Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[dirkb]

Hi all,

The current album I'm mixing, I tracked everything myself in my fairly small room and although I'm pretty happy how things are turning out, I feel I need to add to much highs to get in the ballpark frequency-wise, especially since I'm working on a digital mixing desk and I prefer not to add more than 3-5dB of highend. So what I've done is make the best mix I can and not add highs everywhere (e.g. on drums, ac guitar, vocals, keys). The mixes comout a little dull, but I think something like 2-4dB of high-shelf (on a digital EQ, perhaps less on an analogue) fixes the problem...

What would you prefer to receive as a mastering engineer? The duller mixes and you add the top-end?

Any input is appreciated.
Greetings,
Dirk

[arimaka]

dirkb wrote on Thu, 22 July 2004 05:22

Hi all, The current album I'm mixing, I tracked everything myself in my fairly small room and although I'm pretty happy how things are turning out, I feel I need to add to much highs to get in the ballpark frequency-wise, especially since I'm working on a digital mixing desk and I prefer not to add more than 3-5dB of highend. So what I've done is make the best mix I can and not add highs everywhere (e.g. on drums, ac guitar, vocals, keys). The mixes comout a little dull, but I think something like 2-4dB of high-shelf (on a digital EQ, perhaps less on an analogue) fixes the problem... What would you prefer to receive as a mastering engineer? The duller mixes and you add the top-end? Any input is appreciated. Greetings, Dirk

I usually never EQ the stereo buss... leave that to the mastering engineer
if you feel your mix is bright, adjust levels and eq to until you are happy...

that's just my .02 cents

[bblackwood]

It's pretty simple - make it as good as you can then send it to mastering. If it seems dull, then you should investigate what makes it dull (dark vox, cymbals too far back, over-compression, etc), as anything done in mastering will have a negative attached to it. The trick in mastering is to simply do only the things where the positive impact outweighs the negative.

Don't 'mix for mastering' or leave something undone unless you simply cannot track it down, imo...

[TotalSonic]

I agree with Brad here.  I do some tracking also and I've always found much better mixes can be achieved by eq'ing individual instruments/tracks to achieve a nice tonal balance instead of just running something across the 2-buss as you get a lot more definition and space for each of the elements. Make it the best sounding mix you can do without resorting to lots of 2-buss processing and you're set.

Best regards,
Steve Berson

[JPRisus]

I was in your boat once, where my mixes seemed dull compared to references... i tried adding top to the mixbuss, but it had adverse affects on other aspects of the mix, like guitars or keys that didn't need any extra top. Lately i've been adding a few dB of 10-12k to my drum buss and sometimes a few dB around the same area to the lead vocal, and this has worked nicely to my ears... of course Brad could tell you if this really works or not, since he's handled my last 3-4 mix projects.

[lucey]

bblackwood wrote on Thu, 22 July 2004 08:54

Don't 'mix for mastering' or leave something undone unless you simply cannot track it down, imo...

Dirk,

my only addendum to this would be that if you're listening to mastered CD as a reference (which you likely are) some of what you hear, and some of what your mix may seem to lack, is perhaps mastering, or the recording path of that record.

specific consoles and signal paths are going to suggets a certain tone ... and if you counter that too far, you'll hear it

so your mix may be it's best and not meet the top end you want .. if you add highs everywhere, phase issues may abound.

I mean if you're trying to match a pro tools record like Sevendust on a Trident ... and you missed the mid/top at tracking, and it's getting unmusical through the Trident eq/buss combo, better to leave that for mastering.


knowing the sonic range of your studio is key.



as is the difference between the concepts:

'mix your best sounding mix'

'mixing a psuedo-master' (which has been covered in other threads)







and maybe in some cases what you may like about a record is actually mastering

so you need to be careful not to try and 'mix a master'




there's a balance between under-mixing and over-mixing

[Ed Littman]

In addition to all the great advice.

I find that a lot of mixes that need to get some extra air around the cymbal & top end, end up bringing out the sibilance problems of the lead vocal.
This  most likely means the mixer is over eq'ing the vocal to try to have it cut through the mix in their environment when their room/monitors are not giving them the right info.

