The more I learn I realize this is likely my biggest issue when it comes to mixing. I just recently did another rough mix for some session guit stuff I've been working on and as usual it sounded great on my Senn 280 Pros through my interface (even the export which I always test) but kind of muddy once I listened on my laptop through WMP and my consumer headphones (that properly mixed/mastered material sound good on).
 
I wasn't going for a proper mix but of course I will be on my own stuff. Just thought since this friendly and helpful Techniques tab has been getting heavy into the "mix" topics lately this could be an interesting and useful topic.
 
I already have a bunch of plans for things I'm going to try but as always like hearing what others are doing. Of course EQing things out of the way of each other is obvious but I'm talking what to do when there is serious overlap and you are trying to preserve the best freqs of eveything.
 
I'm almost considering automating my EQs as things come in or out... or maybe use sends to busses that are eq'd specifically to notch out a spot for specific things as they come in/out (like solos) and automate the sends to fire the signal to the appropriate buss.
 
Crazy perhaps but might be an interesting experiment.
 
Whatever... not asking for specific help. Just wanting to hear what everyone does to deal with this issue because I'm sure everyone has their own little process and tricks.
 
Hope eveyone is having a great day.
 
Cheeeeeeers!

Not sure if this addresses your problem but I encountered something like what you describe. Eventually I realised it was because I was playing the exported MP3 via built in sound card that had some of it's own sound processing built in. Once I disabled the sound processing it sounded like it should ie similar to what came out of my proper audio interface.

So I asked the clever people on this forum what I could do to make my song sound ok if someone else chose to listen to it via some sound player that adds its own sound processing. The short answer is mix/master it as best as you can on your 'good' system.

HTH

A few ideas.

Decide what you want the focus to be on then anything that clashes can be reduced by automating the eq, the track faders or even pushed into the background by a bit of carefully used reverb. If several instruments are meant to have equal prominence but tonally collide then consider cutting one or more out altogether, either by dropping it out at the pertinent points or even deciding it's not really needed after all.

If one instrument is in the centre and the others panned consider putting them on a bus and mid/side processing to change the eq on sides or mid.

Panning alone can be a solution, but only a limited one. If mono compatability matters then panning obviously isn't an option.

Beepster
 I just recently did another rough mix for some session guit stuff I've been working on and as usual it sounded great on my Senn 280 Pros through my interface (even the export which I always test) but kind of muddy once I listened on my laptop through WMP and my consumer headphones (that properly mixed/mastered material sound good on).

 
 
I have a pair of those 280 pro's and I love them for tracking, but mine at least, are lacking in low end and if I tried to mix with them, I think the mix would also sound muddy. If you need to mix with them, then I would seriously consider the Sonarworks headphone plugin which has a thread over in the software forum. The 280 Pro's are included in the calibration files. I haven't even listened to mine with the plugin yet, because Iv'e got a pair of AKG 240's and  a Sennheiser 650 HD that are better for mixing and this plugin especially helps the 240's achieve a closer to flat response.
 
For frequency masking I use MMulti Analyzer  if I'm having problems. You slap it on the tracks in question and it at least gives you a ballpark to look to to start with. It also has a "collisions" view that even more so shows the masking potential of given tracks. HTH

it's not wasted time..
 
to take a familiar song,
with familiar tracks,
and output each one of them one by one, thru something like SPAN or Har Bal........
 
and study each one, to memorize where it's 'common' and unique frequencies are........
 
and take note, of which one of them have similar frequencies.
 
listen to them alone, and all together,
and see if you can train your ears to recognize what the freq analyzer programs were showing you what was actually going on....
 
 
then go on a mission, to mix all the tracks so that none of them line up with EQ peaks at the same places.
 

If I'm really struggling I go back to the arrangement and thin it out. It's so easy to end up with a wall of sound that's hard to deal with, but then again I'm no expert.

As mentioned Arrangement is a key factor, I also spend a lot of the time in mono when I'm mixing, this is especially critical when making eq decisions. Recently I purchased ARC2 and since I started using it my mixes are translating a lot better. I had decent room treatment before getting ARC but it has helped me in a big way.
Andrew

Wizard71, just listened to some of your songs....you're one talented guy & good singer too ! 
 
Bleeps, have the same prob all the time...
I mix on the same headphones you have and they sound awesome I think.
I always mix too loud and end up with a muddy song, at loud volume you just don't hear that mudd through the Sen280 I guess.
Anderton had a trick in one of his vids, he flipped the interleave button to mono on a track, which enabled him to actually pan it. (a stereo interleave pan function is actually a 'balance' knob, he said iirc).
that only works for mono tracks though, and does make it sound thin..
 
Today worked on a song and got the 'mud' away by cutting out some freqs (200-300hz) on the bassguitar.
 

When there is more space in the music behind the sounds I think of that as the black backdrop.  When there is too much going on you cannot see the black backdrop anymore. It is more like a grey haze.
 
(Steely Dan has such a large black backdrop you can almost reach in and touch it. Even you heavy metal guys could learn from Steely Dan. Every sound in a Steely Dan record is there for a purpose and there is nothing wasted or there for no reason!!!!!!!  Dark Side of the Moon also has an amazing black backdrop too despite all the stuff that is going on in there!)
 
