The way sounds sit in the mix is an interesting concept to me and I haven't quite got it figured (it's really hit and miss for me)...what tools do I use analyze this and how do I use that information to make the mix sound balanced and defined....some guys have this down to a science...just curious how they do it with common plugs that come in cubase or similar host...ps: I also use Wavelab....

dano

Mixing i think is as complex or a simple as you make it. If you arrange your tracks well then they should almost mix themselves. If you arrange poorly then you'll be sat there for days trying to correct problems with EQ etc. Nowadays I mix pretty much mix on the fly and often change or re-record parts to fit the arrangement rather than try to fix them. If you are a mix engineer then this isnt an option really, but when its your own work then it pays to spend you time recording or designing the right sounds to fill all the appropriate spaces. For example, most pop records rack up a deceivingly large amount of tracks, many of which arent obvious to the listener. Things like backing vocals, shakers and tambourines, accoustic guitars, ambiences and pads etc are all used in the background to fill spaces in songs. Where it might seem suitable to be adding eq to get some glass for example, I'd be more tempted to use a couple of thin acoustic guitar tracks.

However, it is ofcourse necessary to have tools like eq, compression and reverb to mix your tracks. Also a spectrum analyser can be useful (there's one in Wavelab). Compressors can be used to smooth out dynamics, add punch and even control frequency. Infact i read an article the other day with the guy who mixed Arguillara's album. He said he used Waves C1 to control an unruley frequency in a couple of her vocals. He said it worked great because the compression would only trigger at the desired threshold, rather than if he'd used an EQ which would be constantly active. I dont have a link unfortunately but im sure it was at the 'Mix Online' site.

So, for example if you found that your kick drum was occupying the same space as your bass you might want to either:

- Change either / both to more suitable sounds
- Shape the with EQ to work better together
- Use a compressor to duck the bass using the kick

Lets say you are looking at an entire mix through the spectrum analyser. This might sound like a mastering process, but i find it very useful during mixing since it allows you instantly see if something is going wrong. Its very easy to get 'used' to the sound of flawed mix, but the analyser never lies. Also, you can compare to a reference track and really see where your mixes differ. Maybe you have some sub bass which is difficult to pick up on through the monitors but becomes clear as day through the analyser. So, once problems in the mix are identified you can then go back to the multitrack and correct them. If your bass instrument has some seriously problematic low end, then make an EQ cut at around 40 - 50 hz.

Hope this makes sense to you!

ps, there are some great articles about on site like 'Mix' online and 'Sound on Sound'.

tee boy wrote:

Mixing i think is as complex or a simple as you make it. If you arrange your tracks well then they should almost mix themselves. If you arrange poorly then you'll be sat there for days trying to correct problems with EQ etc. Nowadays I mix pretty much mix on the fly and often change or re-record parts to fit the arrangement rather than try to fix them. If you are a mix engineer then this isnt an option really, but when its your own work then it pays to spend you time recording or designing the right sounds to fill all the appropriate spaces. For example, most pop records rack up a deceivingly large amount of tracks, many of which arent obvious to the listener. Things like backing vocals, shakers and tambourines, accoustic guitars, ambiences and pads etc are all used in the background to fill spaces in songs. Where it might seem suitable to be adding eq to get some glass for example, I'd be more tempted to use a couple of thin acoustic guitar tracks. .

Couldn't agree more! Never really thought of it in such terms till now though. My own mixes are so much better these days to a large extent cos the arrangements are much better. Everything in its place etc...

though I am still partial to a wall of shite now and again...

tee boy, thanks for the response....


Ok...I'm still a little unclear on the whole frequency analyzer thing...I know about cutting below 40-50Hz but what about mid range and the higher frequency. I'm not sure what's too much....give me an example of 2 types of similar frequencies that would interfere with one another in the mid range. How close in frequency is so close that it causes a problem...do you know what I mean?

dano

danielmm wrote:

what tools do I use analyze this?....some guys have this down to a science... dano

always rely on your EARS for final judegement.

it's a very subtle combination of science and art.

try to gain as much experience as possible.

Quote:

always rely on your EARS for final judegement. it's a very subtle combination of science and art. try to gain as much experience as possible.

