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  #1  
Old 01-22-2003, 01:23 PM
sonoma bass sonoma bass is offline
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Default help! I need low end and stereo separation

I am kinda new to mixing and ProTools, I used to hang around some engineers so I thought I would be able to just jump right in and create some great recordings...ha.

I'm mixing a tune and I need more low-end (overall) and stereo separation. Here's a sketch of the board:

5 tracks of drums - all (mono) tracks have a send to an aux input w/Waves R-Verb drum plate setting. Rverb: mono -> stereo so I have a stereo track of wet drums.

Stereo guitar and bass tracks, also sent to aux input w/reverb. I have MaxxBass on the bass guitar and maybe just need to experiment...

I'm getting pretty good separation on the guitars. It's harder on the drums and bass... they don't seem to have much separation at all. [img]images/icons/frown.gif[/img]

My low end seems to stop around 150-200 Hz. How can I pull the super-deep lows out of the bass and kick? Fatten up the guitars? I've tried eq on the rhythym guitar track - a little better but not where i want it. [img]images/icons/confused.gif[/img]

Also, how do I get the drums to sound really 'live', like I hear on major releases? I have good top end but it's just kinda sitting there.

Any help greatly appreciated!! [img]images/icons/cool.gif[/img]

thanks
Pete
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  #2  
Old 01-22-2003, 01:36 PM
Calvin Calvin is offline
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Default Re: help! I need low end and stereo separation

Real quick question, sorry if this sounds dumb, but are you panning your mono drums?
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Old 01-22-2003, 01:50 PM
sonoma bass sonoma bass is offline
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Default Re: help! I need low end and stereo separation

when I send to the stereo out (wet mix), they are panned hard left/right. Original mono tracks are not panned. For bass guitar, I have 2 mono tracks panned hard left/right, sent to effects track. Should I pan this hard l/r too?
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Old 01-22-2003, 02:07 PM
oslpchris oslpchris is offline
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Default Re: help! I need low end and stereo separation

How did you mic your drums? Did you use overheads... you should pan them in the mono tracks for sure... I usually keep my drums like this in the mix

kick - center
snare - center
rack tom - slightly left
floor tom - slightly right
left and right overheads panned hard left and right.

as for the low end deal... I can't help you.. I'm still having problems getting my kick drum to sound right [img]images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

chris
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Old 01-22-2003, 02:09 PM
Calvin Calvin is offline
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Default Re: help! I need low end and stereo separation

Well what you need to do is pan your original drum tracks. I always keep the snare and the kick dead center, while I have my toms panned out to various sides. I hardly pan anything totally left or right unless they are used for effects like maybe a tamborine. Are you using any overhead mic's? If you are using a pair of overhead mic's those should be panned hard left and right also. As far as bass goes, if you do any panning on those orriginal tracks, I would probably do them lightly, maybe to like 30 or 40. If you want to get a more "live" sound you might try using a room mic and blend it into the mix. You can assign the output of all of your drum tracks to the input of one stereo track, then you can use a stereo eq and add a boost some where in the high end to add "air". I usually boost somewhere between 7 and 8 khz.
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Old 01-22-2003, 02:10 PM
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O.G. Killa O.G. Killa is offline
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Default Re: help! I need low end and stereo separation

first off, you have to check to make sure you recorded harmonic content down below 200Hz...if it ain't there no EQ is gonna bring it up! Depending on the mics you used you may just not have enough bass in the recordings. Check to make sure it's there. how do you check? that's a tough one to explain in detail. sometimes a spectrum analysis (called spectrogram) will help. "Gram" is a good free program to use... Gram

If it is in each individual tracks then you might be cancelling some of it out with phasing. This gets a little more tricky so I won't go into detail about that just yet.

Don't compress anything too much...it can sometimes (depending on the compressor) attenuate the low frequencies more than you'd like.

For kick, I usually boost around 50Hz (give or take a little) by about 2 or 3 dB and then CUT the low midrange (center freq somewhere between 300Hz - 500Hz, fairly wide bandwidth). and then boost the top end a little, (anywhere from 4KHz up through 10 or 15 KHz depending on the natural sound of the drum).

Bass guitar can get tricky because the sound can vary so much from one bass to the next. But as a general guide, try to cut some low mid and boost some lows. but the tricky part is getting it to fit with the kick drum but not mask the kick or vice versa. Just trial and error is the way to find the sweet spot.

To get that big sound on drums, you need room mics with a nice sounding big room. Unfortunately that's really the only way to get that sound and have it sound good. As for reverb, I'm a fan of only putting reverb on the snare mic, and on occassion just a little on the toms.

While you want to listen to the drumset as a whole (thinking of it as one instrument instead of a bunch of little instruments) soloing each mic and listening to how it sounds by itself can help you decide if you have phasing problems. If the kick sounds huge by itself and then you turn on the other mics and it loses all of it's thump, some of the other mics may be phase-cancelling some of the harmonic content of the kick mic.

Anyway, there really no science to all of this (because you have to train your ears)...just trial and error. As you do it more, you'll start to recognize problems and remember the fixes you discovered for them on a previous session.

Good luck.
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  #7  
Old 01-22-2003, 02:18 PM
Jonah Jonah is offline
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Default Re: help! I need low end and stereo separation

You could try tracking up the guitars and nudging a couple of them a few Ms. Or adding a short delay or reverb with some early reflections.
Bass drums a bitch to get right ( I tell you, in the old days of 1/4 inch tape you would really have some trouble )
The real funk in bass drums is around 50 - 150Hz -you say you don't get those? Maybe try some boost around the 4-6Khz.
If it's a real bass drum, it may be down to mic placement but I guess it's too late for thatso you might have to go the EQ/ compression route
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Old 01-23-2003, 07:27 AM
sonoma bass sonoma bass is offline
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Default Re: help! I need low end and stereo separation

I guess I should've said that they are ELECTRONIC drums, I recorded a trigger kit into an Alesis DM-Pro. Bass guitar was done direct stereo. So no microphone issues.
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Old 01-23-2003, 07:42 AM
Roly Roly is offline
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Default Re: help! I need low end and stereo separation

Do music cds sound ok? Your nearfields may be out of phase.
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  #10  
Old 01-23-2003, 09:40 AM
aziel aziel is offline
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Default Re: help! I need low end and stereo separation

Roly,
How can you know if the monitors are out of phase? [img]images/icons/confused.gif[/img]
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