Musicians Collaboration Studio
How To => Production Tips and Tricks! => Topic started by: Studioplayer on January 09, 2008, 02:38:34 PM
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Hey guys..CD, Nick, Cary, Davidinoz and anyone else. You guys all seem to get really good finished products. Got any tips when it comes to mixing down tracks? Do you eq out the bass from the guitars? Do you compress much on any instruments? Any tips would be helpful on how to make our tracks come alive. I know every song is different but there must be some basic ideas. ???
Mine are always muddy. :'(
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There's no easy answer to this.
If I had to sum the important points up, I'd say accurate listening environment, monitors, knowledge, ear training, and lots of experience are what lead to good balanced mixes. For me, it's been many years of recording experience and doing hundreds of mixes which have helped me understand what works and what doesn't. Not that I believe I've arrived.
Understanding the trends of modern music and listening to current reference material is important if you want things to sound fresh. There are certain trends which will force the masses to agree that a particular mix is 'good' however most would agree (now, looking back) that the mixes of the eighties were over soaked in reverb. It's a thought to ponder.
I can't recommend any magic tool that will get you mixes that sound great. There are lots of tools which aid the process, but it comes down to ears and experience.
If you want to do some ear training, play around with harbal. It will help you to understand what you are hearing. I do want to qualify my comment about harbal however. Just because you have a mix that seems balanced in harbal doesn't mean it will sound nice. For those with less than perfect listening environment, harbal can help identify some problem areas which aren't otherwise heard. Try your best to not make harbal the necessary tool in your mixes. Learn what you're hearing so you can make the changes with your ears. I can bet that most pro mixes have not been processed in harbal. This is a case of 'do as I say, not as I do' because I still find myself correcting things in harbal from time to time.
Keep doing mixes
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One very important thing (at least I think it's very important). Less can be more. Don't push things to extremes without very good reasons to do so, on anything. Mixing has a ton of subtlety to it. That goes for EQ'ing, effects, overall mix levels, basically everything.
A thing I've seen a lot of, especially people coming from the analog world into digital is to mix things very hot. In analog land this was not too bad of a way to go, in digital land this is very bad. You need a good amount of headroom, even on your final mixes. Make it "loud" later, keep the headroom until then.
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Back in '04 -'05, I started putting my mixes out there to be critiqued. People seemed to like them, so I dove in and read everything I could on the subjects of recording, mixing and mastering. I bought good monitors, headphones, pro sound interfaces, PodXt, Pre-amps, Compressors and decent mics.
I thought I was getting good, then I heard a mix that this guy named Cary did over at CC. I was blown away with the balance, dynamics and most of all the vocal treatment. So I bugged the heck out of him until he would critique my stuff and give me pointers. 8)
The real secret is, learn about compression, EQ and FX placement and it's own eq. Ask yourself "Can I hear everything?" Move things around the sound-stage so they don't step on each other. Eq the fundamental frequencies of an instrument and pull out those same freqs in the other tracks. And that great sounding beefy guitar sounds great by itself...but will muddy up the mix. Pull back the lows where the bass and kick sit. (not your sound Dave...just a general statement)..
Then listen to some music that is in the genre of what you are working on. "Tune" your ears. Go back to the reference track many times during your mix or eq'ing the master.
Than after all that, get Cary to mix it!!!!! >:D
Nick
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Some good advice guys. 8) I put up this thread not only for myself but for others to read that need this kind of info. Mixing is a real art and takes a lot of trial & error.
I was reading on another site that you shouldn't pan guitars hard right & left. They mentioned no more than 50%. ??? Not sure if that's really true. I know of a few albums that I listen too that have guitars panned very hard. Sounds good to me.
I was experimenting with mono vs stereo last night. Panning 2 guitar tracks (stereo) and panning the same tracks in mono to see the comparison. It may be my imagination but the mono tracks seemed ever so slightly clearer than the stereo tracks. How do you guys do your guitars or prefer them? Mono or stereo?
Dave
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I was experimenting with mono vs stereo last night. Panning 2 guitar tracks (stereo) and panning the same tracks in mono to see the comparison. It may be my imagination but the mono tracks seemed ever so slightly clearer than the stereo tracks. How do you guys do your guitars or prefer them? Mono or stereo?
Dave
I like mono guitar tracks unless there is a certain Stereo FX I am trying to capture with the track.
I am sure that stereo vs. mono has something to do with pan laws you are using and placement of the track.
Nick
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Hmm, and I always thought that stereo was better for guitar ??? Just goes to show how much I know... I'll have to try Mono more often.
