurely missing great opportunity stopping short to retracking it all. If this were me, continue to improve what you have and learn from your mistakes.

I say this because:
The drums sound like tin and we already know they are samples, correct? If this is the case, problems in your mixing approach are very evident. No one samples drums like this and gets away with it. ;) yet, you are doing something to the low mids that have nothing to do with tracking? If you don't identify that before you start over, well, bad habits make us spend unnecessary money to say the least.

The biggest mistake people make during the mix stage is lack of HPF and how instruments sit within a whole mix. Bad habits are developing as we speak.

Sorry I was out of town yesterday and couldn't respond faster.

Yeah sampled drums blow, but once again, you work with what you've got. So I took your advice and just started everything from scratch. I removed the centered guitar tracks I'm accustomed to using and just left the guitars panned at 75 L/R. I applied a little compression and the EQ to the track, keeping in mind what you said about the hpf and the 600 hz range. I also took a little notch out around 5000 as you'll see in the picture. In the stereo track I applied a multiband compressor (something that wasn't in the other tracks. Which this is a new compressor and I'm not used to yet, so I'm not sure if I'm happy with the way it sounded. I may post a version without), hard limiter, stereo expansion, eq, and the smallest amount of reverb. Here's a link to the song and a picture of my guitars eq now. I know before you said you weren't worried much about it, but I figure it can't hurt to post. I'm well aware that the drums sound like garbage but I think that's due to the compressor.

http://vocaroo.com/i/s0as4iAlaH7z

Oh sorry I didn't see the other posts about leaving out the stereo mix :unsure:. I'll re work it and post another version. I'll leave the EQ alone and take out my Multiband compressor.

EDIT:
So all these links to Vocaroo are getting confusing, I decided to make a MediaFire folder to share with you on this journey haha. It seems the quality was getting super watered down on the Vocaroo uploader so you're getting my mp3 files in a better quality through the MediaFire folder. At any rate, here's the folder link with all 5 versions thus far as well as the song I use to reference.

https://www.mediafire.com/folder/cqregg8j4g56r/Attempts#myfiles

fwiw, I NEVER use a multiband comps but I do understand many very competent people love them. To me, they are band news and really bad news in the wrong hands.

never the less, I'm pretty certain you aren't following us completely about HPF or Drums. Sample Drums ROCK! I'm curious what VSTi drums are you using?

Bad drum programming or wrongfully allied or chosen samples sucks. Good samples in the appropriate style makes people dance. There is little need to ever EQ Sampled drums (much). Good kicks, snares, hats etc are usually recorded (sampled) by very professional people using the best rooms and equipment available today.

For learning purposes right now. I'd forget all the bells and whistles and mix the stereo track FLAT so we can hear what you are doing to the instrumentation in the mix. DO NOT EQ or add a thing to the stereo bus. As an example, by the time I hit my master bus, its pretty much flat all the time. I may move wide curves a db here or there but not much.

I'm still basing my comment of the original mix. I've not listened to the latest.

hope that helps.

Your latest 08 ( but now blocked) sounds much better than all 5 MP3's and the referring [[url=http://[/URL]="http://vocaroo.com/…"]here: http://vocaroo.com/…]="http://vocaroo.com/…"]here: http://vocaroo.com/…]. Why don't you use soundcloud? You can post the files right on the forum and members can audition them.

What is different from 08 to the others?

Well that would require me set up another soundcloud and I already had a MediaFire account set up haha. I can do that though if that is preferred, no problem I'm new here so I didn't know. The 08 track is Through Struggle, the song by As I Lay Dying that I reference when mastering for comparison. Like I said, the website Vocaroo waters quality down a lot and I didn't even realize it til today. Sorry for that confusion! I'll post the track by itself, no eq, no filters, no nothing. Then another one with only EQ and go from there. I feel like I'm using up a lot of peoples time here and just not getting the message. But I'm trying to pay attention.

Also, the VSTi I use is EZDrummer with the Drumkit From Hell plugin.

https://www.mediafire.com/#cqregg8j4g56r

No worries, we wouldn't be helping if we didn't care. We all learn things together.

other than the overloud kick, this sounds killer to me. This is your goal.

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I think this is all boiling down to the raw guitar track. It seems like I may have just recorded it wrong. But that's just me. I was once told you can make a good recording bad but you cant make a bad recording good. So I guess that's just where I'm at is it's a bad recording.

Hey guys, so I'm sure everyone has abandoned ship on this thread but I just wanted to come back and thank everyone again for their advice on my last track! I got my new mixer in the mail (PreSonus SudioLive 16.0.2) and made a test track. I wanted to see what I could do with a quick 1 minute song and roughly 15 - 20 minutes of mixing and mastering. The result blew me away! Compared to everything I've ever recorded this is so close to the sound I'm after. So here's a soundcloud link to the track and thanks again! Can't wait til I get a serious song recorded and the time to mix it properly!

[MEDIA=soundcloud]tommy-patton/test-track-1
[[url=http://[/URL]="https://soundcloud…"]View: https://soundcloud…]="https://soundcloud…"]View: https://soundcloud…]