Mixing advise?

[Raoul23]

Listening to this track today as their album has just been released

https://youtu.be/GzuSruxHL2g

I love the power of the bottom end in this. Now I would say my weakest link in mixes is the bottom end. Any advise on how to creat that big sound but not eat up all of your headroom. Any tricks people would like to share. I’ve used things like RenBass MaxxBass but they just sound boomy. The bass in the song sounds tight, Multiband compressing ???


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[albee1952]

Hmmm, my 2 cents(and please take it that way), the bottom 2 octaves are the toughest to get right(and the example feels fine, but not exceptional) but begs a few questions for you to answer:
#1- how accurate are your speakers(and more importantly, how well treated is your mix room)?
#2-are you checking your mixes on a good set of headphones(eliminating the room can help you get a clearer idea of what's really happening).
#3-have you ever analyzed the room? Knowing where issues exist helps you to not make EQ choices that are based on poor response of your listening "system"("system" being the combination of speakers, room, treatment and placement).
#4-do you send stuff out to a real mastering engineer(if you always self-master, then you are missing a fresh opinion that might be really helpful). Most mastering houses have 10 times the investment in their listening setup as compared to many of us(certainly true of me)

As for an actual "answer", I will speculate a bit and suggest that that mix you like maybe has a lot more limiting/compression of the low end(bass, drums and guitars all sound pretty squashed to me, but that's a youtube video sound played over an "average" set of computer speakers(my version of a consumer playback system). And I also suspect there's multi-band compression in play. But again, all those mix choices can change a lot, depending on how accurate your playback room is I will certainly follow along with you as this is also my weakest aspect(no matter how happy my clients may be, I will still worry about it)

[YYR123]

Originally Posted by albee1952

#4-do you send stuff out to a real mastering engineer(if you always self-master, then you are missing a fresh opinion that might be really helpful). Most mastering houses have 10 times the investment in their listening setup as compared to many of us...

I think letting the ME listen to it in their room is almost worth the price of admission

But them making adjustments of that experience makes a big difference, even if only to you, b/c you know someone who is quality

worked on/
listened to/
double checked you !

[Raoul23]

Thanks guys

My room is reasonably treated and I have IKmultimedia ARC on when mixing. Must admit I don’t use headphones to mix on because I thought and read that that is a bad move. I have some DT250’s so I think I’ll try give it a go. My speakers I mix on are HS8’s not the best I know.

I know this album was mixed on barefoot speakers in a reasonably treated room in ProTools 12 (in the box.)

I have read great reviews about barefoot speakers but they are bloody expensive. Do you think I’d benefit from getting a sub to monitor the low end or is that a stupid idea.




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[mfruet]

Originally Posted by Raoul23

Thanks guys

My room is reasonably treated and I have IKmultimedia ARC on when mixing. Must admit I don’t use headphones to mix on because I thought and read that that is a bad move. I have some DT250’s so I think I’ll try give it a go. My speakers I mix on are HS8’s not the best I know.

I know this album was mixed on barefoot speakers in a reasonably treated room in ProTools 12 (in the box.)

I have read great reviews about barefoot speakers but they are bloody expensive. Do you think I’d benefit from getting a sub to monitor the low end or is that a stupid idea.




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My 2cents:
- get better headphone and/or speakers
- check the quality of your interface converters and clock (if you record electric/acoustic instruments or have them recorded somewhere else double check)
- check the overall mix with and without the bass instruments. If there some bass where it's not supposed to, try clean it, it might be confusing things. You have to leave a room for bottom to work.
- do a lot o phase checking/ correction. This can make a heavy difference.
- careful not to put too much, leave drop outs or disproportional resonance peaks.
- Most important: use an instrument that naturally cover the frequency range you want or accept its limitations.
PS: I like sub monitors but it's a personal thing. it might complicate a small room's acoustic technical balance, but sometimes it can help you to get to feel the bass in your body. That's cool! if I would buy it, I would go for something with the most phase shift parameters I could and a bypass foot switch. This way you can make sure you have the region you want in phase and also check it in the speakers only.
Good luck!!

