It sounds flat and one dimensional.
Try putting things left and right.
Now everything sounds like it contains the same frequencies.
Start by Hipassing everything. Wind the filter up to where you start to hear it changing the sound and then back it off slightly.
Do the same with the LoPass on every track. Very Important.
Then you will have something to work with.
Then study the instruments and see which frequencies are clashing on instruments.
Be viscous and create some space by cutting frequencies not adding.
Now when each instrument is sitting in its own space and panning start adding some short reverbs. Different reverbs for different instruments. Dont clog it up just enhance the space.
Now if your not getting certain instruments to cut try saturation not eq.

Do all this and post your mix here and we will see where you have got to.
Spencer (70 year old engineer mixer)

 

Hey thanks for the tips! Its not only that I want to master it to sound nice on phone. Its the feeling of knowing I did decent job if it sounds decent there.

Regarding the hook, being catchy and the time it takes to be forgotten... I make my tracks the way I like them. This one, for me, needs just a transition or two near the end, and the rest is mixing and making it sound nice on different speakers (learning mixing and mastering to to some level). It is for me and some people that I shown this track to that also think that the melody is catchy . Both the cello and guitar part.

It is important to me that I like the melody and everything, the rest will come after that. Now, back to the mix. I hope I am not boring trying to learn and asking all these questions? I mean, I see myself in a few years producing nice and sharing tips all around

You think I should cut guitar and cello in those freq ranges???

@spencer26 - Just read your post. EXACTLY! Flat and one directional. I hope I will find time before weekend to tidy up things a bit. I already low cut every track. Now I need to cut all hisses, the end of eq spectrum? I did some spreading. And by those short reverbs you mean 200-300ms? 1000ms? And I understand they need to be kind of different lenght and eq settings. Only for guitar and cello, or for sub, mid basses? Drums, hats and claps? Here is the progress from last night, but I still need to work on that hipassing and reverbs.

edit: just learned hipass is lowcut

If I only knew how to spreat that acousitc guitar I inserted at the beggining of every beat. Ozone imager is not not enough apparently.

 

Last edited: Nov 15, 2017

Getting better.
Acoustic Guitar send through a stereo delay. No direct sound. Delay Left 8ms Delay Right 17 ms.
Now if it sounds out of time try 4/13ms
Do a similar trick on the sequencer and get it out of the middle and put some Early reflections on it. Different Delay times by a few ms.
Reverbs just use the early reflections of reverbs and turn off the tail. This will give you a room space.
A bit more 3k on the kick.
On the Guitar solo try Toraverb (Vers1) "Mutiny on the Bounty" and wind up the modulation a bit. This will give it is own space.
Try the Cello dry with just some Early Reflection (ER) Make the Cello as loud as you would a Vocal. Same with the guitar solo.
The Snare needs a 1sec reverb on it but not a lot. Just till you hear the space.
Use Hi Pass and Lo Pass Filters not low and Hi Cut.
Spencer

 

Thank you, thank you Spencer! I will try as hard as I can to follow your suggestions. Although I use computers for living, audio instructions and vocabulary are still in early stage of development for me, so, in technical terms, I dont quiet get everything you say to me. Will try to google some of suggestions - how to apply early reverb, how to send acoustic guitar through a stereo delay without direct sound.

1. How you said to use similar trick on the sequencer. Do you mean the main sequence that is playing through whole song? Repeating sound.

2. 3k on the kick - to boost that freq more?

3. By snare you mean claps or snare which occurs only as transition, before main parts?

4. Will use hi pass and lo pass filters on each track. Should I use them at the beggining or at the end of effect chain of individual tracks?

Will post that corrected version tomorrow I hope This is gettting very exciting, learning at a very speedy pace

 

Main Sequencer.
Boost 3k on Kick about 4 db.
Snare and Claps
Hi pass at the beginning of the chain and Lo pass I use at the end. But you can use both at the beginning.
we haven't talked about compression but I will wait till I see where you get to.
If you are using a Mastering section you should be mixing through it but thats for later.
Spencer

 

The new mix is already a lot better, night and day. After Spencer schools you on compression, it will improve by bounds further. Good work enthusiast, keep going all out on it and never stop.

 

Of course Satai! Thx for support! I dont intend to stop now. Ever.

Ok. I get everything else but the main sequencer. If thats the repeater through the whole song. Like middle bass in the middle, but a bit distorted.

 

I presume you have a separate Bass part to the main sequencer.
The sequencer is very busy so its taking up a lot of room.
Moving it into the sides does two things, it clears out the middle for your solos and secondly makes the track very wide which is good.
It also allows your kick to be clearer.
If it doesn't work put it back in the middle.
Spencer

 

Yes, I have a sub on one track, the repeater or main sequencer on the other, which was completely in middle, and mid bas on third, hitting at the same time as kick drum.

Will do all corrections and then posting it. Hope it improves again

I must note that I do have some kind of chain on master channel. But we get to that and compression later

 

Last edited: Nov 15, 2017

That is the way it should be... which is why I am confused about why it is so important for it sound good on phone speakers.... It is not true that if it sounds good on phone speakers it will sound good everywhere though. Phone speakers are previously mentioned require quite a compromise since they are by design balanced to output human speech and not music.

