- appreciate your thoughts fishtank.

I'm doing lots of different stuff, that's why it's hard to be too specific. Often it's soundtracks for video, sometimes a demo vocal song - it can range from orchestral strings maybe brass sections, or rock/country using electric or acoustic guitars. I'm generally happy with the quality of each track, but it's when combining them I'm trying to improve my skills

Some tracks are audio, others midi/soft synths created in Logic. What I do is compose the midi or soft synth backing in Logic then export each instrument as a separate wav file to put into Vegas where I feel more familiar and in control than with Logic.

But you're right - I haven't done much with compression, and note your comments on Waves, but I'm not looking for any million dollar sound, just a bit more clarity and separation - I shall now have a read about compression, and maybe this will help towards sounds staying "untangled".

I guess the sort of tips I was fishing for are things like
"if the piano is towards the right of the stereo field, keep drums to the left"
- I'm not saying that's a rule, just made it up as an example.

I know each composition has its own character, but I was wondering if there are some basic guidelines, just as there are with video framing - they're there to help but feel free to break them ....

thanks

peter

For detail and clarity, panning of your instruments is less important than how you use eq and other efx. Ideally you should be able to achieve it in a mono mix. Mush and muddiness are primarily caused by more than one instrument dominating or occupying a certain frequency range, especially in the lows and low-mids. An instrument(s) can sound great when soloed but may get lost or obscured in the mix. Experiment with what at first may seem like some *radical* roll off of eq in the lower spectrums and see what happens. Remember to almost always try to attenuate eq as opposed to adding it. I would not start adding compression until the eq issues are addressed. The other most common problem is caused by incorrect use of verbs which can really make things sound washed out or mushy. If you are fairly new to mixing, its best to err on the side of using too little verb. It takes years to learn how to mix really well. Your ears will continue to *learn* as you increase your skills. Good luck!

HTH,

drbam

Greetings Peter,

No expert here so feel free to take or leave what I have to say. However, in addition to what has already been said is your monitoring (by that, I mean environment, speaker placement, etc. not just the speakers/monitors themselves) up to it? Have you tried A/B comparisons with 'commercial' music you're familiar with (through the same set up of course)?

If you're happy that your monitoring isn't the culprit, try the following as a 'guide' mix and you can tweak and fiddle from there:

Imagine that you're in the audience facing a stage on which your band is performing (or virtual band if you've done it all yourself). Let's say, for the sake of argument, that your band has a drummer, a bassist, two guitarists, a keyboard player and a percussionist (and maybe a horn and/or string section, but we'll get to these later).

Your band will (usually) have the drummer at the back and centre of the stage, the guitarists and bassist slightly spaced out (and I'm not referring to illegal substances here!) in front of the drummer - maybe bassist in the middle and lead and rhythm either side of him. The keyboard(s) will probably be off to one side (doesn't matter which) and just for the sake of symmetry the percussionist will be off to the other side. In the centre up front, you have your singer/soloist.

As stated in a previous post (I think) reverb will give you the perception of depth, i.e. the more reverb you apply, the deeper (further back 'on stage') the sound will be. Therefore, if you apply too much reverb it will make the 'stage' seem deeper than it is wide. It follows that the further you pan the sounds, the wider the 'stage' seems. So as far as both are concerned the key here is not to overdo it. It's better if your band members are squeezed together on a slightly small 'stage' than lost and out of touch with each other on a massive one.

As far as EQ goes, I would suggest that the only time you want to hear bass is when it comes from the kick drum (in the form of a 'thump') and when it comes from the bass (in the form of a 'groove'). Therefore, I would attenuate the bass frequencies (HPF) of ALL of the other sounds. Similarly, the hats, cymbals and percussion will usually occupy the high frequencies (with the occasional 'screeching' guitar solo or synth line, perhaps even a flute solo) so, again, I would attenuate ALL other instruments from those frequencies (LPF). Once you've sorted out your backing, you can concentrate on tweaking the vocal/solo (or whatever) so that it stands out from the rest of it. The EQ settings here very much depend on the vocal/solo itself so it's much harder to generalise about this, but once you've got the backing right it should clear up the 'stage' for the v/s to sit in.

Of course, the best bit of advice that anyone can give you is to use your ears. If it sounds right, it is right!

I hope this makes sense to you and that I have been of some help.

Good luck.





One Love, Spy!

Be carefull with your low mids as well,(everything between about 150 hz and 1000 hz) this is the area where different instruments playing the same frequencies can really glom up and form a big muddy mess. Some gentle eq cutting here on all instruments playing within this range will clear up your mix considerably. Use different eq cut on each different instrument to try and allow all of them to breath. Solo a couple instruments at a time and see how they interact, then listen to how they interact in the whole mix. Spend more time tweaking individual tracks with how they pertain to the mix rather than soloing each track and trying to make each individual instrument into a mix by itself.
Steve S

Thanks so much guys - these were exactly the sort of guidelines I was hoping for. I'm off to have a go at "unmushing" my last mix ...

If you've ever had it, the experience of being really excited at various tracks you've created only to slowly lose the excitement as they all get blurred together is not nice - now I have many things to pay attention to, so I can sort things out.

Your help is most appreciated.

Peter

>>If you've ever had it, the experience of being really excited at various tracks you've created only to slowly lose the excitement as they all get blurred together is not nice <<

Its happened more times than I care to admit! However, there's no better way to develop mixing skills than learning how to clean up your own mush! ;-)

drbam

http://www.sonicfoundry.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?ForumID=19&MessageID=98946

Some old tips from me. Although I've changed a few working methods since, much of this still stands.

Jason