Getting rid of muddled sound and noise

[yyzcygnus]

Hello everyone,

I have recording a bunch of tracks for my friend's band using a computer microphone and audacity. It is a heavy metal project. The quality is decent and the tracks, even unmixed, come out delineated and audible.

The individual tracks themselves do not have much noise, but sometimes when they overlap it gets noisy and muddled. I think the amplitudes are too high or I might need compression or something. I EQ'd the drums and that helps a bit of the high end part.

Here is a print screen which someone might be able to find a fundamental problem. Should I lessen the amplitude or normalize these tracks?

[CreativeCells]

ive used audacity before, hell i use it just for misc. thingz everynow and then because its quick and simple, i would suggest tryin out some compression...maybe -10 or -12....just play with it more, eq everything individually B4 u mix it together,

doin that combined with some decent compression "not too much" should help eliminate the muddiness of the tracks, althought alot of the ending sound of a project has to do with how well its recorded, but after you eq anything slight compression never hurts.

try that out let and let me know

[Ryan D]

Did you record any of the tracks at the same time?
Some phase cancellation may have occurred, which would have made you lose certain frequencies in your tracks, downgrading quality when all tracks are playing at the same time.

Also, if you're trying to mix bass in unsuccessfully, do a 200hz roll-off on the electric guitars (use EQ to cut off anything below 200hz on the guitars, that is the bass' territory).

Compression only really deals with volume in the entire long-run - if you feel like every track's volume is around where it should be, EQ is probably your answer.

By the way - the screenshot did not post. Can you re-upload it?

[VheeMusic]

Ryan's right, your getting phase cancellation because if they aren't on all thier own seperate tracks, then the instruments can't be edited to allow room for specific frequencies.

[yyzcygnus]

Hi, thank you for the input. Here is that image again...

Ryan--

I did record it track by track, and nothing at the same time, so I can edit them individually. It is typically bass/drums/guitar1/solo/harmonies

I will try tooling with it some more.

[sfxman]

You probably just need some careful EQing and panning. In my experience, an initial mix is almost always muddy until it gets...mixed.

Maybe you should post a sonic example. Best of luck.

-B

[ferguson66]

Often the kick drum, bass guitar and low end of a guitar will be in the same frequency. PLay with pan. As a simple test try panning your bass guitar and kick to opposite ends. Pan the guitars opposite the bass etc. This will allow you to hear if they are interfering and causing phase cancellation. Try making the bass and kick opposite phases.

If each track sounds good individually but gets muddy when all mixed together, this is probably the problem. Izotope has a free trial of their Ozone product which is a mastering software suite that helps automate moving things around in the stereo field. Try the free trial and select some of their presets and see how that changes the sound. It might help you determine if it is in the recording or the mix.

Just saw your screen shot, your drums are all on one audio track. They look heavily compressed, is that the case?

[brandondrury]

Here is a print screen which someone might be able to find a fundamental problem. Should I lessen the amplitude or normalize these tracks?

Pictures are ENTIRELY useless! Post the audio clip in Recording Reviews. Than we can really help you.

Brandon