sharpdion23
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Muddy Mix - Opinions needed.
Please take a look at this video on muddy mixes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQ7z_bqci5E 1. Is there something in the video you don't agree with? 2. What could you add onto this topic about clearing up a muddy mix? 3. Is there some other tutorials similar to this that you know of? Thanks for the help.
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batsbrew
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Re:Muddy Mix - Opinions needed.
2012/02/26 23:05:50
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everything starts with great sounding individual tracks.
until you get a clean track that captures the sound you really want, you can't move forward.
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sharpdion23
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Re:Muddy Mix - Opinions needed.
2012/02/26 23:16:35
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Thanks Bats, If I have a clean good sounding track, is the video correct?
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Guitarhacker
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Re:Muddy Mix - Opinions needed.
2012/02/27 08:43:37
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☄ Helpful
Listening now and so far... yeah.
Cut the lows, it might sound counter intuitive but it works.
watched it... pretty much in line with how I work. One thing at a time...start with the foundation of drums and bass and build from there.
starting with well recorded tracks is paramount.
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sharpdion23
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Re:Muddy Mix - Opinions needed.
2012/02/27 15:28:55
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Thanks Guitar hacker. Any more opinions?
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batsbrew
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Re:Muddy Mix - Opinions needed.
2012/02/27 15:36:38
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☄ Helpful
Thanks Bats, If I have a clean good sounding track, is the video correct? well, the video is only correct IF you have problems with your individual tracks. the whole idea, is to capture sounds in such a way, that you do not need to resort to eq on mixdown. only time, and experience, can teach you this. THEN...... later, on mixdown: you may have issues that don't make themselves known, until you have multiple tracks mixed along with each other. then, you MAY introduce several issues: 1. masking 2. buildup of similar frequencies 3. comb filtering (usually only a problem with stereo mic sources or more than one mic on a single source) at this point, the suggestions in the video start to make sense. but just simply blindly applying signal adjustment, without knowing why you are doing it, is just shooting in the dark. if you hit your target, it's just an accident.
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sharpdion23
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Re:Muddy Mix - Opinions needed.
2012/02/28 17:39:49
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I see the point. Thanks so much Bats!
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Philip
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Re:Muddy Mix - Opinions needed.
2012/03/01 23:34:02
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Excellent topic! Note, my thoughts are not necessarily gospel here:
While Bat churns out some awesome mixes, IMHO ... I agree with your *Barry White video* on EQing: HPFs and EQing are standard practice for me to get his "essence" of an instrument ... as my mixes are hyper-crowded (like his) and require psycho-acoustic and sonic edits ... to help with interferences ... and to get the hip-hop funk he strives for.
Other cleaning methods I regularly use:
1) Extreme panning of instruments other than bass, kick, and lead vox ... helps my dancier stuff.
2) Ducking in the kick into the bass comp ... for hiphop.
3) Delaying the bass guitar attack 'ahead' of the kick by 10msecs +/-
4) Squashing judiciously without destroying sharp transients
5) Removing out (completely) redundant elements ... especially trying to remove 'parallel' rhythms, 'parallel' melodies, etc. which sum up into square waves (pure mud ... hahahaha!)
6) The volume (or gain) levels are probably my greatest friend in cleaning things up ... I'm fairly certain the purists would agree to this.
Thanks for letting me ramble!
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jhughs
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Re:Muddy Mix - Opinions needed.
2012/03/03 09:59:32
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So I have to ask because I didn't see it mentioned, but it seems to help to put a high pass filter and brutally cut the lower tones of everything except the bass and kick. Is that a common practice? (Personally I was surprised to see how much low frequency tones an acoustic guitar makes.)
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timidi
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Re:Muddy Mix - Opinions needed.
2012/03/03 10:07:45
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Is that a common practice? Yes.
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Jeff Evans
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Re:Muddy Mix - Opinions needed.
2012/03/03 18:06:58
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So I have to ask because I didn't see it mentioned, but it seems to help to put a high pass filter and brutally cut the lower tones of everything except the bass and kick. Is that a common practice?
There is some truth in that but brutally cut is not necessarily correct. First it depends on how many instruments are playing. If you have got say an acoustic guitar and voice intro or piano voice intro you would be mad to brutally cut the bottom end out of the instrument. It would just sound plain thin. So in this case it might be better to leave most of the bottom end in. If after a while a lot of things came in then you could use automation to move the cutoff frequency of your HPF up a bit once the music gets going. It's good to listen to your tracks in isolation and then you can really hear what is going on in the bottom end. You can still clean up the extra low end without brutally cutting anything. Sometimes shallow slopes like 6 dB/octave work a treat and other times steep slopes (24,36,48 dB/octave) work well to remove unwanted subsonic stuff. There is a lot of nice low end in acoustic guitars and distorted electric guitars too so you may want to keep some of it in. Don't just go around brutally cutting anything otherwise you will end up with a mix that is basically thin except for the bass and the kick. Not a good look either. HP filtering is very effective but I say use it wisely and carefully and know what you are cutting out and what you are leaving in.
post edited by Jeff Evans - 2012/03/03 18:08:51
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sharpdion23
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Re:Muddy Mix - Opinions needed.
2012/03/03 22:10:21
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Philip
Excellent topic! Note, my thoughts are not necessarily gospel here:
While Bat churns out some awesome mixes, IMHO ... I agree with your *Barry White video* on EQing: HPFs and EQing are standard practice for me to get his "essence" of an instrument ... as my mixes are hyper-crowded (like his) and require psycho-acoustic and sonic edits ... to help with interferences ... and to get the hip-hop funk he strives for.
Other cleaning methods I regularly use:
1) Extreme panning of instruments other than bass, kick, and lead vox ... helps my dancier stuff.
2) Ducking in the kick into the bass comp ... for hiphop.
3) Delaying the bass guitar attack 'ahead' of the kick by 10msecs +/-
4) Squashing judiciously without destroying sharp transients
5) Removing out (completely) redundant elements ... especially trying to remove 'parallel' rhythms, 'parallel' melodies, etc. which sum up into square waves (pure mud ... hahahaha!)
6) The volume (or gain) levels are probably my greatest friend in cleaning things up ... I'm fairly certain the purists would agree to this.
Thanks for letting me ramble!
Sorry, but can you explain more on #'s 3, 4, 5, and 6?
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