Can I get advice on the balance of this mix, anything that needs adding etc?

The vocals are meant as a guide vocal, I'll probably rerecord them, but there's a lot of mud and I'm not sure what needs cleaning up exactly. Which frequencies are rogue? I lose some energy if I remove around 250.

Its always a mix of doubled LV and 4 x BV, panned 50 each side (Ableton) and 35 each side. I have the EQ only on the Buss for all 4 BVs and both LVs going through a different EQ. I'm wondering if I should maybe dip something on each pair of BVs, like on one pair dip the lows and the other dip the highs? I'd like to get some clarity because its just sounding a bit muddy right now.

 

The high pitched precussion is too quite. And it's probably also not a good sample. It should have more sustain.

 

the vocals are a bit muddy for sure. they could also be cleaned up. de breathed especially. I would also have some more center vocal information. they are spread a little too much in my opinion.

The main synth is a little harsh. Something like soothe or acustica dove would help on the synths. Would also help with transparently removing some mud on the overall mix.

 

Cheers. Yeah I haven't done a session on them yet. I might redo them so that would be a waste of effort. I wonder how much difference it would make right now to the mud, tightening up etc.

I wonder if the feel of the width is that they're a bit too loud as backing? I think they're similar levels so that might help. Cheers for pointing that out.

Cheers for the main synth feedback. I hadn't considered Soothe. I use it on vocal sometimes but never used it to fix synths. I'll check that out thanks.

 

i would put a low cut filter on each bus at 600hz. adjusting downward and disabling them on and off in combination until you know which is causing your mud. it's always low mids overlapping. you will quickly find what bus your overlaps are really happening on. Then work top down the same way into the channels on those buses doing the same thing. I would put a mono-maker for 100hz and below, because I always do anyway. You will know what you want to EQ, and can then remove all the highpass filter instances. You are only using them to find your problem. A notch filter at 300hz is also something to think about on the other instrument bus and channels. That's almost always where I end up with mud happening.

This was my general approach before I started using Claro. You can do the same things with Pro-Q3, but it is so much faster of a workflow to get from some dumb digital EQ. It doesn't make decisions for you like Sonible SmartEQ.

 

man what a trip
nice track, even though there could be a better outcome if less muddy

 

That's awesome advice, cheers. I hadn't even considered isolating the mud/removing it sequentially. Sometimes I'm really dumb

I've had a blast checking through and cleaned it up hugely, spotted loads of rogue stuff. Might have overdone things, I don't know, but it helped to spot a lot of what was going wrong.

The vocals need a huge tidy up, but I think I need a better LV input signal. Its a bit on the crunchy side. The BV is in a good place... As it was hitting the Comps in the DAW it was crunching, which probably added to the overall mud... They need individual EQ if I'm going to keep them, the volumes are all over the place and the registers keep changing so much that they need putting on separate channels with different EQ, which probably also contributes to mud and lack of clarity at times.

So that was really helpful thanks.

Lol cheers... The arrangement is all over the place, I've no idea what I was doing here, its all over the place and it doesn't flow at all, but I like it LOL

Yeah the song is about not being able to finish tracks. Not having a proper system... I like what you did there

 

that's a typical problem of electronic music:
= you grab tons of nice sounds/instruments (on their own), make a very dense/busy arrangement, and naturally things clash tremendously

you aren't wrong eyeing 250Hz area, but you need to carefully treat individual elements in the mix, not the mix as a whole, you literally have to make room for individual elements to sit together without over-powering each other,

here's a reference song (its chorus) reminds me of your track - go get a good idea how you might (or not) things sound in dense part of the song:

 

That's an awesome reference song, thanks. I totally get the similar feel. I didn't have anything to compare to but this feels better than what I've been using - Weeknd "Blinding Lights" and Hot Chip "Positive" for no real reason. I've no idea what my style is other than something kind of 80s.

Should really help with finding the balance.

I have ADHD so I totally overload tracks. I get endless ideas so they all get thrown in... I did pretty much on the lines of what you and clone said, treated some of the 250/300 area. I still think its a bit off, but its a lot better and it gave me a brilliant understanding of where its overloading... I'll try your compare track tomorrow on fresh ears thanks

 

Remove the reverb from the lead vocals, it pushes them backwards. Do minimal doubling on the lead vox, the doubles should be maybe 3 or 4dB lower than the main lead. Tweak the EQ on the vox, particularly in the 2.5kHz "presence" area (+3 dB?) and higher frequencies (+2 dB?). Reduce the lead vox width to zero, no spreading. All this should make for a "crisp" sound. Then listen to the mix in mono and adjust the vocals' level until they cut through clearly. The backing should take second place. Like it or not, vocals are what ordinary folk listen to, not the instrumental stuff we all spend hours getting right.

Well that's what I'd do, anyway.

 

Super helpful, thanks. These are really detailed areas to check.

I thought the LV is in mono throughout so I'll have to check that in isolation. Might be the delay that I'm feeding it into.

Here's where I got to earlier today...

 

Much better, but I'd still take the backing down a dB or two in places. At least at the frequencies where it's competing with the vocals, particularly the 2 to 3 kHz intelligibility region. I think it would help to reduce the level of the "stringy" pad somewhat.

 

heh I get your point - well there's actually very simple unpopular "trick" to that - start muting tracks, listen through, and if you don't notice something is "obviously" missing, then you know you can leave it muted (in various parts of the song, not whole song ofc) - and if you notice something is missing, but only bit of something, then you know what track needs more work (EQ, compression etc..)

 

That's why some ppl like workstations synths : sounds are created to be directly "mixable".
They are already "pre EQ" to match.
As a general tip, there is less clash when you use sounds from the same source intended to be "do it all".

BUT on the other side, they may lack personality.

Different sources open choice,personality ... BUT give you more mix/arrangement work.

Here is a little demo of what i speak about (all sounds are direct from synth with no mixing) :

 

Yeah great advice thanks... I just had a session engineering a mate's track and I think I learned quite a lot there, especially what I've brought over from this thread and things I'm remembering that I already learned. Fuckin dumb brain forgets everything, it becomes pointless learning anything. I need the system just set up so that I don't have to think, but there's still little nuggets like this where you can't really plan for it. I think you just have to be doing it regular for it to work... Totally appreciated and bang on point. Thanks.

 

I don't have additional mixing advice. Though I do agree the percussion could be punchier, with a meatier snare. And yeah it's muddy and the vocals are uneven.

But I think you're really onto something here. It's an ambitious track, and I could see the final version doing great in a club. It's a funny song, too. Keep it up with those revisions!

 

That compare track is brilliant thanks. The low guitar tones I noticed that I didn't have and I never add anything there. I added a plucking pad instead and it kind of matches that area. Copied it over from the bassline.

 

I would do this fx chain, with everything at 60% wet : Soothe > Gullfoss > Intensity > Gullfoss Live > MSpectralDynamics > Gullfoss Master > OTT

 

Another thing I would most likely try would be shortening tails on channels using either a gate, particularly sonible smartgate; or a transient shaper. You probably have SPL Transient Designer Plus or something like it. As long as it has a hold or sustain parameter you can adjust, you can use it to shorten tails and cut the spots between notes/hits. Almost like reverse hitpoint detection. Or more likely, I would use smartgate to do it. It's an easy way to get rid of summed noise from spots in your waveforms that should be silent but aren't. That junk adds up quickly, especially if you are letting it hit a delay or reverb, or boosting. The difference will not be very pronounced if you listen to individual channels. Drums are close enough to the frequency range most people will call mud, 200-300hz.