(21-07-2015, 11:10 AM)Bold Beagle Wrote: Hey sysrq.
Any time you're dealing with a single source that's feeding into many microphones at the same time, undesirable phase cancellation is a possibility. Phase cancellation isn't good or bad necessarily, it's just a thing, but it's most likely the main reason we're hearing thinness in the vocals/instruments in this mix.
Another thing to consider: equalization works primarily by altering the phase relationships between selected frequencies and the rest of the audio feeding into the processor. In a multi-mic situation, where phase considerations already loom, this can get quite hazardous. Linear phase EQ can be helpful in these situations, but in my opinion it sounds ugly. If you want to use all the vocal mics, it's best to send them to a stereo bus and equalize them all together, and blend the tonal differences of the microphones to contribute to the total vocal sound. It's possible to partially reconstruct any damaged phase relationships with phase rotators and all-pass filters.
...but why bother with all of that when you could simple choose whichever vocal track you like best and sticking with that? That will mean less processing is necessary and the vocal sound will improve immediately. The same advice applies to other multi-miked instruments as well.
When you're EQing, do yourself a favor and stop trying to aggressively separate the instruments. Indeed, you want to give each instrument its own space, but you don't want to do it at the expense of the overall sonic coherence of the music. In most situations, assuming you've got the dynamics under control from track to track, only small EQ cuts should be necessary. You may need some broad, gentle shelving filters to control the bottom and top end of the spectrum, especially on guitars, but otherwise, try to use as little EQ as you can. You'll find your mixes translate much better outside your studio for one, and for two, keep in mind that we don't naturally hear things cleanly separated, so our ears aren't used to it and generally don't like it.
In situations where you're getting boxy build ups in the low mids, you may find it works better for you to gently process the master bus with a very high quality equalizer before you start processing the individual tracks.
Thanks, very perceptive admonitory words.
Here is new version with no hf boost and with shallow hpf curve on 100 Hz instead of 200 Hz.