I know what sounds bad and I know what sounds good but I don't understand how to use the tools well enough to make a difference in my mixes. I don't understand the process...that's what is giving me problems.......

dano

Quote:

I know what sounds bad and I know what sounds good but I don't understand how to use the tools well enough to make a difference in my mixes. I don't understand the process...that's what is giving me problems....... dano

Nobody can give you the clean cut answer your looking for. Every mix is different, requiring different tools and different settings. If something sounds bad then you need to isolate the problem and decide what to do. As mentioned already, try to get it right without using tools. For example, if a voice track is too bassy and blends with the bass guitar track, then you might re-record the vocal part except back off the mic several inches. That will eliminate some proximity effect and give the vocals less bass.
As far as EQ goes, you should familiarize yourself with frequency ranges for certain instruments. Where these ranges overlap is where you might find problems. What I like to do is kinda fit everything in its own range. If I have a bass guitar part, then I run it through a lowpass filter at about 5kHz. This makes sure that the bass is in it's own domain. Of course doing this you lose overtones, but you can't have everything
Also you might want to check out this site.
www.har-bal.com

Hope that helps.

Quote:

Nobody can give you the clean cut answer your looking for.

I know it's difficult to pin point but I'm the kind of person that needs to "see" what it is that makes the difference....for sure, getting it right from the start goes a long way but I still want to know how instruments clash and get in the way of each other. Ive always needed to understand something before I could use it(do it)....Im trying not to be a pill here....Im still confused....

Ill check out that site tho..........

dano

Daniel, you may check out GlissEQ's (http://www.voxengo.com/glisseq/) spectrum overlays feature. With its help you can actually see how instruments work together, spectrum-wise.

The free Voxengo SPAN FreqAnalyzer, an Equalizer and of course your ears.
http://www.voxengo.com/freevst/#VoxengoSPANVST

here are some generic mixing tips i've gathered.
maybe its helpful.
you have to know what your mixing before you know what you're looking at.

(LONG POST ALERT)


Instrument Frequency ranges
---------------------------------------------------------------------

Kick Drum
Any apparent muddiness can be rolled off around 300Hz.
Try a small boost around 5-7kHz to add some high end.

Frequency Effect
50-100Hz Adds bottom to the sound
100-250Hz Adds roundness
250-800Hz Muddiness Area
5-8kHz Adds high end prescence
8-12kHz Adds Hiss
-----------------------------------------------------------------

Snare
Try a small boost around 60-120Hz if the sound is a little too wimpy.
Try boosting around 6kHz for that 'snappy' sound.

Frequency Effect
100-250Hz Fills out the sound
6-8kHz Adds prescence
---------------------------------------------------------------------- -

Hi hats or cymbals
Any apparent muddiness can be rolled off around 300Hz.
To add some brightness try a small boost around 3kHz.

Frequency Effect
250-800Hz Muddiness area
1-6kHz Adds presence
6-8kHz Adds clarity
8-12kHz Adds brightness
-------------------------------------------------------------------

Bass
Try boosting around 60Hz to add more body.
Any apparent muddiness can be rolled off around 300Hz.
f more presence is needed, boost around 6kHz.

Frequency Effect
50-100Hz Adds bottom end
100-250Hz Adds roundness
250-800Hz Muddiness Area
800-1kHz Adds beef to small speakers
1-6kHz Adds presence
6-8kHz Adds high-end presence
8-12kHz Adds hiss
--------------------------------------------------------------------

Vocals
This is a difficult one, as it depends on the mic used to record the vocal.
However...
Apply either cut or boost around 300hz, depending on the mic and song.
Apply a very small boost around 6kHz to add some clarity.

Frequency Effect
100-250Hz Adds 'up-frontness'
250-800Hz Muddiness area
1-6kHz Adds presence
6-8kHz Adds sibilance and clarity
8-12kHz Adds brightness
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Piano
Any apparent muddiness can be rolled off around 300Hz.
Apply a very small boost around 6kHz to add some clarity.

Frequency Effect
50-100Hz Adds bottom
100-250Hz Adds roundness
250-1kHz Muddiness area
1-6kHz Adds presence
6-8Khz Adds clarity
8-12kHz Adds hiss
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Electric guitars
Again this depends on the mix and the recording.
Apply either cut or boost around 300hz, depending on the song and sound.
try boosting around 3kHz to add some edge to the sound, or cut to add some transparency.
Try boosting around 6kHz to add presence.
Try boosting around 10kHz to add brightness.

