cleaning up muddy mix down the center

[bacchus40]

hey y'all... well it seems i require assistance here... i am in the middle of mastering this track, which actually has a chance to get some air play or so i'm told

its heavy metal, emphasis on the heavy... hahah.. well my client did the mix
himself and i'm finding it hard to get a hold of it.. its rather muddy down the middle, specially when the toms come in,. they're pretty damn annoying to me but i understand part of the charm of metal is the heaviness of it,...

i' have been messing around with M/S mastering and it did clear things somewhat but i find it may be a bit much for this...

the end result is that everything on vox, crashes & symbals, snare n' kick sound wicked! lead vox are in your face just fine... guitars are gritty and sharp, with a touch of distortion from
the trusty summit audio grand channel! though with all that muddiness down the middle its really tough to get a good tone out of the background vox.. as soon as the tom rolls start coming
in... everything seems to fall apart... some help with eqing toms would probably help i guess? lol

I would really appreciate any ideas y'all would have to get a hold of this... EQ has gotten me places already... but still no luck

gonna try tossing mono LEFT & RIGHT in separately through my tube compressors to get a good hold of individual transients so I dont completely kill it
and see where i end up... probably less distortion, or at least more focused...

unfortunately i do not have my trusty C4 WAVES anymore so multiband compression is probably out of the question with my limited collection...

[janmuths]

Almost sounds like a no-win situation... I remember a job where I had to split the signal in M / S and used the sonnox tools. The supressor can help to control muddiness. Transient designer can restore transients if they suffer.

Best of luck...

J.

[albee1952]

Honestly, a bad mix should go back and be remixed

[Rubicon]

Perhaps you could get two stems from the mixer, one of the mix without the toms and the toms by themselves. It is not unheard of to Master using stems particularly for the reason you describe. Earlier this year I did quite a bit of metal music for the Fuel channel. The toms need to sound right. Good luck with your mastering project!

Rubicon

[justus1900]

Get the File and Mix it yourself or get someone who understands Mixing to Mix it for you. Remember the saying "Fix It IN The Mix?" well if the Mix is all ready messed up you cant fix it.

[soybalm]

You could find a compromise between cleaning things up and revealing the bad distortion and leaving it as is and just bringing the level up with a little bit of presence. Another thing is a tad of mastering reverb may help smear a few flaws. The brightness from mastering can really dry up a mix so a little reverb might do it. The reverb shouldn't be too transparent and too long. You may want to cut the bass and be careful not to mix too much in because you will lose punch in a hurry.

[soybalm]

Usually when I'm stuck with a mix going a certain way, I go with it. If it's distortion that's annoying from one instrument, than distorting or exciting something else might work wonders.

[brickroadstudio]

I have this situation come up way to often. If there is a chance of "air play," as you say then you need to explain to the client that his knowledge of mix is not adequate enough for a professional release. Explain that he will be glad he spent some money on having the mix done correctly especially when its released.
Good luck man.

[bacchus40]

thanks for all the replies, i really appreciate it... i guess this is the issue i will encounter all to often ...

unfortunately in this case it wasnt my call...
you're right RUBICON, the TOMS need to sound right...

i've just spoken to my client and unfortunately as things are we've just got too much on the go at this point to do a re-mix
but he does have automatic recall on his digital mixer so thats good to know...

i just found a great website for looking up frequencies of each instrument and will be able to zero in on the culprits i'm sure...
http://www.independentrecording.net/...in_display.htm

either way i'm gonna start with my tube compressors first and go from there..!..

will check out sonnox as well! thanks for the post.!

[BobbyDazzler]

Sometimes a stereo spreader can make the centre image less murkier. Don't go overboard though.