Help Find Mud

[Studdy]

I really like this mix on small systems but on bass heavy systems its a touch muddy, can someone please help find the bad freq. or the problem.

Any suggestions are welcomed.

[Studdy]

Here it is.

[garageband]

Learn how to "sweep a parametric equalizer."

[Studdy]

I've been sweepin', my monitors arn't helping me here. It sounds good on them.

Any helpful eq spots in particular? How wide? How much reduction? On the mix or on each seperate track?

Any other thoughts on the mix?

[gyps]

If it sounds good to you, leave it.
If I was mixing this I would fatten the guitar, more bottom end with a hint of reverb.
Vocal is a little thin but that may be the mic. Cheap mic, thin vocal. Good mic recorded in ideal conditions should generally require no EQ. I would add a little more Rev to vocal. Otherwise, 8 out of 10.
Check vocal in 'Love will keep us alive' in Bash this recording.

[musicmakerstudio]

This actually sounds fine on my system. If your hearing mud or boom is it happening when the guitar player plays the D chord? I noticed the A string is ringing quite loudly on this particular chord (D) chord. The vocal is quite dry. You might want to try a small room type ambient effect. Maybe a short delay as well with only one return echo. Be conservative with your effect choice because you don't need much, just a hint of some added space.

[mindundermatter]

Any helpful eq spots in particular? How wide? How much reduction? On the mix or on each seperate track?

I'm not hearing any 'mud' really. Female vocals don't really go down low enough to get muddy, and the acoustic by itself sounds fine. Contrary to popular belief, 'mud' is in the lower midrange, and not the lows. If you are hearing it, I'd start with a parametric EQ somewhere around 125Hz with narrow Q and boosted about 12dB. Then slowly sweep up until you hear the problem frequency. Then cut it by about 6dB and widen the Q a bit. If I had to guess, I'd say it might be 315Hz. To this day, I'm not sure why, but that frequency is kind of like a tritone in music. We call it 'the devil's frequency'.

[Studdy]

I do have some delay and reverb on the vocals. Maybe i'll send a little more through. Thanks for the replys. I'll check out 315hz. I'm also not using a compressor on the master bus just a limiter. Do you think some compression would help the mix. Any suggestions on a compression plugin that is great for mastering?

[TonyB]

Originally Posted by mindundermatter

I'm not hearing any 'mud' really. Female vocals don't really go down low enough to get muddy, and the acoustic by itself sounds fine. Contrary to popular belief, 'mud' is in the lower midrange, and not the lows. If you are hearing it, I'd start with a parametric EQ somewhere around 125Hz with narrow Q and boosted about 12dB. Then slowly sweep up until you hear the problem frequency. Then cut it by about 6dB and widen the Q a bit. If I had to guess, I'd say it might be 315Hz. To this day, I'm not sure why, but that frequency is kind of like a tritone in music. We call it 'the devil's frequency'.

Agree. Yes 315Hz ( + / - 20Hz) tends to be the "muddy" gremlin.

From my understanding it occurs due to practically every instrument having some kind of fundamental or harmonic / sub-harmonic that touches in that little Bermuda Triangle area of the Oceanic Frequency Spectrum (okay, I'm feeling creative today).

[mindundermatter]

Originally Posted by TonyB

Agree. Yes 315Hz ( + / - 20Hz) tends to be the "muddy" gremlin.

From my understanding it occurs due to practically every instrument having some kind of fundamental or harmonic / sub-harmonic that touches in that little Bermuda Triangle area of the Oceanic Frequency Spectrum (okay, I'm feeling creative today).

Obviously you're feeling better than yesterday!

Do you think some compression would help the mix.

Try it and see. That's the best way to find out. Hands on experience. Twiddle them there knobs a little, fellar.