Most of the time i recommend to cool out on eqing the vocals & I end up using less de-essers for the master.
Ed

[dirkb]

lucey wrote on Thu, 22 July 2004 18:54

bblackwood wrote on Thu, 22 July 2004 08:54 Don't 'mix for mastering' or leave something undone unless you simply cannot track it down, imo... Dirk, my only addendum to this would be that if you're listening to mastered CD as a reference (which you likely are) some of what you hear, and some of what your mix may seem to lack, is perhaps mastering, or the recording path of that record. specific consoles and signal paths are going to suggets a certain tone ... and if you counter that too far, you'll hear it so your mix may be it's best and not meet the top end you want .. if you add highs everywhere, phase issues may abound. I mean if you're trying to match a pro tools record like Sevendust on a Trident ... and you missed the mid/top at tracking, and it's getting unmusical through the Trident eq/buss combo, better to leave that for mastering. knowing the sonic range of your studio is key. as is the difference between the concepts: 'mix your best sounding mix' 'mixing a psuedo-master' (which has been covered in other threads) and maybe in some cases what you may like about a record is actually mastering so you need to be careful not to try and 'mix a master' there's a balance between under-mixing and over-mixing

Thanks all, and very well put, Lucey.
Just to give some more insight, it's actually phase issues that I'm worried about. Adding some 3-4dB to the drums, leadvocal and ac. guitar in the top end, get's me quite in the ballpark. I just like the sound of especially the drums and leadvocal un-eq-ed and adding high-end takes away a little of the magic, but perhaps I'm just being too sensitive here.

Thanks for all the comments,
greetings,
Dirk

[JPRisus]

lucey wrote on Thu, 22 July 2004 13:54

specific consoles and signal paths are going to suggets a certain tone ... and if you counter that too far, you'll hear it so your mix may be it's best and not meet the top end you want .. if you add highs everywhere, phase issues may abound. I mean if you're trying to match a pro tools record like Sevendust on a Trident ... and you missed the mid/top at tracking, and it's getting unmusical through the Trident eq/buss combo, better to leave that for mastering. knowing the sonic range of your studio is key.

That's really brilliant!

[lucey]

dirkb wrote on Thu, 22 July 2004 16:52

Just to give some more insight, it's actually phase issues that I'm worried about. Adding some 3-4dB to the drums, leadvocal and ac. guitar in the top end, get's me quite in the ballpark. I just like the sound of especially the drums and leadvocal un-eq-ed and adding high-end takes away a little of the magic, but perhaps I'm just being too sensitive here.

dirk I'm not sure there is a "too sensitive" place for mixing or mastering, not when the sensitivity tells you about musical magic's presence or absence.  phase issues will kill the source's realness for sure.


so what i hear you saying is that either your tracking was darker than you'd have liked, or your recording chain is darker than you like.

i also hear you saying that the phase issues are giving you want you want but taking away something you want/giving you something you don't want.

this may be a case for leaving SOME of it for mastering ... IF:


you make it with a 'full range of tones' that are simply not in the right part of the spectrum.



as an example, i did a mastering job for a guy that eq'd nothing post tracking ... NOTHING.  and very little eq at tracking.

so the record was dark, very dark ... but it mastered up like you would not believe, and it became what he wanted, consistent with his mix, but not at all like his mix ... brighter, tighter and still full range.

in his case i had no idea he used no eq in mixing until after wards, and then it all made sense.

his chain was:
source - mic - focusrite all in one pre/eq/comp - DP - ITB - bright monitors with little low mids

so again, know your chain ... and maybe know the chain of what you really like to hear (your comp CDs)

the whole point of all the gear talk is to get the boxes that give you those sounds you want with little effort.  if you have to brighten up everything, your chain needs some adjustment ... and until then mastering can help.  

after you have mics and pres and a mixing system that gets you close with the right choices and little compensation, mastering will make you sound like a genius  

[dirkb]

Well, my chains are top notch, all the ussual suspects of mics and micpres. The real problom is that my room is a little over absorberant starting at about 1-2K and up (which is quite common for small room acoustics).