I line up parts that I think might be suffereing from this in mono on a single small Auratone type speaker at low volume.  That will certainly reveal what is going on.
 
The bigegst issue by far is there are too many parts going on at that point in the music and you need to get into it and CUT where you just take stuff out around the tricky areas and suddenly all becomes clear then.
 
Poeple over record and track far too much stuff and then they are reluctant to remove any of it.  Sound familiar?  That can be OK and it works sometimes but in certain areas you can just get rid of half of it and the music will still sound great if not better.  Do you really need 5 guitars playing the same thing.  Maybe one will do!  (No matter how well you think you can double track a guitar part the reality is that two parts will always sound a little more blurry compared to one!!)
 
If parts are still to remain behind then do some treatments on the like sounds to try and make them sound a little different from each other.  (if its guitars I tend to do this with amp and cab sims rather than EQ)  Then after that you will hear the multiple parts all quite clearly in the small mono speaker too.  Once you get some separation in the small mono speaker then back up on the mains panning will help a little further as well.
 
Tight reverbs around some parts can also help to separate them out too.  Be careful here though.  The return level here needs to be like there is no reverb at all until you take it out and then you notice that something has changed.

It's actually simple to handle this one beeps. :) When you boost a particular frequency, you cut that same frequency in another instrument and boost something else if need be. For example, most bass guitar today is lower in the eq scheme of things. You may get bass as low as 50 Hz at time. So if that's where your bass is going to be, you make sure and cut 50 Hz in your kick drum. This way it keeps it out of the way of the bass...which is where most of the masking comes from, low-end wise.
 
Guitars tend to get lost with other mid range instruments. Keys and even vocals can even fall into this category depending on how they are delivered. To try and prepare for this stuff ahead of time, it's been good for me to choose whether I will have a clicky kick drum or a bassy, thumpy kick drum. Whatever I choose dictates what my bass guitar will do.
 
For example, let's say I want to push my kick drum in the low end area at about 61 Hz. I will let my bass probbaly hit in the 75-90 range Knowing me in that particular situation, bass would probably end up at 80 Hz with a little bass clack at about 2.5k. Kick pushing 60-70....a little beater attack and maybe 8k....mess with mids and low mids to taste if needed.
 
The key to handling masking is to high pass correctly and at the right places and never boost the same freqs on different instruments. This is where the masking comes from. Like, you may have a sweet spot for 55 Hz because it gives you a nice amout of bass. If you push both the kick drum and the bass guitar there, you'll be turning up the bass fader and then the kick fader and then the bass.....because they cancel each other out.
 
Same with mid range instruments. If you boost say 860 Hz on a guitar to make it a little warmer, you have to be careful with piano, strings or vocals that you may want to warm up. They will cancel each other right out. Panning and proper compression are essential too as this will help to keep things out of each others way as well.
 
The two biggest things that cause this are:
 
1. Bad listening environment. Remember, you can never make the right calls if you aren't in the right environment. If you do anything with your money....do not buy gear, plugins or software. Get some good monitors and tune the room. This is so important, nothing else matters. Give me my tuned room, my monitors, Sonar, a guitar and a laptop running a Realtek soundcard with ASIO4ALL drivers and I'll give you a killer product. It's all in what you hear as well as making the right decisions based on hearing the right stuff. I can't stress how important this is.
 
Until you can get this, you're almost always going to fall either way short or short enough to bother you. I know funds are an issue as well as living space. But, you may just have to chalk it up and deal with what you have. It's rare anyone puts out great mixes through headphones....no matter how good or how pricey they are. No one in the big leagues does it....there's a good reason. Yes you can get decent results with cans, but don't stress out when you fail. It's not totally your fault.
 
2. Not sure whether to boost the frequency or just boost the level: This is another huge one. 9 times out of 10, if you just turn the fader of the instrument up instead of boosting the frequency, you just may be ok. A lot of times, people don't know whether to boost the freq, or turn up the fader. Always try turning up the fader first and try to be a cutter, not a booster.
 
When you feel you need more low end, try cutting highs and see how it sounds. If you need more highs, try lowering the lows. This isn't always the case so it won't always work, but you are better off removing mud and highs than adding them in. Ever hear a mix from the 80's? They were knida super thin and wide open for anyone to master on their stereo while listening. To me, that's actually an acceptable kind of mix because it's not loaded with low end like just about every mix I hear today. People are just over doing things so much, they are ruining their material. The more stupid plugins that come out that supposedly do all this crap or do things for you automatically, the worse people's mixes become. I've never heard so much crap in my life.
 
At any rate, don't stress out man. You can only go so far in headphones. I really feel there is only so far you can go. The reason being, you will have to compensate and try to "learn your cans". That's not how it's supposed to work. There isn't supposed to be second guessing or "my headphones naturally put out more bass, so I have to back it down in Sonar automatically". Stuff like that will knock you out every time. When I listen to something here, it is easy to fix because I can hear it. Everyone else that listens here says the same thing. In turn, wherever I listen to stuff, it sounds the same. There is never any second guessing or having to learn or compensate. When you can put that stuff behind you, the clouds open up and leave....and you laugh because this whole field just got 1000 times easier for you.....simply because you can hear correctly. :)
 
Hang in there dude, we'll do that video we talked about soon.
 
-Danny