7-string_guy
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carving out eq for vocal / guitar separation
This is where my mind boggles. I recently posted a song "signs of weakness," and got a lot of good feedback and some advice in the mixing field. One of the biggest issues that many of you agree upon is that the guitar and vocals seems to ride (duplicate) the same frequencies, thus making my lyrics seem distant (in another room, one said) or muddy. You can hear the vocals and love the melody but cannot pick out the lyrics causing listener fatigue. So i'm here looking at the spec analysis, scratching my head with a weird (one eyebrow up) look, trying to figure out what to do....so i was reading about adding air and warmth to the vocals...but carving out frequencies? maybe this will help : guitar : (i let this go for about 5-6 seconds)  and this is a sample of the vocal : (let it run about 10 seconds to fill out the spectrum)  so i dont know if this helps, but i did make an A / B on soundclick www.soundclick.com/enemyofearth the one that says signsofweakness-with fixes, i added some air, a touch of volume and took a little bit out of the guitar at 3500k... is this enough? can you understand the lyrics? i know i can, i wrote it, but thats the breaks recording your own stuff.....
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The Maillard Reaction
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Re:carving out eq for vocal / guitar separation
2011/01/31 20:49:22
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It's hard to say... what do you think? I think the songs sounds good... maybe the lyrics are supposed to be buried. I mean, sincerely, it sounds like the style you are after. It also seems like you arranged the song with all kinds of sonic overlap so I doubt you can do too much more with EQ... unless you start undermining the song. Take a look at your guitar track RTA... that's fine for the intro but seeing how it goes down into the bass range there really no room for the vocal. Again... that's fine if that's what you want. Furthermore the bass guitar is smoking hot...and I like that a lot. Think of it this way... what would Led Zep sound like if you replaced Robert Plant with your vocals? Led Zep figured out a fresh way to arrange a heavy rock guitar based song by having the singer sing in a high register. Here's what I'd try... as an exercise and then you can decide what you want to do. When the vocals kick in... yank the low mids out of the guitar... but only during the vocals. Like wise when the vocals kick in lower the level of the bass... but only during the vocals parts. See what happens. I think the song sounds good as is and just assume that's the style you are after. Good Luck. best regards, mike
post edited by mike_mccue - 2011/01/31 20:50:37
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7-string_guy
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Re:carving out eq for vocal / guitar separation
2011/01/31 20:57:33
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so mike, even with the fixes i did, the vocals still sound buried to you? by the bass being hot? here s sample spec of the bass, it seems anything past 400hz is minimal and i tried to bring them up when i recorded but failed...i plan to re-do the bass anyway, any pointers? on the bass guitar i turned the bass knob almost off.....almost... a bit of compression in the chain during record and direct from - bass guitar to preamp to compressor to sonar 
post edited by 7-string_guy - 2011/01/31 20:58:56
I7 2600k 3.4g on a ASUS MB with 16 gb of ram FireFace 400 AI / Sonar 8.5 Producer / ToonTrack Superior Drummer 2 Alesis M1 Active MKII / Ibanez 7 string / Fender Super-Sonic Schecter studio 5 bass / Boss Dr. Rhythm 880 , also Yamaha DTX full rack drum pad trigger system
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Kalle Rantaaho
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Re:carving out eq for vocal / guitar separation
2011/02/01 03:19:07
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I would go the automated-guitar-EQ way. Then you get the best of both sounds.
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Bristol_Jonesey
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Re:carving out eq for vocal / guitar separation
2011/02/01 04:24:21
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Or...... you could sidechain the guitars so that they duck in volume whenever the vocal hits.
Maybe you'll get an even better result through using a combo of both techniques.
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The Maillard Reaction
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Re:carving out eq for vocal / guitar separation
2011/02/01 07:01:58
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"even with the fixes i did, the vocals still sound buried to you?"
Yes, but in a good way and in a way that sounds like many current heavy pop rock bands.
I think that this is simply because of your arrangement. I suspect that if you follow my suggestions and the suggestions of Kalle and Bristol_Jonsey and make the vocal pop out you will think... hey, that's not at all what I was after... I liked it the way I had it.
Or you might like it.
I think that if you give that a try you'll have more confidence in the current mix... because I suspect that this is the style you are interested in.
I think it sounds good right now... and I'm trying to suggest that you try a few different approaches so that you have a chance to decide for yourself.
It's all meant in friendship.
Good luck.
best regards,
mike
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Guitarhacker
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Re:carving out eq for vocal / guitar separation
2011/02/01 08:06:21
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Not buried to my ears, but not fitting into the mix as it should.
To me (my opinion) the music sounded good. The vox reverb was a bit light...I kept thinking the verb wasn't right on the vox.
On the EQ... the vox was heavy in the mids... don't look at the SPAN screen for mixing.... use it to check, but not to mix. Use your ears and learn to trust them.....use SPAN to confirm. Regardless of what SPAN said, to my ears the vox are still heavy in the mid (muddy) frequencies and that is the root of the problem. Currently the vox is still fighting with the guitars in the mid for space. Scoop the mids (experiment) and play with the verb levels until you have the vox setting in the mix as a part of it, like the hand in a glove, then you will have it.
Since the guitars are heavy, let the vocals be light. Scoop the vox mid freqs and try to get the right balance, then add some verb.... in that order.
Best wishes.
post mix #3 when you think it's ready
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