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Since I record completely in the box digitally (like lots of people do), I try to do everything else as "analog" as possible. Exploit things like the natural compression of your mics and amps, use a dark mic on a vocal track if you know you'll have to compress it heavily to avoid revealing excessive sibilance and breathiness later on. If you're mixing something that's "traditionally" been done analog (like a standard rock band), don't use overtly digital sounding plugins like harmonic exciters and stereo wideners. I'm mixing a rock band right now with guitar\drums\bass\rhodes keyboard. Every track has some combination of parametric EQ, broadband compression, and a pan position. A couple things have very subtle reverbs, but that's it. 95% of my bank of digital plugins I almost never use. The best sounding recordings I've done I have a hard time taking credit for because they really mix themselves. So much of a good final product is in the arrangement, which isn't really my job unless I'm recording my own music, and when you record good instruments cleanly with a tight arrangement and good performances all you have to do is stay out of the way.
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| # ¿ Apr 17, 2011 17:29 |
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| # ¿ May 19, 2013 04:43 |
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RivensBitch posted:If you want really clear guitar tones, room reflections will only give you mud, especially if you're trying to build thick and rich metal guitar chords. Seconding this for sure. Eliminating reflections also really helps with recording pedal effects. Things like reverbs sound way more focused when they aren't confused by mismatched room reflections. I used to always resist recording guitar with pedals (other than basic distortion\overdrive) because digital effects are so much more flexible after the fact, but there's just something about the way a good reverb pedal and amp interact that sounds amazing (especially on big epic metal lead parts). When tracking multiple guitars, remember not to solo them while applying EQ. The way a track ends up sounding solo often sucks compared to how it sits in context with everything else frequency wise, so when you're carving space for each part try to do it with the entire mix playing. Also when "carving" in general, make sure not to go overboard. Sometimes 8 tracks of guitar with identical tone just can't coexist, and you need to edit your arrangement. If you need to apply more than a couple parametric cuts to a single track for it to work in the mix consider re-tracking or changing that part. Relayer fucked around with this message at Apr 19, 2011 around 15:54 |
| # ¿ Apr 19, 2011 14:04 |
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Try compressing the vocals pretty heavily if you haven't already. That'll increase the volume of breaths and gasps and stuff relative to the rest of the performance which can make it sound more "dramatic" overall, but don't overdo it. Really most of it is in the performance though. If that's solid, you shouldn't need much more than some compression and maybe a high pass depending on mic positioning. I've personally never recorded metal "growl" vocals, but that's what I'd try first. Maybe a really tight double track of more epic parts too? EDIT: If you try a double track, make sure to pan the two tracks equally, one left and one right. It's up to you how much to pan them, but don't leave them both center or it'll sound phasey and strange.
Relayer fucked around with this message at Apr 24, 2011 around 19:17 |
| # ¿ Apr 24, 2011 18:56 |
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I made a little diagnostic sound file thing today that I thought might be cool to put in here, since it's pretty pertinent to mixing. It's just a 40hz sine wave which slowly sweeps up to 300ish, and lets you really clearly hear what the low end response of your room is like. Yeah, crappy low end response isn't big news but I had never really appreciated how major an issue it is (especially to home recording) until I tried this myself. http://mark.qsmusic.net/40hzsine_sweep.mp3 (I generated this at a pretty safe level but make sure not to play it too loud) Sit where you normally mix, and as the pitch increases listen for large dips or swells in volume. The more consistent it stays the better shape you're in. There are all sorts of ugly resonances in the low end caused by room acoustics that you often might not notice or might mistakenly try to correct with EQ thinking it's a problem with one of your tracks. I was amazed at how lousy the low end response in my room is despite steps I've taken to treat it already. There's a big null right where I sit to mix 
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| # ¿ May 27, 2011 18:35 |
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Hammer Floyd posted:C) In order to master, do you process the completed mix or each track individually? It's often the completed mix, but sometimes mastering is done using "stems" which are just mixdowns of individual elements OF a completed mix. Say you have a finished mix that's ready for mastering. Solo the vocals and mix them down, that's your vocal stem to give the mastering engineer. Do the same with guitars, drums, what have you. Once combined these will "add up" to your finished mix again, but the mastering engineer will be able to process the individual elements of the track separately which gives them a lot more control than only having a stereo mixdown of the whole song to work with. Hogscraper could explain this better.
