How to keep the sound coherent in a heavy, busy mix?

What I've always strugged with, especially in a tune with crunch guitars with a crunch melody guitar over it ala Satriani et al, is how do you keep the rhythym bed coherent and hearable? It's probably some magic combination of EQ and compression...which I do use , but inevitably , the rhthym bed consisting of crunchy guitars panned hard left and hard right still tend to lose focus whenever I play the distorted tone melody or solos note over it...I like the basic, raw tone of the rhthym guitars tones, and it would be cool if they would sit in the mix better, but it seems to try to do this would radically change their basic tone....here is a beginning stages workup  that shows what I'm talking about...it's especially noticeable at about the :27 second mark onward....thanks for any tips!
 
http://www.soundclick.com/player/single_player.cfm?songid=10998895&q=hi&newref=1
 
ps - the other thing that sorta cracks me up about working in a killer DAW like X1c, is that it is soooo easy to 'mix as you go', that I inevitably have this 30 second to 1 minute long song idea that I inevitably try to mix, master and fully work up before the whole thing is even written ! LOL...fun stuff...

RLD


First thing I'd do is git rid of the reverb and other fx for a clearer idea of whats going on
Then a high pass filter(cut the lows) on the rhythm gits and even the lead.
See how that sounds.

Not trying to compare songs, but here is one of mine where I think the rhythm gits are much clearer.
Track 2  

Thanks...I do need to cut that rever sound on the lead tracks for sure, but without it, everthing was even more washed together...I did put a high pass filter on both rhthym guitars....yes, yours are very clear!...I think maybe LESS distortion could help, but then of course you lose the heavy effect...Bob Rock and Metallica have figured out how to do it and retain clarity :D...

bitflipper

Great advice, thank you!

 

 
 
It's probably some magic combination of EQ and compression.

Bingo. But EQ first, compression last. And mostly about knowing when to cut back on the latter.

Your song sounds like you've got the HPF part of the equation in place already. It might need to have the cutoff frequency raised a little is all. What's missing is the low end of the bass guitar.

What I would do with that particular song is automate the EQ on the bass so I could leave it trebly like you have it for the intro and then let it bloom when the other guitars jump in.

Another suggestion: treat the drums and guitars as equals. Your guitars are louder than the drums and they don't need to be. Bring them more into equilibrium and get some bottom on the bass guitar and you've got a good song happening.

And I agree with Chief Firewater - reverbs and delays have to be used conservatively in this genre or they'll add to the clutter. The song he linked to is indeed a very good example of keeping everything separate and distinct while still having a lot going on in the mix. And I'm guessing he pulled that off primarily with careful use of EQ.

If you have 2 rhythm guitar tracks panned hard left and right then it's important that you either play them identically or deliberately differently, because any imperfections in the timing can start to blur the stereo image and make it seem like a sound is moving from one side to the other, rather than existing equally across the stereo field. I also think that the guitars possibly have too much gain on them, making the rhythm less distinct than it perhaps should be. As for HPF/LPF - you high pass the rhythm guitars to make room for bass and drums, but that won't help much with the stereo image or in picking out the lead. High pass the lead line even higher, and consider a mild notch (eg. -3dB, 1 octave) from the rhythm guitars in an area that helps the lead sit well (eg. 800hz to 1600hz, but experiment, and use a spectrum analyzer to see where your lead 'lives').

All really good advice from these guys....

I would add this: keep the total number of instruments to a minimum. One tendency is to add layers of guitars in an attempt to get a fat, full sound. Just because you have the tracks and can, doesn't necessarily mean you should. The more you add the harder it gets to keep them all sounding clean. 


I try to remember as I record and mix and get to adding extra tracks,  that back in the day, and even today? ..... many of the really hot bands are bass, drums, and 2 guitars, with someone singing....  can you do it with 5 tracks and have it sound good, sound believable? 

guitz


What I've always strugged with, especially in a tune with crunch guitars with a crunch melody guitar over it ala Satriani et al, is how do you keep the rhythym bed coherent and hearable? It's probably some magic combination of EQ and compression...which I do use , but inevitably , the rhthym bed consisting of crunchy guitars panned hard left and hard right still tend to lose focus whenever I play the distorted tone melody or solos note over it...I like the basic, raw tone of the rhthym guitars tones, and it would be cool if they would sit in the mix better, but it seems to try to do this would radically change their basic tone....here is a beginning stages workup  that shows what I'm talking about...it's especially noticeable at about the :27 second mark onward....thanks for any tips!
 
http://www.soundclick.com/player/single_player.cfm?songid=10998895&q=hi&newref=1
 
ps - the other thing that sorta cracks me up about working in a killer DAW like X1c, is that it is soooo easy to 'mix as you go', that I inevitably have this 30 second to 1 minute long song idea that I inevitably try to mix, master and fully work up before the whole thing is even written ! LOL...fun stuff...

I'll give you my take for what it's worth since this is a genre I'm also into and probably what I do the most of. The key to not losing your rhythms is how you eq them, pan them and then compress them. Listening to your tune you posted, we have a load of mid range congestion in those guitars that are lacking a bit of correct bass punch/push as well as the right amount of top end sizzle. Your lead guitar has a similar sound so you are either going to lose the lead if you turn up the rhythms or lose the rhythms when you turned up the lead.
 