Frequency Effect
100-250Hz Adds body
250-800Hz Muddiness area
1-6Khz Cuts through the mix
6-8kHz Adds clarity
8=12kHz Adds hiss
------------------------------------------------------------------

Acoustic guitar
Any apparent muddiness can be rolled off between 100-300Hz.
Apply small amounts of cut around 1-3kHz to push the image higher.
Apply small amounts of boost around 5kHz to add some presence.

Frequency Effect
100-250Hz Adds body
6-8kHz Adds clarity
8-12kHz Adds brightness
--------------------------------------------------------------------

Strings
These depend entirely on the mix and the sound used.

Frequency Effect
50-100Hz Adds bottom end
100-250Hz Adds body
250-800Hz Muddiness area
1-6hHz Sounds crunchy
6-8kHz Adds clarity
8-12kHz Adds brightness
------------------------------------------------------------------

Low Bass: anything less than 50Hz This range is often known as the sub bass and
is most commonly taken up by the lowest part of the kick drum and bass guitar,
although at these frequencies it's almost impossible to determine any pitch. Sub
bass is one of the reasons why 12" vinyl became available: low frequencies
require wider grooves than high frequencies - without rolling off everything
below 50Hz you couldn't fit a full track onto a 7" vinyl record. However we do
NOT recommend applying any form of boost around this area without the use of
very high quality studio monitors (not home monitors - there is a vast
difference between home nearfield and studio farfield monitors costing anywhere
between £5,000 and £20,000). Boosting blindly in this area without a valid
reference point can and will permanently damage most speakers, even PA systems.
You have been warned!

Bass: 50-250Hz This is the range you're adjusting when applying the bass boost
on most home stereos, although most bass signals in modern music tracks lie
around the 90-200Hz area with a small boost in the upper ranges to add some
presence or clarity.

Muddiness/irritational area: 200-800Hz The main culprit area for muddy sounding
mixes, hence the term 'irritational area'. Most frequencies around here can
cause psycho-acoustic problems: if too many sounds in a mix are dominating this
area, a track can quickly become annoying, resulting in a rush to finish mixing
it as you get bored or irritated by the sound of it.

Mid-range: 800-6kHz Human hearing is extremely sensitive at these frequencies,
and even a minute boost around here will result in a huge change in the sound -
almost the same as if you boosted around 10db at any other range. This is
because our voices are centred in this area, so it's the frequency range we hear
more than any other. Most telephones work at 3kHz, because at this frequency
speech is most intelligible. This frequency also covers TV stations, radio, and
electric power tools. If you have to apply any boosting in this area, be very
cautious, especially on vocals. We're particularly sensitive to how the human
voice sounds and its frequency coverage.

High Range: 6-8kHz This is the range you adjust when applying the treble boost
on your home stereo. This area is slightly boosted to make sounds artificially
brighter (although this artificial boost is what we now call 'lifelike') when
mastering a track before burning it to CD.

Hi-High Range: 8-20kHz This area is taken up by the higher frequencies of
cymbals and hi-hats, but boosting around this range, particularly around 12kHz
can make a recording sound more high quality than it actually is, and it's a
technique commonly used by the recording industry to fool people into thinking
that certain CDs are more hi-fidelity than they'd otherwise sound. However,
boosting in this area also requires a lot of care - it can easily pronounce any
background hiss, and using too much will result in a mix becoming irritating.

Yeah, I got that list printed here somewhere too. Might be a good thing of looking at that one more often.

Mixing I find to be one of the hardest things, but now after a year of fiddling about I am slowly getting a bit more grips with it. For the most part, the most important tool you'll ever need are your ears (and offcourse a good monitoring system). Most of all it is creating room for overlapping sounds and tracks and staying low on big feedback plugs (reverb/delay/chorus). The mixing road I personally am travelling is big EQ dips in the separate tracks and it seems to be working for me. Still its an ongoing learning process with a lot of trial and error.

There's millions of tools and ways to get the mixing done and its a matter of finding your own route through them and in that process creating your own sound.