One day I need to get me some monitors so I can mix with something other then headphones, at the moment I mix with the cans (HD280 Pros), then play it through my stereo system (Some Sony thing with a sub) there is so much difference, espiecally the vocals, what I can hear really well through the cans, I can hardly hear through the stereo, it's a real juggle to get something that sounds right on both of them. I really need to get right down and listen to more songs of the song genre I'm mixing. And work out what goes where.
I also need to leave a lil more headroom, prolly pushing it a little to much.
So much to learn :)
Dan.
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For me, it's been many years of recording experience and doing hundreds of mixes which have helped me understand what works and what doesn't.
I have found that what Cary has said is very true. I have been "playing" with my music in my home studio now for 10 years, but it has only been since I joined MC two years back that I have really been trying to learn the fundamentals. I have read a lot of the stuff NickT has pointed me to, and I have learned through some back-and-forth with CD on mixes he has done for me, trying to get what he is hearing and doing and talking about. I bought the David Moulton Golden Ears ear-training CD's, got better monitors, started addressing some of my listening environment issues and read the SMART books by Bill Gibson (I like them - nice visual examples of how audio works, if that makes sense) and just spent more time listening and trying to understand what it is I hear.
After more than a year of doing this, I can say that I am still terrible -- but (this is the point, I get to it eventually) some of this is starting to click in for me and make sense and I'm starting to get a little confidence when I twist the EQ and compression dials, that I have some clue about what it will do to the music. And I can appreciate now that this takes years and years of practice, study and experience to get really good.
People on this site have been a great learning resource for me.
Rob
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Well, good thing I'm young then, and got (hopefully) decades left to learn with :D
Dan.
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Hey Guys...
Just noticed this thread so I thought I'd post my 2p's worth.
I think for me it all started as a kid. My Dad was a big HiFi fan and as a six year old upwards would let me come downstairs at night and listen to his Quad system with the big electrostatic speakers. He would point out the difference in various LP's or new bits of hifi that friends may bring around. This would include stuff like change the cartridge on the turntable to hear the difference. At first I couldn't tell , then as I grew up I noticed how awful most of my friends parents systems would sound in comparison, and also how some albums sounded almost unlistenable on a good HiFi. So I think it taught me what good sound should be like and trained my ears somewhat.
When I got into music it was via computers, not any real musical ability in the traditional sense and I eventually hooked up with other musicians to work on songs whose parents on the whole listened to cheap nasty sounding hifi systems, so I was in an ideal position to play their stuff over better speakers to them and point out how rough it sounded. It was then I realised I had the better trained ears to do something about it and although my kit was limited to a 4 track cassette and a reverb , I made sure I used high quality interconnects ( borrowed off the HiFi gear ) and boosted the treble to counteract the noise reduction, it was just the natural thing to do for me. When I got into it more I upgraded to an Adat and an 8 buss desk. That's when I really learned how to mix. Each piece of gear I owned was expensive for me, so I chose carefully and learned how to use proerly, read magazines and books , listened to mixes I liked and tried to copy the style on my own stuff , or steal some of the production ideas. Eventually I had a seprate outboard for Reverb, Delay, Sampler, Exciter, Compressor , MultiFX, but I'd learned to use each one slowly and think that's made a big difference down the line with the amount of plugins etc. around.
So that's the history lesson outta the way !!!! On to the practicle stuff...
If I'm recording then try to get the source as good as possible. If it sounds a bit dodgy then it's quicker to re-record than try to fix it later....Rob can vouch for that with the number of tracks I asked him to re-record ! Just use your ears when mic'ing stuff up.
I always for for the shorest cleanest signal path I can and will use expensive cables if i have one, even if it means taking off the HiFi / AV system for a while, I find it makes a small but worthwhile difference.
I try to think of the mix as something that's kinda 3D...it has L/R ( panning ) and height (Lo to Hi Frequency ) .. and depth ( front back which can be achieved with both eq and reverb )
So to me a mix might typically have the bass and vocal in the foreground and guitars to the left and right set back a little and maybe some string further back still occupying a higher position.
I tend to mix drums then bass to get a solid foundation going before I add anything and like to set a mix up to feed a number of busses which I can use as stems ( or submixes ) to help with overall balancing later on. It also make it easier to spot when stuff is masking other tracks too much as it's easy to just mute a whole bunch of tracks i.e the guitars or backing vocals to play around.
In very general terms I do this: -
Drums - I eq and compress most if not all tracks to suit....take some low end out of the Oheads and blend them in. I've never used a Hihat mic'd track yet, they come through enough on the room or overheads mics. Make sure you pan it all correctly and don't get it out of phase.