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| # ¿ Aug 2, 2011 23:15 |
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I don't think there's necessarily a right or wrong order to mix in, but I personally don't mix anything until all parts are recorded. If something needs to be re-tracked, that becomes apparent during mixing but thankfully that seems to happen less and less with each project I work on. Once everything is recorded I usually bus things that consist of more than one track into submixes. For instance I record with 6 drum mics, so I bus the overheads, I bus the toms, and then those two busses are sent along with the kick and snare to the main drum bus. Repeat with other parts (vocal harmonies are always double tracked and bussed, rhythm guitar parts, etc..). After this I usually pan things that I know are going in a particular spot (like drum overheads), then I start in with EQ and compression which are applied in various amounts to both the individual tracks and the bus faders (but not the master bus). So I guess my "order" is something like: Record all tracks -> organize into submixes -> Pan -> EQ\Compress. Effects and such I usually apply last, because I want to hear them rendered with the tracks already compressed and EQ'ed how they're going to be. Also, yeah I A\B what I'm working on with records of a similar genre all the time. It forces you to use your ears to discern problems rather than just mixing by numbers. Relayer fucked around with this message at Aug 3, 2011 around 00:48 |
| # ¿ Aug 3, 2011 00:44 |
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HollisBrown posted:Can anyone see anything I'm doing wrong or does it sound OK and should I stop messing with it? I think you have a pretty great tone on that track, I wouldn't mess with it personally. I know what you mean about losing all objectivity, especially when it's good already but you're left wondering "well could I make it better?". But yeah, I'd be happy with that tone if it were my song.
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| # ¿ Aug 13, 2011 17:15 |
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The problem I usually have with de-essers is that they make the sibilants sound quieter, but it still sounds like a loud sibilant being attenuated as opposed to one that was recorded more gently. Unfortunately I've never found a standard way to always record soft sibilants, it seems to vary with voices\mics used. The best sounding vocals I've recorded had the vocalist really belting out and standing probably 2 feet back from the mic, which was above their head angled 45 degrees down. Using a Rode NT-1 condenser the sibilants came out just right and required no taming at all. I was going for a pretty natural sound though so I don't think this setup would work for all vocal applications.
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| # ¿ Oct 1, 2011 18:05 |
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Well, if one entire instrument is missing that's a pretty big problem I'd say. Also just listen to the tones you have here. The drums sound very dark and wimpy and "cheap". Ask yourself if you ever hear drums that sound anything like that on professionally released records (even ones that are supposed to be "lo-fi"). You probably don't. The first thing I'd do is not even try to use those drums in the mix. Either record better sounding drums or get better sounding samples. Drums are often the thing that gives away an amateur recording because when they're sequenced they often sound really fake, and if they're recorded live they often sound like cardboard. How were the drums done for this because they kind of sound like they're sequenced using really cheap samples, which is a new one. Also you probably want to highpass almost everything more than you are. Everything has too much low end warmth\mud\proximity effect which is another hallmark of a home recording.
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| # ¿ Oct 25, 2011 14:04 |
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HollisBrown posted:So after lots of tinkering and experimentation I've think I've come up with the best way to record my acoustic stuff with the things I have. Those really sound fantastic. Definitely good engineering on your part but also just very good playing, which really is more important imo.
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| # ¿ Oct 26, 2011 14:31 |
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Could somebody recommend a good dynamic EQ? I want to tame some high freq resonances on some guitar and vocal tracks, and a really narrow Q cut does the trick but I only want it to attenuate when that problem freq is acting up so as to stay as transparent as possible. I know a dynamic EQ does this, but searching yields a few things and I just wanted to get a quick recommendation. I don't want to use a multi-band comp because they always sound really strange to me.
