Hi Guys,
Just thought id resubmit a part of my post from the other day concerning mixing. I use Cool EDit Pro2, though its perhaps irrelevant....
could you tell me some good ways of mixing the final sound. I know a lot of it is down to personal taste but im also aware of EQ issues and stuff getting drowned out in the mix by interfering frequencies from other instruments. My compositions are mainly heavy metal/hard rock and i struggle to get vocals to shine through. I know im waffling and throwing everything out here in one go, but I relish all the help and advice I can get from anyone who has more knowledge than me, and that is not saying very much LOL.
Thanks again for any help.
Matt
Check out this forum, they have tons of good info here.
http://studioforums.com/groupee?s=1436041581&ORIGINAL_REFERRER_URL=http%3A%2F%2Fstudioforums.com%2Fgroupee
Be sure to check out the Bruce Miller section.
also try http://www.homerecording.com/ Its a bit dated , but has a lot of good info also.--the dog
What you might think of is 'making holes' for things, frequency wise.
But other than that, if I were going to mix a big-sounding band, I think i'd still start off with just the drums and the main vocal. Get a good fat drum sound, then mute that and focus on getting a really good vocal sound - just by itself. Then put them both together and see if you can still hear the crispness of the vocals over the drums. The drums have the real lows in the kick, and the real sizzling highs in the hats and cymbals, so if you can hear the vocal surrounded by that, then you're on your way.
If not, fool around with the eq on the drums that are in the same range as the singer. You don't want to ramp the really high part of the sound from the cymbals because, well, that's what they're there for. A singer most likely won't be too much in that range anyhow. If you still have a problem making out the words of the vocal, try messing around with the frequencies on the drums just below the cymbals, and then again with eq just below that. You should be able to hear both singer and drums pretty well by now.
Then take a break and come back and inch the bass guitar in a little bit. You can keep soloing each (bass, vocal, drums) until your ear really gets used to the overall range of each, and then put them all together and see if you can still distinguish each part.
With the bass, you don't really have to worry about it getting in the way of the singer or the higher sounds of the drums. Down low though, it might over emphasize what the kick is doing and you'll come out with a bottom heavy mix.
Which isn't necessarily a bad thing :)
You can also vary the volume of your playback as you're making these incremental adjustments, but especially when you're trying to tweak the low frequencies. At low volumes you just don't hear them - the speakers don't push them out. So vary the volume of playback, and try to adjust things so the kick isn't being overwhelmed by the bass guitar or vice versa.
When you've got these three pretty much the way you want them, then you can start adding the guitar tracks. If your guitarists have a good tone they don't have to be way up in the mix in order to sound massive. If you're double-tracking rhythm guitars (or leads), you can solo each track (dropping the others out) so you can get a clear idea of each level and then making them match left-to-right. Then pop the other tracks back in.
The leads, if any, should be the easiest part because they only come in by themselves. You can just roll them up when it's time, and fade them out again. If you scene mixing you can automate that.
When all this is done, listen to the thing at varying volumes to see if anything ugly jumps out at you. If so, find out what track is doing it, solo it and tweak it.
Hope this helps. :)
Excellent advice thanks a lot guys :lol:
Matt
Good advice from Demo. Another thing to consider is sound stage placement. Creating spatial separation also helps the listening experience. Everybody knows about left to right panning, but ever wonder why some instruments sound as if they are "up front," while others are background? Relative volume is one cue, but another is the echo profile of each instrument. The intensity and delay profile of each sound source varies with placement in a room. Playing around with the stereo delay (and reverb) settings in CEP2 will help you learn to simulate different sound stage locations. This is not an easy thing to learn to do, and will take a lot of time and practice; but the results can be very cool.
Another thing CEP2 has is the volume and panning envelopes in the multi-track view. These are great for fine tuning solos and mixes -- different profiles for different portions of the tune. Very powerful.
Good luck
-=tension & release=-