Bass - quite a bit of compression generally...I find I put quite a bit of treble on to help it cut through as other tracks can mask it. I generally eq it quite heavily too cutting out muddy sounding freqencies
Vocal - I try not to compress too heavily maybe 4-5 db's gain reduction max and use automation more to keep it above the backing track. Eq wise I'll try to surgically cut nasty frequencies out and boost the nicer airy sounding ones.
Guitars - Yes Dave, as a rule I'll filter out the lower end depending on how busy the rest of the mix is...I'll pan them around and put delays on if it's that sort of song and generally try anything to make 'em sound a little different. I put them quite wide to leave space for the vocals. I like to put a transient enhancer on acoustics to bring out the attack.
Keys - I try to eq them to fit between the other instruments, so cut the stuff that might mask the guitars and boost the sounds above the vocal range. Again strange effects can help..try anything.
Bv's - I cut all the low end out of 'em and compress teh life out them mostly >:D
I try not to use too much compression, and keep the dynamics. I remember having only one compressor I could ever use on a track and the mixes still came out good, I just had to ride more faders...and it's easier with automation now. I just finished ' it's my time ' for Ali , and that had alot of automation going on to make it more dynamic as the chorus just lost impact otherwise.
I too like to see my mix in Harbal as I know my room has poor acoustics and I need to work around it. It can show me where I'm missing stuff ( usually the bass ) and I can then go back and add it back in Sonar, though I do use it to shape the master track quite often, sometimes it won't improve it, so I figure I got it spot on originally ! But I like to try it each time.
Here's some screengrabs of Ali's song for you guys to look at. Hope that helps
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Here's a few more....
If anyone wants any of it explaining please ask
CD
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There are certain trends which will force the masses to agree that a particular mix is 'good' however mosee (now, looking back) that the mixes of the eighties were over soaked in reverb. It's a thought to ponder.
I can't even listen to alot of George Michael records ( usually the ballads ) , because he has this mass of reverb over it, and everytime he sings an 's' sounds there's like this explosion of reverb all over the track that I just can't bear. Hope I haven't ruined anyone's record collection for 'em now. My wife can't listen either since i told here to listen out for it.
I also think the 90's and 00's will become know for the time when we destroyed alot of the dynamics in our music to gain loudness..I think the backlash has started but there's alot of albums that are very fatigueing to listen to out there nowadays especially in the rock/pop material.
CD
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Great info Mark. 8) I still have to really look at everything closer so I may have some questions. This is the kind of info that I was looking for from all you guys. I was hoping this could be one of those on going threads that could help some of us that are not always the greatest mixers. It really helps with visual as well.
Short audio samples could be cool too. ;)
GREAT stuff guys. Keep em coming as you think of them. 8)
Dave
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wiskey & pepsi mix it with ice ;D
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Yeah... but if you want to get it really clean then it should be whisky on the rocks.
Don't want to muddy up things too much. >:D
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Dave, my advice is simple, go for the best sound you can get at the time of recording your instrument. If you think by recording a crap sound to start with by simply saying effects and compression at mixing stage will make it sound brilliant, it won't. I always thought your stuff sounded cool enough anyway!
BTW gentlemen - You should never add pepsi or coca cola to whiskey. If you like whiskey why do you feel the need to mask the flavour? Only water should be added. Do not use tap water either as this contains chlorine which won't compliment any whiskey. Use bottled spring water (room temperature) and no ice (this will dull the aroma and high quality taste of the whiskey). Now when you go to take a sip....you'll smell that wonderful aroma! Cheers!
Aidan.
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I tend to not compress the bass when recording it. It sounds better to me if I adjust the levels so I'm not spiking it and then let the mix engineer add the compression he feels that is needed.
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Dave, my advice is simple, go for the best sound you can get at the time of recording your instrument. If you think by recording a crap sound to start with by simply saying effects and compression at mixing stage will make it sound brilliant, it won't. I always thought your stuff sounded cool enough anyway!
BTW gentlemen - You should never add pepsi or coca cola to whiskey. If you like whiskey why do you feel the need to mask the flavour? Only water should be added. Do not use tap water either as this contains chlorine which won't compliment any whiskey. Use bottled spring water (room temperature) and no ice (this will dull the aroma and high quality taste of the whiskey). Now when you go to take a sip....you'll smell that wonderful aroma! Cheers!
Aidan.
Aidan
Excellent tips. -)
Red wine will help see all things are fine and you will appreciate the great music until the next morning that is!
Cheers
Bluesguy
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There seems to be enough information here to convince me I'm way to far behind this type of expertise to even attempt to master.