Back on topic:

Sounds much better.

The guitar is still a bit pokey it can take much bigger cuts and still come through.
The Cello is getting there it can still take a small cut.

There is some sort of 2CH harmonic rich modulated distorted Saw/Square at G#1 or A1 that will never sound like more than floppy speaker cone distortion on any small speaker, there is quite a bit of phase distortion on this bass, if you check the mix in mono you can hear it even on large loudspeakers.

It is resonant with the bass drum and the guitar loop in places. It has to be mixed lower in volume or LSF the low end and make cuts where necessary if you want to keep as much of it as possible. You might want split it into a LF mono HF stereo signal, but you need to track down the source of the phase cancellation on the lower registers, going from stereo to mono seems to make a whole somewhere around 140Hz-160Hz and propagates up harmonically from there.

Sounds much better - couldn't pick out the synth sub-bass carrier yesterday as clearly.

 

Hey Mozee you are right who gives a rats what it sounds like on a phone.
From my experience if you mix on completely flat monitoring it will translate everywhere.
I am with Chris Lord Algie in who cares what is sounds like in mono.
Yes it definitely not good having resonances build up in any track as it obviously blurs everything else.
The easy way to find a resonance.
Set an eq up with a very narrow bandwith and boost about 12db.
Then sweep this eq thru the offending instrument or track till it blows you away.
Then just reverse the EQ to minus till the resonance goes.
Spencer

 

You may need a MULTI Band Compressor on the Master Bus to compress the higher frequencies.

 

if you're comfortable with testing out some plugins which might do the trick then here's what I'd probably do (doesn't mean I wouldn't remove or at least blend those less than 100% with original sound):
1) Waves MaxxBass on bass to push bass higher up frequency harmonics in order to sound good on much smaller woofers
2) use Nugen Stereoizer on guitars for wide spread and cellos for minor spread while not killing the sound when played in mono
3) duplicate and layer those cellos with reverb(s), something like Overloud ReMatrix is probably most creative combined reverb to try
4) use some delay/reverb for better "front-back" spatial perception - which also helps individual sounds not to clash each other directly
5) throw some serious multiband compressor, preferably FabFilter Pro-MB, max is 6 bands if I recall correctly, pick some mastering preset and see how (un)evenly the frequencies are playing through, using mute/solo buttons at each of the bands you can then examine more thoroughly what areas of the frequency spectrum are causing problems, lacking juice etc..
6) if you'd like to make the entire mix to sound widely nicer, then again FabFilter Pro-MB is the tool to use, preset Mixbus -> Expanded side dynamics will do some relatively minor but nice tricks ;)

 

Wow, fantastic input from everyone. This is going to be an interesting week I need to learn so much in so little time. Will try to post newer version tomorrow, and I will probably post everything bass, mid bass related as separate tracks. Yes there is repeating, lofi-like mid bass through the whole song, but it gives it rhythm. And there is distorted stab on every 2 measures i think, or those are beats. Maybe I should tame it or give it some low end. Posting everything tomorrow evening. Huge progress has already been made. Now we go further!

 

I can't say it often and loud enough: don't use multianything on stereo (main out/mastering) as long as you have access to the single mix tracks! You will always achieve a better result there.

 

I gotta disagree a bit, I prefer to use multiband compressor (= dynamic equalizer basically) whenever I can, because it lets me to affect only bands I want/need to, let them react differently, it's a worflow oldschool-way sound guys barely understand because that's something no hardware gear can do,
that said, obviously the multiband anything on master bus should be a mild touch, no heavy sound mangling

 

Using multiband compression in the mainout of one's own mix is like building a leaning wall and plastering it until it is in right angle.

Using it on single tracks as a dynamic eq is no problem and in cases in which it is neccessary I am using a dynamic eq. Mostly to tame natural resonances of real instruments.

 

OK let me describe my mastering section that I mix through for pop dance etc.
(For Orchestral Film Scores, Classical and Jazz. No SSL or Charly but I use a three band compressor.)
VU Meter -18. I keep my mix bus under 0 at all times.
Multiband Compressor. 2 Bands only. Crossover at 70hz just to control the bottom end.
MS Equalizer rolling of the sides from 200hz to 20hz gentle slope. Boosting 10khz by about 2.5db in the middle only.
SSL type compressor hold max 4db.
Charly 2.5db. (Google)
Satin Tape. (Andrew Schweps settings)
Oxford Limiter. Set to -.1db
LUFS Meter. Max Loudness -7.4
Non of this is working very hard.
Spencer

 

Great, interesting list but unimportant, no offense, honestly.
Do you know my mastering chain for my own mixes? Two single band limiters (plus an analyzer and a level meter, of course). That's all! One for transients, one for peaks. All the rest I'm doing in the single tracks or in subgroups.

 

I am providing masters ready for use on TV Movies CDs etc.
Thats why I do it this way.
Spencer