Thanks for the response jdg....that's exactly what Im looking for....dano

Daniel
What really made the difference for me was when i came to remix a pro track. First i was given all the vocals, drums and synths to pick any choose what i wanted. I also had the originalas a reference. Out of curiosity i decided to through the original parts together, and i was amazed by how they all sloted together perfectly with little or no need for eq of compression (admittedly some had probably already been used). Still, it was at this point that i realise that the various mixing tools are there really to correct minor problems and not compensate for a poor arrangement.

I seriously recommend you download some remix files and try this out. Changed our whole outlook on shit...

Being a complete novice I found this fairly useful:

http://www.dnbscene.com/articles.php?mode=display&id=79

darkflame23 wrote:

danielmm wrote: what tools do I use analyze this?....some guys have this down to a science... dano always rely on your EARS for final judegement.

Do so BUT.. keep in mind limitations of them, how they will easily fool you into thinking things that may not be true, and how they WILL adjust themself to any sound if they listen to it long enough and finally, as they get tired, the image will become more and more wrong.

Trust your ears, but use analyzers I say. The combo is deadly, just look at spectres of mastered tracks, while you're listening to them, and try to understand how the image and sound are related.

And always remember to A/B. Compare (by ear, FreeFilter and shit like that is evil, avoid by all means) what you're doing with two or more sources that are similiar to your track, and professionally mastered.

Also, try to listen to your music without looking at arrangement, walk around the room, render and surprise yourself with it (in context of listening to music done by the others) you'll discover a lot by doing this, not only sonically, but musically aswell.

tee boy wrote:

If you arrange your tracks well then they should almost mix themselves. If you arrange poorly then you'll be sat there for days trying to correct problems with EQ etc. Nowadays I mix pretty much mix on the fly and often change or re-record parts to fit the arrangement rather than try to fix them.

A big Amen to that.

Any time two parts play at the same time in the same frequency range you'll have a problem. If you're purely a mix engineer your only solution is to get their frequencies disentangled, but if you write your own music you can rearrange so that they don't play at the same time.

Example of the first strategy: put a low cut on any piano / rhodes part. A nice full range is cool if you play solo, but it contributes nothing to a mix. On the contrary. For the few moments where that instrument really has to cut through add a little mid/high boost.

Example of the second strategy: if you have a guitar and a piano part, let one play a rhythm that emphasises the quarter or half notes, and the other more syncopated. If they don't play at the same time there's no problem of them getting in each other's way. Rhythmic independence is compsitionally more interesting too.

V.

one of the human sensory capacities that science has denigrated is synaesthesia, eg. sensory analogues, hearing scents, et c.

it's useful for learning to mix. close your eyes and listen to the sounds w/ your head and monitors in a nice equilateral triangle arrangement, not like these twits who sit like right between the speakers and get saturated by stereo separation and all.

okay. back to closing your eyes.. let the sounds visualise as shapes, eg. the kick drum might be like a giant smooth marshmallow that rapidly expands and contracts right in the center of the mix, like mathematic 3d animation. simply a matter of intuitive summing of directional vectors, completely real and discrete, no need for the establishment to label it as psychosis except to limit the popular imagination.

people are going to read this and be like "wtf?"

tee boy wrote:

Still, it was at this point that i realise that the various mixing tools are there really to correct minor problems and not compensate for a poor arrangement.

Not to be patting myself on the back for this, but I've never really had the problems of mixing. It came out of good sonic choices for my instruments. If something didn't fit, I tried something different instead of fighting it. I always looked at it in 'sections' of low, medium and high, and made sure all the spaces were filled, but not bulging at the seams. I didn't start using EQ until a few years ago, because really, on a lot of things, it's not needed, if you made good choices. I also avoid reverb like the plague for the most part. Good quality sounds also help as well.

Devon

Sounds like you had it down from the start mate. Unfortunately i had to discover this through experience. Kind of ironic cuz i had all these lecturers preaching to me about getting the right recordings and sounds, but i was always prone to reaching for the eq's.

I definately think you are right about considering the ranges, but i also like to think of a mix in terms of foreground, midground and background. This totally influences my decisions during mixing and particularly my use of reverb. I think reverb is such an important effect, I try to use it most tracks even if its so subtle its barely audiable. I love talking about this stuff though cuz its fasinating how different people go about the same task.