Hopefully I can at least write song people would care to master. ::)
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From tweakheadz....
Tip: Never let the drummer in the control room, except under extreme sedation, unless you want all your mixes to sound like Led Zepplin. ;D
http://www.tweakheadz.com/perfect_mix.html
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Can someone explain why it's better to do guitars mono? I am recording a song and I have the input on my recording program set to stereo, but my distortion patch doesn't have any stereo effects anyway, so how does it make any difference whether I set the input to stereo or mono?
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I believe with a mono signal, it is more of a file size thing.
When you record a mono signal in stereo, it will be panned center but the wave file is twice as large (L-R). No sound difference from Mono panned center. I also think that the signal strength when panned (depending on how your pan laws are set) will be weaker.
Unless I am using a stereo FX from outside the DAW, I record mono and apply stereo FX in a buss.
Most times I mult the mono rhythm tracks and split them left and right.
Hope that helps and welcome to the site.
Nick
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Thanks, it was very helpful indeed.
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There seems to be enough information here to convince me I'm way to far behind this type of expertise to even attempt to master.
It's 2 of us now...
... But I liked the alchool talk, those are my boys ;D
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Can someone explain why it's better to do guitars mono? I am recording a song and I have the input on my recording program set to stereo, but my distortion patch doesn't have any stereo effects anyway, so how does it make any difference whether I set the input to stereo or mono?
I could be completely wrong, but...
I think (unless using stereo FX before the mix) that recording guitar stereo helps to muddy the mix. Since you end up recording some identical tones at the same frequencies, they can cancel each other out. You could separate the stereo track, invert the polarity of one side, and recombine them to help a little bit, but I think a mono recording cuts through better still.
To use CD's 3D visual example...
Recording a guitar stereo vs. 2 mono tracks:
A mono track is placed in one place in the mix. Picture a bullet shot from a gun - it's traveling along only one path to it's target. That's your mono track. A stereo track would be represented by TWO bullets fired simultaneously, and though they might SOUND like one trail directly between the two, they're still in the mix in TWO places - not actually a true center.
I agree with Nick too, in that I like to double the rhythm track with a second recording (using slightly different guitar tones) and pan one to the left, and the other to the right. that gives it enough variation to not cancel each other, and still fatten up the sound.
A simple stereo chorusing trick for a mono track:
Duplicate a mono track in your DAW, zoom WAAAY in, and delete the tiniest bit possible. Invert one of the tracks, and pan one hard left, the other hard right. Watch out for mud though. ;)
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Expanding on guitar tracking, there is a cumulative effect that happens to harmonics, distortion, etc. etc. when you record a performance multiple times.
At a bare minimum, I will record a guitar track 2x (then pan hard left/right), but most of the time I'll quad-track guitars.
If I really need a *very* heavy sound (ala arch enemy or some other extreme band), I'll track parts up to 8 times. By the time you've stacked 8 rhythms on top of each other, you could use almost no gain at all in each take, and have a monster tone.
Some things to keep in mind though, as previously mentioned, this is a cumulative thing, so a little goes a long way in terms of gain. Also you will definitely want to play as tightly as possible to yourself, but little variances are ok, in fact, it helps give it a less robotic feel (and your slight mis-timings will create a natural sense of reverb).
And as another person mentioned earlier, if you mix up your tone - say record 4 tracks with a more bass heavy tone and 4 with a more treble heavy tone - the differences in the tone can add character to the overall sound.
Just some food for thought.
-N
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I have to agree with the less gain is better approach for heavy guitar. Even the heaviest sounding stuff (in a recording) likely has surprisingly little amount of actual distortion/overdrive on it. Most people take the opposite approach, adding more overdrive to get a "heavier" sound.
For example when I was recording someone a couple of years back who wanted to get the Alice in Chains type of sound ... he let me setup his amp for him after we had done a few tracks with it setup to his liking and he wasn't happy with the heaviness of it (it was massively compressed and overdriven). He was very dubious when he heard the sound coming out of the amp that I had dialed up and was even more surprised that i turned his super overdrive pedal overdrive knob down to 2 ... didn't think it had enough "balls" but trusted me and tracked it like that anyway. After double tracking it and dropping it into the mix he freaked out because it sounded very heavy and was exactly what he was looking for.
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EXACTLY right....more distortion = mud.
Less distortion + multiple tracks equal Big Fat Heavy Guitar sounds.