I like the minimal aproach on adding high end with a digital mixer (Yamaha DM1000 in my case ans some plug-ins) so that's what I did. Did some mixing yesterday of one of the tunes that's finished and I think I will take a middle road. Adding some tops 2-3dB to the overheads and drumbus and some at the acoustic guitar and leadvocal (not more than a gentle shelf staring at 9K of 3dB) gets me quite in the right direction. The final 1-2dB I'll think I'm going to leave for mastering, cause I know that on a lot of commercial cd's some or more top-end is added in mastering and I don't want to do that in my mix if the leads to too drastic actions...

Thanks again for the insight.
Greetings,
Dirk

[bobkatz]

dirkb wrote on Thu, 22 July 2004 05:22

Hi all, What would you prefer to receive as a mastering engineer? The duller mixes and you add the top-end? Any input is appreciated. Greetings, Dirk

This is an excellent question and I'm sure it comes round a lot. My personal answer is: get the top end as close as you can to what it should be (whatever that is). The fact is that equalization on an overall mix has an effect on the mix values, it can change the mix that you did. If we have to add 3 dB of top to an overall mix, for example, we have to listen carefully to make sure the vocal doesn't get recessed, and subjectively, the lower midrange instruments come down as well as the bass instrument and the sound becomes thin. At that point, well, maybe a smile-shaped EQ is what you need, but it has its own potential problems.

If I had a choice, would I rather receive an overly bright or an overly dull mix, I tend to prefer the too dull, only because often the overly bright mixes may be associated with some high frequency overload distortion that you didn't discover. But if the bright mix is undistorted, then I see no theoretical advantage or disadvantage of one over the other.

The big problem in severe eq situations is that an extreme Equalizer is literally a remixer. If your balance is perfect but the EQ is not, then a re-eq will likely make your balance less perfect (perhaps only subtly, and not significantly, hopefully. But if your EQ problems reflect matching balance problems, then we can look forward to a happier mastering session. For example, if there's too much bass tonality AND the bass instrument AND the bass drum are proportionally too loud at the same time, then the mastering EQ will fix all the problems at once (hopefully) and restore the balance (hopefully).

So, in all cases we have to do a careful A/B comparison between an original mix and the master to make sure that the mastering processing (and/or EQ) has not brought out instruments undesirably. A little more "tinkle or sizzle or air" just might be what your mix needs, but what if we have to apply so much high end to your "deficient" mix that the vocal becomes overly sibilant and thin due to the fact that we're equalizing an overall mix?

To repeat, the closer you make your mix and your tonality to the ideal perfect, and the less that we have to do in the mastering (just polish and final hopefully-minor tweaks), the better your master will probably sound.

Hope this helps!

[JPRisus]

Just to add something else from a mixer's perspective... it helps the top tremendously to lowpass things that don't need to be above a certain range, such as guitars, bass, keys, certain drums that's don't need extended top, etc. Just like low end, the top needs space and often gets lots of stuff crammed into the same area, usually around 10k for me. I've found that leaving room for the items that really need extra top helps those tracks cut through the rest of the mix with minimal EQ, and creates the illusion of brightness when in reality you're just cutting away at other things.                                                  

[dirkb]

JPRisus wrote on Fri, 23 July 2004 17:44

Just to add something else from a mixer's perspective... it helps the top tremendously to lowpass things that don't need to be above a certain range, such as guitars, bass, keys, certain drums that's don't need extended top, etc. Just like low end, the top needs space and often gets lots of stuff crammed into the same area, usually around 10k for me. I've found that leaving room for the items that really need extra top helps those tracks cut through the rest of the mix with minimal EQ, and creates the illusion of brightness when in reality you're just cutting away at other things.

Hi JP,

Interesting approach. I can't say I have had the same experience with the top-end i.e. leaving room for only a few contributors and thus getting a better perceived high-end. I'm not into filtering a lot, but I'll definetely check what e.g. a low-pas on the dirt guitars and bass does for the rest of the top end.

Greetings,
Dirk

[ted nightshade]

dirkb wrote on Fri, 23 July 2004 00:47

Well, my chains are top notch, all the ussual suspects of mics and micpres. The real problom is that my room is a little over absorberant starting at about 1-2K and up (which is quite common for small room acoustics).

Next time around, you might try some brighter cymbals with brighter sticks (carbon fiber is really bright, rosewood is bright, the usual hickory suspects are kind of blah), make sure you get all of it on the mics (not easy), that can do a lot right there. Just a thought.