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| # ¿ Nov 19, 2011 15:36 |
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Wow this thread hasn't been touched in a while.. Does anyone have any tips for mixing bass guitar such that it has nice consistent warm fundamentals? That's something I've never quite gotten right. Whether I mic a cab, or do a cab+line setup, or just straight line in with an amp sim, the bass tracks never seem to have that really pleasing chocolately warm low end that I want to hear. I was listening to Magical Mystery Tour the other day and noticed that, despite the use of an ordinarily nasally Hofner bass, Paul's tone still has this amazingly nice warm low end. As if each note has a perfect fundamental, that's always consistent in volume from note to note. Specifically on Your Mother Should Know and Baby You're a Rich Man. It has that wonky Hofner tone, but also this crystal clear sub bass and I can't figure out how to get that sound. I have tried multibands and a dynamic EQ to no avail, but maybe I'm just not using them right (very possible).
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| # ¿ Jan 17, 2012 00:31 |
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Well for the last thing I recorded, the DI was from the amp (Fender Bassman), not an external DI. So it's not really direct in the sense that it still has the character of the amp in the signal. No tube gear in the bass flow, I'm woefully unequipped when it comes to hardware and do basically everything in the box. I think a lot of the problem is that the signal seems to often have unwanted harmonics an octave above the fundamentals which can sometimes be louder than the fundamentals themselves. Not really sure if that's a pickup issue, or an amp issue, or what. I probably just need access to better amps and instruments, I'm usually at the mercy of whatever the person I'm recording uses and try to make the most of that.
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| # ¿ Jan 17, 2012 18:39 |
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wixard posted:One thing I like to do with bass is put something basic like a 57 on a bass cabinet and then essentially use that for the tone then squash the piss out of a DI for the fundamental and for a little extra attack if it needs to cut through. I tend to do a lot of meticulous EQ to solo bass DIs, if I can let an amp smooth a lot of the midrange over while I basically low-pass the DI so it's mostly just giving me fundamentals it's kind of like using 2 mics in a kick drum, one for the click and one for the boom. If you high-pass the mic and low-pass the DI there's minimal phasing possibility. I did something similar to get what I think is the "best" bass recording I've managed in my home studio, except instead of a DI for the second track I used two mics on the cab (this cab didn't have a line out), one D112 for the low end and an sm57 for the mid\high "tone" portion. Compressed the the D112 to hell and lowpassed it, left the 57 uncompressed and highpassed it, then blended them and gently compressed the whole thing. It worked well enough but the amp and bass itself probably need to be of a certain quality, and this was a reallllly beat up bass rig.
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| # ¿ Jan 18, 2012 20:56 |
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Noise Machine posted:What should I look for for my first pair of studio monitors? I'd like a pair for around 400, not opposed to used gear. It depends somewhat on the kind of music you're gonna be working on. If you're doing things that need a lot of sub-bass definition (like hiphop or some electronic genres) you should get speakers capable of rendering those frequencies, something like these you could probably find a used pair of for about 400: http://www.amazon.com/Mackie-MR8-Re...ords=mackie+mr8 I personally don't produce much music like that, so I own the MR5's which are a smaller version. They still have a huge amount of bass response for the size of the speakers though, I can't say enough good about them: http://www.amazon.com/Mackie-MR5-Re...ords=mackie+mr5 You really just want a flat, accurate sound and a durable quality assembly which I can vouch for in the Mackies.
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| # ¿ Jul 6, 2012 20:59 |
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| # ¿ May 19, 2013 04:43 |
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HollisBrown posted:I just want to know how these sound to other people, solo guitar can be very challenging especially 12 strings. I think those both sound pretty great. Great playing as usual. What phase issues do you think you have? Do you mean mono compatibility or audible phase cancellations? Because I don't hear anything egregious. There's a lot of nice stereo information for a single guitar recording, mind if I ask approximately how you positioned the mics for this? I usually use an XY configuration on acoustic guitar to minimize phase issues and still get a stereo image. I'd like to be able to experiment with M\S positioning but I don't have a figure 8 mic.
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| # ¿ Jul 8, 2012 17:39 |
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