Mixing Noise

[groot]

Hi there,

I've been producing industrial/political/noise tracks for a while now, mainly for live performances and protest meetings. When it comes to the noisier tracks it seems you can get away with a lot (mix-wise) if everythings turned up to 11 and blasting through a decent rig, but lately I've been trying to get some of these pieces down on disc and the results have been varied to say the least.

I produce with a laptop running Nuendo and various plugs (Battery2, Absynth3 + a few free plugins to make noises, Ozone3 for mastering) then go live with Ableton.

Like i said, this works well when performing live but now that i'm trying to produce tracks in the studio the mix just won't fit - no punch, no definition and an all-new layer of mud covering all the good bits. Tried for an eq solution at the lower end but this seems to strip away a lot of the force from the overall.

I'm trying for a power-noise sound closer to the crunchy goodness of the Ant-Zen label rather than the extremes of, say, Merzbow (not that there's anything wrong with that ).

Anyone have any tips for mixing at the harder end of the spectrum?

[respirator]

Turn it down. Seriously. If you're working close to digital max you don't have any room for adding efx, summing etc. Working close to 0db digitally will introduce digital clipping and limiting and that makes the sound duller.

It might be counter-intuitive, but keeping your signal well below clipping all the way (monitor input and output of all plugs and softsynths) improves sound quality and you'll end up with a much better mix. Then turn up the speakers...

[verstaerker]

Turn it down. Seriously. If you're working close to digital max you don't have any room for adding efx, summing etc. Working close to 0db digitally will introduce digital clipping and limiting and that makes the sound duller.

It might be counter-intuitive, but keeping your signal well below clipping all the way (monitor input and output of all plugs and softsynths) improves sound quality and you'll end up with a much better mix. Then turn up the speakers...

i second that - that's how i do it too

[dystonia_ek]

I'll third that.

Another important thing is not to throw too many elements into a mix - give everything breathing space. This is particularly important when you're working with highly distorted material. Take care when applying eq and compression.

[Arcanasphere]

What I personally tend to is to clip the tracks one at a time, then bring them back down with the distortion intact to make a cleaner mix out of the messier parts.

The big thing I've learned to do is make sure a spectogram of any final mix looks no different from any decent metal song. Having the individual parts clip properly gives it crunch, while having them still fit together and unmuddied gives it fullness. Most importantly, the final output shouldn't be clipping at all (in my own experience). A lot of this would fall under what dystonia_ek just said, too.

[shamann]

I'll join the chorus on turning it down. Clipping at digital max takes away all the colour of your noise, you really want some air in there. Same with over compression, makes all the sound samey, so ease up even on the levels going into a limiter, too.

The heaviness will still come through even if it isn't pushed too hard.

[groot]

Thanks for the advice everyone. I tried cutting the initial volume to keep the master out of the red and, although it feels strange and unnatural, it has let me fit some extra bits in for overall boosting a few steps later. Makes a nice change to have room to experiment with the mastering stage.

So used to aiming for that huge sound in realtime, guess its just a matter of resisting the urge.

[dystonia_ek]

You'll want to pay special attention to highs and high-mids, seeing as with lots of distortion those bands can easily turn into one big blur.

[[ xerocreep ]]

that's true. I tend to slap a multi-band compressor on the output with a peak limiter so I can sometimes use it to stop the destructive clipping, and alternately use it as an effect by pushing certain frequencies here and there.

I also found a huge difference when I started tracking at higher sample rates, then dithering down for the final product.


good luck, and share some noisey tracks with us soon...

later
Kelly