13-04-2013, 05:20 PM (This post was last modified: 14-04-2013, 05:58 PM by dirtythree.)
EDIT: As I was listening to your mixes, I noticed that my mix was lacking some kick drum, so I did a new version. I also put a high shelf on the overheads, to tame the harshness of the cymbals
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Hello! I started mixing recently, and this is the first mix that doesn’t end drowned in sonic chaos, so I’m submitting it to see if someone can point out if there are basic things that I have omitted, where are the flaws and mistakes, which things to improve or directly which things sound like ass... Anything that could help me improve the mix and, on the long run, my mixing skills...
(By the way, in case you haven’t noticed, I’m not a native english speaker, so I hope that taking part in this forum helps me improve my english. Two in a row )
Thanks in advance!
(Disclaimer: as you will notice, I've rearranged the intro... at some point, I felt it sounded cooler this way, but maybe I took too much liberty... is it right?)
16-04-2013, 12:56 AM (This post was last modified: 16-04-2013, 12:57 AM by Dags.)
Greetings and welcome!
An unexpected intro and a nice step away from the standard introduction of this song, so well done for using your initiative here
Few things to consider with the mix (new version)
There is a lot of 'wool' in the bottom end, the most likely culprit is the acoustic guitars and bass, which, once cleaned up, will also allow the kick drum to be heard a bit better.
One quick way of cleaning up the tracks is to use a High Pass Filter (HPF) on anything which doesn't have useful energy down below 100Hz (guitars, voice, some keyboards, etc). This will keep that end of the spectrum clear for bass, kick and larger tom-tom drums (especially the floor tom).
From memory, scooping a little 200-250Hz out of the bass also helped clean things up a bit.
To separate the kick and bass a bit more, find a nice 'power' spot in the kick between 50 - 100Hz and cut a little of the same frequency range out of the bass. Enhancing a bit of the beater head 'click' can also make the kick's presence more noticeable.
The drums overall (kick, snare, toms) could come up a little compared to the level of the guitars and bass, which are dominating the mix at the moment.
Hope this has been of some help, and looking forward to hearing more from you.
Hi Dags
Thank you for the feedback. Your advice made quite a difference! I had hipassed the guitars, but not enough, just to the 150 hz... i moved the hipass to the 300 hz and then hipassed a few more tracks (vocals, overheads...), and suddenly it was all clearer... Also, the cuts on the bass helped
I found the kick attack to be around the 3khz... I boosted it and rebalanced the kick-snare (because the snare leaking was getting boost too). I tried to isolate it with a gate, but i was not seeing it clear, so i took this option better.
I found that adding a compressor on the drum folder was quite helpful in evening the balance of the drums, and achieve a better balance with the other elements of the song
So here is a new version... Hope it sounds better!
Now that you've removed the excessive energy from the frequency range of the acoustic guitars that was making the song too boomy, I'm thinking that the bass can now come up in level to have it sit in the mix with a bit more 'solidity' (is that even a word?)
...just listening through a second time, the kick, snare and bass can all afford to come up in level, just a little bit, against the dominant acoustic guitars. Just a little nudge will do, nothing too dramatic.
BTW, I hope that these pointers have stayed true to your vision of the song. The last thing I want to do is impose any kind of direction based on my personal tastes. Just trying to give you a bit of guidance through the general mixing fog
I appreciate it! I guess when you spend some time working in a song, there is a point where you don’t remember where you came from, and if you leave some things in a determinate way at a certain point then you get used to them and start seeming normal. Then you do what I did: trying to get the kick to sound by cranking up the volume instead of making room for it...
Also, yeah, giving good, non-biased advice is another art by itself... This forum seems a good place for it. I hope with time I can start giving good advices too! That will mean that I’m evolving
Thank you for taking the time, I’ll try this batch of advice and post the results. I think the bass is going to need some kind of different processing. I’m feeling that it kind of loses all the body at the end of the verse, when it goes to an upper range, and it gets more obvious as I turn up the fader... so I'm gonna try. Maybe giving it more mid-range, although I might loose the bump in the low end... maybe i'll try to duplicate the track and process it differently. Or maybe a more aggressive compression could do the job? Anyway, I'll try!
Try a little of it on the bass! It thickens up the mids rather well and gets the instrument to be more audible when played up the fretboard. Don't forget to high-pass the distortion (12-18dB/octave slope @ around 300-400Hz I think - someone may correct me on the frequency) or the low end will become murky. You only need a very small amount of the distortion channel in the mix. I'm talking 'solo it and it's barely there' kind of level. Just enough to add a bit of subtle thickness to the mids of the bass strings.
I made a new mix. I tried a little bit of distortion on the bass, and although the tone changed, I think sounds good! After that, I tried to achieve a little bit of rawness, more "rocking" energy. I reworked mainly the vocals (which i think now feel more dry, only with parallel distortion and compression, no delays nor these kind of fx) and the guitars (which are more distorted, and I think more "in your face"), and rebalanced the drums. So basically I changed it all Hope you like it!
I only listened to your last mix and it leaves me a bit confused.
What I hear here is a drumset that contains of a deep but not very defined kick, a good sounding snare, nice balanced hihats, not so nice balanced cymbals (read: too low). This drumset is accompanied by a singer. And somewhere in the background I can hear some guitars.
Let's see if we can sort this out a bit.
First of all I guess the drums are too loud. The kick is dominating your mix in an unpleasent way. Try to reduce it's level and take another look at the EQ-settings. It does not need that much lowend. Try to find something else of the kick in the upper midrange to give it a bit more definition. You will find it way easier to make the kick audible at a lower level.
Now that you've created some space by that, you can try to let the bass and the drums work together. The bass needs less lowend than the kick but it needs midrange. You can get that via parallel distortion or try an ampsimulation on it. Once you get that try to create a nice mix with only drums, bass and vocals. Make sure that nothing dominats the rest.
Once you've got that see where the guitars fit in your mix. To me they seem to be important so you (me) want to hear them clearly - again, without dominating the rest.
You had a nice idea during the intro but lost me right after it.
I hope this wasn't too harsh or that I totally missed the point of your mix but I'm afraid that the way it sounds right now should not be the end.
You’re totally right, Artbass. I must apologize here. There were some sloppy decisions that I didn’t callibrate well, maybe fruit of the weariness or the mental fatigue, that blew it all off. I should have let it rest for a while before showing it.
Anyway, your advice is worthy. I’m rebuilding the balance once again from the beginning. When I have something worth listening I’ll let you know
Thanks for taking the time to listen and to comment. No worries about harshness, I asked for feedback and you gave it
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