simply make it sound good.

Take an early mix of a track to the Mastering Engineer.
Have a short talk to him about costs and your expectations.
He can hear an example of your work and may even suggest some changes.

Work with the Mastering Eng and not against him ... or her.

It can all be very simple IF you let it be.

in my opinion whatever sounds good to you. If you are the studio engineer you should know. I think you would have to listen to it and decide for yourself what sounds good and if bass or drums should be higher or lower.

thank you for the answer.
It's just that on previous mixes, after mastering ( not in a big mastering lab ), the drums seemed to be very soft compared to what I mixed...

if that's the case, it probably means you're mixing on poor quality speakers. when you're tracking and mastering you need good quality refrence monitors so you know exactly what frequencies are standing out. if you're mixing on some cheap speakers that have a natural EQ to them already, your drums may not sound the way they would on better quality speakers. i would recommend grabbing a pair of KRK Rokit 5 monitors, they're about 400 dollars and would give you a great idea of what you're really doing to your mix.

i'm monitoring on NS-10m & Genelec 1030, so I think it's ok.

I spoke with the guy who do the mastering and he said that my mix were boomy : too much lo meds. I knew that because my room is untreated ( I moved the studio temporarly to my flat, waiting for a new studio for rent ).
So the question should have been : How do I prevent loosing things at mastering if my monitoring conditions are not acurate ?

Seems that the snare drum was having its main energy in the "boomy" portion, so when the mastering guy EQed it, the snare loosed itself in the guitars etc...

I though I had listened enough music in the new condition to know how were sounding the monitors, but ... I was wrong !

thx.

it depends on the room size and whether or not your monitors are meant to be nearfield or not...i dont think i'd be able to help you answer your question...you could try compressing some of the drum samples so the higher mid frequencies dont get jumbled with the guitar...just fool around with it untill it sounds right...good luck

i did a "boomy" mix once, and it was all about the placement of my monitors. you should check your monitor placement and acoustic treatment if it's not definetly right.
also,
in my best mixes, and ALL i do is ROCK and Drum and Bass, there's a CUT in the low mids of some sort on most of the tracks. significant one's on Kick, sometimes guitars, sometimes bass. it's that notch right above the dynamic range of pitch,,, but not taking away from the harmonics,,,, wide-pitch-range tracks, you wouldn't want to do that with, but one where it doesn't take away from the dynamics,, a cut there is often healthy! best you can with what you got my friend!

This is what I do because my room sucks....I mix it so it sounds good in my room, and I don't boost any lows or low mids until I've burned a copy of the song. I reference it in my car (with subwoofers) and my surround sound system (with a subwoofer). I'm so used to how music sounds in my car and on my surround sound that I know exactly what I need to do with the rest of the mix as far as the lows and the low mids go.

Do you listen at low volume occasionally to determine where the bass & drums levels are? This is especially important in an untreated room (my room's treated and I still do it frequently).
KTek's advice about monitor placement is on the money also. Make sure they're at least two feet from the wall.

thanks for all your answers...

I also check my mix on other systems, like cars / friends hifi etc...
That's how I figured out that my mixes sucked !
but I just cannot check on other system often enough...
My monitors are 2 meters from the wall, that's the best I can do...
and now that I have listened more carrefully, it's seems that this distance correct a lot of problems in the lows ... but the low mids are juste horrible, I would not want to see the frequency response of my current setup : too scary !!!

I've been wasting a lot of money on discs.....so I'm buying an mp3 player and hardwiring it into my car stereo.....much cheaper! Even though mp3's sound different I think it'll make things a little easier.

aksel wrote: i'm monitoring on NS-10m & Genelec 1030, so I think it's ok.

I spoke with the guy who do the mastering and he said that my mix were boomy : too much lo meds. I knew that because my room is untreated ( I moved the studio temporarly to my flat, waiting for a new studio for rent ).
So the question should have been : How do I prevent loosing things at mastering if my monitoring conditions are not acurate ?

Seems that the snare drum was having its main energy in the "boomy" portion, so when the mastering guy EQed it, the snare loosed itself in the guitars etc...

I though I had listened enough music in the new condition to know how were sounding the monitors, but ... I was wrong !

thx.

One thing i have noticed when doing my mixing is the actual distance away from the speakers that i am makes a huge difference in the low end response. The closer you are to the speakers the less low end. Do some testing: play some music that you usually listen to through your system and move close, then move away from the speakers... you will notice a difference in the low end. If you are mixing to close to the speakers your gonna eq and compensate for the lack of low / low mid end, which in turn will translate to a boomy/muddy mix. In my particular control room i found that about 5 feet away is ample enough. One other thing is the wiring of your speakers, make sure there is no phase problems within the wiring of your speakers... out of phase speakers will kill the low end response, yielding similiar results.

man !!! :shock:

My speakers aren't out of phase :p I think I would have noticed that !

I'm at about 1m50 of my speakers, wich is probably the same amount of distance you are speaking about...

Anyway, I've finished the mix... It's the most complicated mix I have ever done due to my bad listening conditions !!!
I had to often check it on different systems to avoid doing anything wrong.
I made a lot of compromises, but the end product is OK.

thanks for your help :D