I've ran a pro recording studio of my own for about 20 years and every single time I had to deal with the same type of guitar situations. Trust is tough to come by when someone is paying, but NOT to do what you as the engineer works is unfair to he artist who wants to have a great recording. Tough line to walk since the person paying always has the final say no matter what is really best.
I have a similar situation wish bass players wanting all this low end on their bass. Well a similar thing with bass guitar is true - too much low frequencies will add up to mud as well. I always tell bass players NOT to pay attention to the sound I'm recording and just listen to what it sounds like when I'm mixing.
Oh yeah - and all this was learned during the days of 2" reel to reel tape. Now with all the computer stuff you can do....20-30 takes can not as crazy as it sounds. But then again just how good must the engineers and performers have been back in the days before all this technology??
Never thought a computer science degree would be essential for making and recording great music. But just ignore me - I'm old school who has to learn new tricks to keep pace with everything going on.
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I agree with everything you're saying. Sometimes oldschool is the best approach -- I've done my fair share of analog recording too. "Fix it in the mix" doesn't sit as well with me, and I find that a lot of engineers now take this approach these days (both pro and amateur). If it works for you, I guess ... whatever produces results, but I'm a bit of a purist in the fact that if you make it sound perfect at the mic it's always going to sound better in the endgame. If it sounds bad at the mic it might end up sounding great, or ok, or passable ... or not. That said I still have no problem chopping things into bits and reconstructing them. I did it in the analog days with 1/4" tape and a block as required. I must say I like this approach much better ;)
I think back to recordings when they would just say "Go!" and the vinyl master was cut, along with the fact they were using a single mic .. that also blows me away. We have it made these days. It was also amazing what people could do with 24 track as well. Remember having the group of people standing around the board and their job was to do that one fade, or pan, or eq change, or whatever and timing as critical. Now I turn on automation and do it rough, then go in with a mouse and clean it up and tweak it to your liking.
And sadly yes, you do have to have good computer and computer repair skills to get things running and keep them tweaked out, but in the same vein with 2" tapes you also had to hire someone to do all the maintenance on things and fix em when they broke. At least these days you can do it yourself on computers for the most part.
All-in-all I have to say I'm MUCH happier being able to record computer based than having to do analog again!
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Obviously we both see positive and negative aspects of each method of doing recording. My biggest problem as a schooled musician since the age of 4, is that most of these so-called Talented people" are nothing more than pretty faces with average voices and AMAZING producrs/engineers. Pitch correcting, changing, shortening, lengthening, etc. lead or backup vocals lines with the click of a mouse. Or any other instrument as well. C'mon - is that really music?? Not ever in my mind will it be and everyone is entitled to their opinion.
The BEST thing that I've seen or heard in the past 20+ years was when MTV (back when they were still playing music videos) had MTV Unplugged. THEN you got to see and hear what some so-called great bands REALLY sounded like. Some like STP, Alice In Chains, Nirvana (and I'm not a fan), Aerosmith - were awesome..others like Ratt, Poison, etc. were absolutely horrible. THAT to me is the real test of a band.
I love this internet recording thing because I get to make music with people from all over the world. But NOTHING will ever beat getting together and performing live. No studio tricks, just you and the audience and hopefully a decent soundman. We've got Virtual bands which are quite cool to watch and listen too. But when are we going to be able to have Virtual Bands playing LIVE on the internet?? Now THAT is something I'm looking forward to.
Shutting up now.
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I do enjoy live music too ... but even in the day I have to say that there were a lot of bands that were great on records and somewhat lacking live. Now the gap has just widened a bit. I'm sure that people said the same thing about the electric guitar, the multitrack recorder, etc etc. I hear what you're saying though, but thankfully most of this silliness is restricted to pop type material, which I've never been a big fan of anyway ;) There are still lots of good musicians out there though, but also consider that even the best musician is at the mercy of the engineer that's recording their material.
I'm sure all the real artists said the same thing when paint-by-numbers came out :D Music-by-numbers is still thriving unfortunately. Maybe it will be a fad too ...
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One very important thing (at least I think it's very important). Less can be more. Don't push things to extremes without very good reasons to do so, on anything. Mixing has a ton of subtlety to it. That goes for EQ'ing, effects, overall mix levels, basically everything.
A thing I've seen a lot of, especially people coming from the analog world into digital is to mix things very hot. In analog land this was not too bad of a way to go, in digital land this is very bad. You need a good amount of headroom, even on your final mixes. Make it "loud" later, keep the headroom until then.
My problem, mixing too hot! Can't seem to escape from my brain thinking "background noise" & "tape saturation". Will have a read of all these posts!
I know that you should have plenty of headroom, but after years of using tape it's a difficult habit to break!