Why Do My Mixes Sound Awful?

[Artie Fichelle]

Because the guy who mixes it has no good ears.

[Zeisner]

it is all about the song, the vibe, the groove, soul etc

But the mix also creates the vibe and soul. Everything that is part of the sound does. You provided an example yourself:

Today's standard is very polished, compressed, loud mixes, some may call it good sound, but the vibe arrangement , creativity and the lyrics of a lot of songs, well, that's a different topic

That type of mix is a good example of how a bad mix can ruin music. Making everything as loud and right-in-your face as possible reduces or even removes tension/release mechanisms based on volume and frequency, ultimately killing the vibe/soul. Considering the high amounts of aliasing I wouldn't consider such mixes to be polished either.

[DCrown]

I get your point, it depends on what you are.
Are you composer or are just playing one two instruments or songwriter or recording engineer or mixing engineer?
As a mixing engineer your main focus would be on mixing. If you are everything in one person, then mixing might be the least important thing (best case!) and I could give you examples of very famous and successful artists who were most things in one person.
I see and know quite a lot of daw users, they make their own music and mixing is more than 50% of the whole process til finished song.
And the results often speak for themselves.
A better way imo is 35% composing whatever your method is maybe including improvisation to find some idea. 20% song wriiting/lyrics, 10% arrangment, 5% choosing the instruments, 5% mic positioning/testing mics and tuning instruments, 15% tracking/recording, 10% mixing and mastering.
Or in other words: I prefer a good song with mediocre mix quality over an awful song with good mix quality.
If you can afford hiring a mixing engineer, then you could expect from him good results, whatever good results mean, I am pretty sure what I expect a good mix to sound like would be very different from how you would probably like and that's ok, all I expect is fast results, but my focus is on good songs and again what I consider good songs probably is different from your view.
It takes experience to learn mixing and mastering to achieve satisfactory results and the most important thing for me is doing it quickly without striving for perfection (there is no anyway) and starting every day for many days trying to improve the mix again and again just to find out that the first version was the best - complete waste of time and energy and is no joy and you will start to hate mixing.

[jamcat]

Why not just try to make a good song with a nice melody and mix it so you can hear each part with clarity, then call it done?

When you do that, these other problems tend not to surface.

[Zeisner]

I see and know quite a lot of daw users, they make their own music and mixing is more than 50% of the whole process til finished song.

But that's not mixing, it's fiddling with knobs or testing presets or trying to fix what isn't broken (Overproducing).

I prefer a good song with mediocre mix quality over an awful song with good mix quality.

It can't be a good song (as a whole) if it isn't mixed good, only a good composition and performance. Like you can have a good script and a good performance in an awful movie. Everything matters.

[jamcat]

A lot of times the mix is determined by the circumstances. For a large portion of recorded music’s history, songs were recorded in one take with the whole live band playing together in a room, like anything from Elvis, Buddy Holly, or the entirety of Motown. Often with a single room mic. And yet these are rightly all considered to be great songs.

Concert recordings are also this way, and there are plenty of iconic, definitive live albums like KISS ‘Alive!’ or Iron Maiden ‘Live After Death’.

And there are other albums that were recorded quickly and have pretty subpar mix quality, like Ozzy Osbourne ‘Diary of a Madman’, Rainbow ‘Rising’, or Twisted Sister ‘Stay Hungry’, which nonetheless contain great, classic songs.

[DCrown]

Some songs of one of the most successful albums of all time Purple Rain were recorded in a warehouse with bad acoustic and Prince would sometimes even use parts he recorded on casette tape, I couldn't care less when the song is good.
Of course, there was some overdubbing afterwards.
There are some demo versions of Prince early Prince songs, they sound awesome, better than everything I hear today.
When sound quality is awful then it could be no pleasure to listen to.
Sign of the Times is considered Prince's masterpiece album and it is said to have no good sound quality, well, it is considered Prince's masterpiece despite of mix quality.
Motown were live recordings and considered awesome.
From the view of today's standard - overpolished, overcompressed, overloud - these old recordings might sound worse, but it depends on the listener what he prefers, I can't stand overpolished.
Mixing is a part of the whole process of a song and the most important part of mixing to me is gain staging and panning, no need for a compressor or reverb on every track.

[jamcat]

Those old records sound like a group of musicians playing musical instruments together.

Most new songs do not.

[legendCNCD]

Its the timing, its gotten so tight..

[jamcat]

And also because there aren't any musicians playing musical instruments together

[lfm]

And also because there aren't any musicians playing musical instruments together

How true!!!!

Pick any tracks from this Rosanne Cash album and the vibe when people play in a session


I have many great albums by Sia, Ellie Golding, Pink and they are very different animals, no real soul or how to put it.

You can even have worse audio quality if there is soul.
- one thing I don't like about vocals is the mike she uses, seems like SM58 or similar
- some dist there that is the same as live performances

[Reale]

Honestly, just pick a good sound to start with, every rare "famous producer" tutorial I've found online always had one thing in common, they use sooo little processing and they just pick good samples at the beginning of the process.

[jamcat]

They're not a real producer if they're just arranging samples instead of recording musicians playing real instruments.

[enroe]

Hi All!
..
I start by setting up a folder with a software drum machine in it and ... I go through some kicks
...
I've done 3 years at college doing music tech and a year at uni and know all about frequencies, ...
but can't make a decent sounding track save my life.

Oh dear, oh dear, I hear you!

Most humbly esteemed Eclectomanic, that ... yes, that
MUST be the so-called "glitchy-bum" effect. It's a phenomenon,
indeed a condition, that many suffer from.

The "glitchy bum" effect means your track sounds like this:

"glitchy bum glitchy bum glitchy bum glitchy bum glitchy bum ting ting
woop glitchy bum glitchy bum glitchy bum glitchy bum glitchy bum ting
ting woop blooch"

And that's simply awful and horrifying, because it just goes
on and on, all day long. It's godforsaken, it's practically just
glitches and bumps constantly in your head! Eventually, this
leads to Delirium Furiosa and even worse. Mutations into the
strangest monstrous forms have even been found.

But here's a solution: Forget everything about drums, drum
machines, even about pots, pans, lids, and mallets. Instead,
learn a musical instrument. Even the jaw harp will do! But
there are so many instruments to choose from ...

[vurt]

And also because there aren't any musicians playing musical instruments together

while true in many cases, far from true overall.
there's plenty of "live" musicians playing instruments together, if you know where to look
i look on youtube.


they seem popular atm too