Untitled Song

[Irish614]

Heres a song in the works, very rough mix. Just looking on tips to improve the sound, how to get it to CD quality.

[Irish614]

no one gonna give us help on this?

[brandondrury]

MUD! You've got some mud issues.

I like the drums...they have character, aren't boxy, and I like the room sound. I'm not sure about the kick drum though because I can't hear it.

I like the vocal sound as well.

The problem here is the bass. It sounds like the typical local band bass sound. It's very muddy on my system and has no definition. Was this an active bass?

While bass does have some business in the low end, the 80-200Hz region is really easy to overdo. I've had this problem with a lot of local band basses. I'd actually go "too thin" on the bass and work my way backwards. There is so much mud in it now that I can't tell if you need to cut 4dB or 12dB @ 80-200Hz. (I'm just guessing on those frequencies, by the way).

Bass is not nearly as "subwoofery" as the average bass player thinks it is unless they are doing regae. Seriously, I can't count the number of bass players showed up to my place with a tone that could NEVER be audible in a rock song.

Listen to something like Greenday's "Longview". Listen on a system with a sub and listen without a sub. It doesn't have to be Longview, but find a well recorded song and listen to it on a system with a sub and then a system without a sub. You'll find that you can always hear the bass very well in the smaller system and it's a non-muddy type of sound. This is what you want to strive for.

I have to admit that, without a doubt, the bass guitar has been the toughest challenge for me to record. Much of this is due to the players and the fact that they are braindead about the bass tones they actually like.

Don't be shy on bumping at 400, 800, and 1Khz. Don't be shy about doing a low shelf cut under 200Hz, if necessary. It all depends.

In this particular mix, there is only so much upper bass that is "allowed", so you'll have either turn the bass way down or cut the junk out so you can keep the bass up.

It's hard to tell from the mix, but I've got a feeling that your guitars could use a high pass filter as well.

Brandon

[brandondrury]

I'd really like to hear this mix without MUD, so post it again in this thread when you get that taken care of.

Brandon

[Irish614]

yea, I noticed that as well, we have to keep the bass guitar down. We can't figure out how to bring out the kick more thats what we are stuck on right now.

[brandondrury]

Well, the reason that you can't hear the kick is because the bass is COMPLETELY dominating the 80-120 area.

With this audio stuff, if you can't hear a given source without turning the volume up to stupidly high levels, you need to cut something else. (By the way, this is probably one of the biggest lessons you'll ever learn about audio recording / producing / arranging / and even songwriting).

Don't be shy about going too thin on the bass. You can always put it back in on future mixes.

One trick I employ OFTEN is to put a very tight notch in the bass @ 80Hz. I may cut 10dB or so. Again, this should be a very very narrow notch. It's amazing how the kick drum comes back in.

Just as a robo quick fix, try pulling the bass down 5dB. Grab a parametric EQ and boost 800Hz 5dB with a fairly broad width (make sure you aren't boosting 100-200Hz though). See where that puts your kick drum. I'm worried that there isn't much definition in the bass. So even by boosting the midrange by 5dB, it may need way more than that.

On the kick, you may need to pull out 200-300Hz some. Since the low end is kind of mess, this will help "channel" the energy of the kick drum in areas where it needs to be. While I like booting 250Hz in my snares, it tends to make kick drums sound "smaller" to me.

Brandon

[thesilentdrummer]

I agree with the mud comment. If all else fails on the kick, you can boost 2kHz-3kHz (maybe even as high as the 5kHz range) to get more "click" out of the kick drum.

[Irish614]

Here it is with lowered bass guitar and less mud. Still can't get that damn kick drum to stand out in the mix.

[brandondrury]

I see you left all the mud in the electric guitars...or least it sounds that way on my end.

The bass guitar is completely gone now. I think the mix is thin. I'd leave whatever you have and boost 400hz or 800hz on the bass until you can actually hear the bass a little bit. Don't go overboard with it.

I'm not sure what the problem is with your kick drum. Is the kick drum mic even in the mix? It may not be ideal, but you should just have to turn the kick drum mic up. Try flipping the phase on the kick drum track and see if that does anything.

Now that the mud is gone, I can hear that snare really well. It sounds like it was recorded in a $1million studio room. Is it a sample? I ask because it seams a lot more "hi fi" than the rest of the recording. I should also be hearing the kick drum reverb in the snare reverb if it was real.

What do the drums sound like when you mute the guitars, bass, and vocals? Is the kick powerful and in your face? It can't be.

The guitars are quite toneless and harsh. I guess if you don't have any good amps (or don't know how to get them to sound mean without sounding harsh) there isn't a whole lot you can do. The tuning on the guitars could be better too.

The stupid sounding mud in the guitars during the palm mutes is hitting your brickwall limiter and causing the entire mix to pump. If you are really set on the mud guitar sound, have at it. But I'd at least put an compressor on them to catch the muddy palm mutes. Really, I'd retrack them, but that's just me.

Brandon

[Irish614]

Hey Brandon thanks for the response. I have noticed the guitars sound sloppy and not defined that will get fixed. As for the bass yea we turned it down way too much I'm thinking we should have him re-record it with more treble added to the bass so its not so bassy, shitty thing about it is the bass player doesn't like the sound of the treble added to the bass. I'm not sure whats going on with my kick drum mic either its the CAD KM212 kick drum mic, I took the top off yesterday to see what it looked like inside and it looks like a regular vocal microphone, I'm going to upgrade the kick mic to the Audix D6 or something like that and see if that helps.

As for the snare, no it is not a sample that's my snare drum. Recorded with overheads only, we didn't mic it for this song. Whats so interesting is that I record the drums in my garage which is sheetrocked but theres no finished ceiling on it yet and theres concrete floors so its kinda cool we get a decent sound outta that. When we mute everything but the drums, the kick has a nice punch to it but nothing that will blow your eardrums out. I don't remember what they use to record the guitars but it's not through their amps its a direct line in they plug into this box choose a setting of distortion or whatever effect they want and start recording. We should try and record through their amps, one of them has a marshall stack and the other uses a Line6 so they aren't shitty amps you know? And the mud in the guitars I'm not sure why its there, I know the lead guitarists plays pretty hard and hes into the metal scene maybe that has something to do with it.