Help needed with mixing home recordings

Paligulus

Hi Folks,

I'm looking for help/suggestions on my home recordings, from a mixing point of view. The recordings I've done so far tend to very Deep/Dull in tone. I'm quite happy with the individual intrsuments and how they sound when put together but I reckon I'm missing something EQ side of things. It could be something as simple as pushing the mids on certain intruments but its hard to mix your own stuff and I'd like some opinions.

BTW, I'm pretty indiffernt about the songs themselves so thats why I didnt post in PIMP My Band. I'm just analysing the mixing side.

So here ya go if ya get a chance. Just the 1st two songs "Diggers got rhythm" and "Spare a thought":

http://www.myspace.com/drelihan

BTW I'm using Toneport UX2, ESP MH400 Guitar, ESP B50 Bass and a fender mandolin. The drums are from royalty free drum loops and I'm using Adobe Audition 1.5 to through it all together!!! (I dont think the S/W i'm using is a problem cos I'm not using the VST stuff, I'm just using it as a glorified sequencer and to adjust the freq's etc..)

Sorry about the long post!!! Any suggestions, no matter how critical are much appreciated!!!!

Cheers

mike65

Is it possible to download from myspace I could'nt see a link? I can't/won't listen to streamiing from that site!

Mike.

Paligulus

mike65 wrote:

Is it possible to download from myspace I could'nt see a link? I can't/won't listen to streamiing from that site!

Mike.

Yep, underneath the song title is a Download link. Is there a better site for hosting music for free?

Cheers

mike65

Ooops! Spotted it.

There's laods of better sites for music I use www.artistserver.com but for a one off downloads somewhere like rapidshare.com or filefactory.com file hosting sites would do.

I'm listening back to Diggers Got Rhythm right now, its rather muddy alright.
All the sounds appear to occupying the same narrow frequency range. It needs a lift and some "punch".

Mike.

mike65

Hi I've done a quick remix using Soundforge as host - I tweaked the frequencies using TC Native Essentials plug-in, and Steinberg Spectraliser and then compressed slightly with Sonic Foundry Dynamics. Its still a bit "thick" low-down. Okay if I post it?

Mike.

Paligulus

mike65 wrote:

Hi I've done a quick remix using Soundforge as host - I tweaked the frequencies using TC Native Essentials plug-in, and Steinberg Spectraliser and then compressed slightly with Sonic Foundry Dynamics. Its still a bit "thick" low-down. Okay if I post it?

Mike.

Fair play to a chief. Post away. That would be very helpfull. Is it the fact that I dont push the mids on any of the instruments? (I have a tendancy to scoop the mids a bit on guitar)

mike65

5.7 mb mp3

Mike.

Paligulus

Cheers for that mike,

I've looked into reducing the boominess of music and came up with:

-I've started using filters on the guitars now, in particular
the acoustic guitars 'cos they tend to be very boomy. I'm reducing
everything under 250hz.

-Apparently when you add reverb to vocals it makes them muddy, so i've started reducing the freqs under 150hz to reduce the boominess.

-I also tried boosting the freqs in the 4-6khz region for vocals and some lead.


I was recommended "The Mixing Engineers Handbook" by Bobby Owsinski. Great book for this kind of stuff.

The only thing i'm having prob's with is how much do people cut the low freqs when doing a high-pass filter. Now I know the correct answer is "What ever sounds right"!!!! But I'm just curious to what others do as I dont want to be making small changes that make feck all difference or make large checges which totally screw up the sound!!!!!!!

Using this kind of info I recorded another song and spent a full
day on the mixing. Its still not great, but it turned out
a lot better than the other songs!!!

its called Fall Back:
http://www.myspace.com/drelihan

or

http://www.artistserver.com/paligulus

Cheers

Eoin Madsen

Paligulus wrote:

The only thing i'm having prob's with is how much do people cut the low freqs when doing a high-pass filter. Now I know the correct answer is "What ever sounds right"!!!! But I'm just curious to what others do as I dont want to be making small changes that make feck all difference or make large checges which totally screw up the sound!!!!!!!

Well, there's a time and a place for extreme EQ, as there is for subtle EQ. But in general, I'd suggest no more than around 6db of cut unless there's a real problem you're working on. Tbh, if you're not hearing an improvement when you've pulled 2db, then you've probably got the wrong frequency.

Different reverbs work in different ways. If the reverb is muddying up your low end, reducing the bass in the mixed signal will still leave you with a muddy bottom, just with a thinner sound. If the particular reverb doesn't have it's own eq/colouration control, then it can help to just eq the wet reverb channel on its own so you can clear up the signal without sacrificing the body of the source.

mike65

That bass drum is a bit boomy, the guitars and vocals sound fine for the bit-rate/hz.

Mike.

Paligulus

Ok folks. I recorded another song and I'm a bit more happy with it. I still have to get my learn on big time but at least I'm heading in the right direction...

Its called Solitary:
http://www.irishmusicians.info/paligulus

Thanks for the input lads