Also, try to stay away from long tail effects on your rhythms guitars. The more verb with tails you have, or the more delay going on, the more your guitars can disappear into the abyss. Here's my recipe for never losing my guitars. With this method, I can make my guitars so loud in a mix to where they over-power the other instruments yet all the other instruments will remain audible at all times. This of course is an extreme example that I would not use on a song, but my point is, when you have things dialed in correctly, volume is not what creates the masking and vanishing of instruments. Eq and improper compression as well as panning are what make the issues come to life.
 
The first thing you need to do is to evaluate your gain in your guitar sound. If you are chugging chords and itsoundslikearunonsentencelikethishere then you know you have too much gain. Your chugs should be percussive and have a starting point as well as an ending point percussively. If you jack up the gain too much, you will not be able to hear where a start or stop point is because the gain just takes over like one big bag of raaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrgggh in your tune. So be careful...use the amount of gain you need, but if it's not percussive sounding in your executions on certain playing, you're using too much and totally making things more dirty than they should be.
 
The next thing is to listen for low end "whoomfing" as I like to call it. For some odd reason, guitar players are obsessed with low end feeling the need to walk into bass guitar territory. If you solo up your guitar and start high passing it while sweeping through your frequencies, there will be a certain area you hit that will remove what sounds like a blanket of low end rumble. It is critical to remove this as this frequency (whatever it turns out to be) is a part of what makes your rhythm guitars disappear. Most of the time, high passing works from 200Hz down to 80Hz depending on the guitar tone. Remember, for *MOST* guitars, you do not need anything lower than 80Hz in the tone. You may be able to get away with running a high pass at 80Hz with a Q of about 1.2 or lower to curb lows...but the source of the low end HAS to be coming from that frequency range.
 
Next, and this is an issue you have right now...mid range. Your lows in your current guitars seem fine, but what leaps out at me is excessive mids that we as guitarists, sometimes over-use because we are "warmth crazy". Your problem areas in this particular guitar tone are in the mid to upper mid areas from about 600Hz to about 860Hz. That's where I'd start to curb it some. You could also try curbing 200-250Hz a bit just to lose some lower end boxiness, but I really do not believe the issue resides there.
 
Next is high end. This is just my opinion, but what works for me. I like to have my rhythm guitars with a bit more presence and cut to them. This way they literally "cut" through the mix. Good high end (depending on the guitar tone) can be achieved from 2.5k to about 6k. From 7k on up to about 10k, you're going to get what I call "tube amp sizzle". The higher frequencies add a little sparkle or "air" so to speak. You have to be careful here though because too much of this can sound bad.
 
From here, you want a good compressor going on that will keep your tone nice and tight. Now, if you did not compress your tone as you recorded using a hardware compressor, good starting points for extreme gain guitar compression are usually at about 4:1 ratio removing about -2dB or 3dB of gain using the threshold control. You want a faster attack depending on how you play, and a slower release from about 250ms to about 500ms depending on what works best for the sound and the song. This keeps things tight and always audible.
 
A word of caution on hard pans: Quite a few guys like to hard pan their rhythm guitars. Though this sounds cool, it can make your mix too separated. One of the main issues for mixes sounding loose is how the pans are. Toms and cymbals panned hard, plus hard panned guitars and you have a jumbled mix with just lead vocals or lead guitars down the middle. Think about that for a second and try to visualize how that would sound. Bad eh? Think of going to a concert. What you see is drums down the middle in the center of the stage, guitars on the left and right...bass slightly off-set...but the pans are not as wide as you might think they are. Also, if you tighten up the pans on rhythm guitars, you fill in the gaps in between a bit. When you hard pan, you just exhaust the wide pan area and your sound is literally smaller leaving gaping holes in your mix in the inside. Try it and see. Pan a guitar all the way to the left and solo it up. Listen how small it sounds. Now decrease the pan towards the center and you'll hear the size of the sound enlarge as well as hear it fill up more of the middle. This is how you stop the problems you are having...trust me when I tell you.
 
For lead guitar, I like your tone where it is. It's ok to have more mids and warmth and you can use as much and as many effects as you want as long as they do not make your passage sound like you are swimming in effects that are literally hiding your playing. Some guys suck so bad, they bury themselves in effects so it hides their mistakes. When you are a clean player, which you seem to be, heavier effects usage will not be a problem unless you have so much going on, the listener can no longer hear what you are playing. You also want to watch low end whoomfing on your lead guitar and you want to compress it a bit. You don't have to go as extreme as you did with the rhythm guitars here because we want the lead guitar to be a bit more dynamic and flow a bit more. However, you could compress it a bit harder if you want it to be nice and tight. It depends on the sound, the style, the amount of gain and how expressive you want it to be. Hope this helps...best of luck to you. :)
 
-Danny
 
 

Well I redid some stuff..not sure if it's an improvement, it changes the momentum a bit...anyway, as far as the mixing, I think the rhythym parts are a bit better..the bass is hearable now , but the overall sound, even after endless tweaking ain't quite there yet ...
 
One thing, Cakewalk has some nice MIDI drum loops for the SI drum thingy, but what I'm finding , is that  in each category, the loop sounds cool looped by itself , but doesn't really work well when you try to slap in some others with it...what it needs, are some variations on the main loop theme...fill/verse,etc...i've gone into the browser and audtioned some other MIDI loops but it's tough finding something that flows with the loop I'm using (and ultimately will need to embellish and add to) called SPEEDING TICKET lol...
 
Anyway, here's the latest version...lots of loose ends , some stuff sounds better than the first , some stuff not too sure about, ..the music kicking after the 'ooh yea' vocal got pushed back for some reason will have to fix that ...
 
http://www.soundclick.com/player/single_player.cfm?songid=11036684&q=hi&newref=1