[Raoul23]

Monitors are on my list for an upgrade at some point very soon.

My converters are a Digi 192 blueface which I don’t think are that bad.

On another point. The guitars sound very wide and in your face but not harsh. I’ve Been trying to achieve this type of tone today and kind of gave up. To me it sounds like a JCM800 as it doesn’t have to much gain on it but has the balls of a Marshall. I efforts today failed in that when I tried to clean the guitar sound up and make it clear and crisp it sounded weak but as I added in the low mids it got very muddy.

What kind of reverb are they using as it seems a bit spacious to me not dry. Room do think same as what they are using on the drums ???


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[albee1952]

2 more cents from me I would not buy new speakers until you shoot the room and see where problems exist(or don't). $20K worth of speakers can still sound bad or inaccurate if the room and/or placement is wrong(and sometimes, moving speakers by inches can give a dramatic change, for better or for worse).

Re the 192's, plenty of hit records have been done on those so I wouldn't be concerned about them(at least not for now);

Re mixing on headphones, I only use them for checking the bottom end(mostly bass drum, bass guitar and toms)

Re guitars, check out Bleed on savetheworldband.com. Its almost all Kemper, but certainly goes for that "Marshall" sound I do agree that many players overdo the overdrive(listen to Def Leppard and note how clean most of the guitars really are). The speakers and mics will be extremely important(assuming no Kemper in use) and high-wattage celestions sound very abrasive compared to the lower wattage greenbacks. I am also well aware of the "standard" of shoving an SM57 into the grill, but having shot out several mics on guitar amps, I can tell you the old "standard" is well down on my list(I'll take a Royer or a Fathead II and pair it with a Shure SM7, any day), and the preamp is also important enough that Save The World guitarist tried to do some tracks at home(with a Kemper) and came back to my place for the Neve 1081 clones(he could not match the tone without them)

[Raoul23]

Thanks Albee, nice work on that song sounds great.

I think I need to do more experimenting with guitar amps. I hate that fizz/harshness that can some times be present in recorded guitar. I normally LPF up to around 8k on a guitar


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[mfruet]

Originally Posted by albee1952

2 more cents from me I would not buy new speakers until you shoot the room and see where problems exist(or don't). $20K worth of speakers can still sound bad or inaccurate if the room and/or placement is wrong(and sometimes, moving speakers by inches can give a dramatic change, for better or for worse).

Re the 192's, plenty of hit records have been done on those so I wouldn't be concerned about them(at least not for now);

Re mixing on headphones, I only use them for checking the bottom end(mostly bass drum, bass guitar and toms)

Re guitars, check out Bleed on savetheworldband.com. Its almost all Kemper, but certainly goes for that "Marshall" sound I do agree that many players overdo the overdrive(listen to Def Leppard and note how clean most of the guitars really are). The speakers and mics will be extremely important(assuming no Kemper in use) and high-wattage celestions sound very abrasive compared to the lower wattage greenbacks. I am also well aware of the "standard" of shoving an SM57 into the grill, but having shot out several mics on guitar amps, I can tell you the old "standard" is well down on my list(I'll take a Royer or a Fathead II and pair it with a Shure SM7, any day), and the preamp is also important enough that Save The World guitarist tried to do some tracks at home(with a Kemper) and came back to my place for the Neve 1081 clones(he could not match the tone without them)

Nice work! I personally prefer this on's sound to the thread's one. :)

[mfruet]

hey Raoul, ignoring whatever is better for you to put your money in right now (BTW I agree with albee about the acoustics), I think that most of your questions are not sound-related only, but arrangement related also. In the track you have quite a wall of guitars+bass going forward together and we can hear the drums going smaller and centered when that happen, so the guitars get bigger. This makes a lot difference. Also, the artificial room they putted in the mix over the overall first part of the track is very exaggerated and this kind of thing changes a lot the phase of frequencies. This is probably attenuating the harsh as well... Of course you could try to get there in many ways and everything can be the "responsible element" but to me it looks like much more a creative flaw than an audio one. Try to think different and find a way to get there with your tools being creative seems the better (and funnier) solution.