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OK, I am stuck. When I play my mix through my monitors or my headphones it sounds nice. Then I render to mp3 - and it still sounds nice, then I upload to my website and play through my internet computer with its speakers and all hell brecks loose. The sound system on my Internet machine is not bad - music can and does sound good on this system. So what happend to my nice sound? I swear guys SWOTR sounds better than what you are hearing - at least in my head  . So to eliminate the muddy, booming, cluttered, dark sound, what are the top three things one should be doing in their final mix? Or if you want to get personal; what is wrong with this mix? http://www.pgmusic.com/forums/showflat.p...e=0&fpart=2. On this personel note, I welcome all comments, other than stop singing and your guitar playing sucks - I beat myself up enough in these areas. 
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Try using wma and see if there is a difference. Maybe your mp3 convertor doesn't work well on this one; I've had that happen where the wma sounded much better at same size.
Another thought; panning is pretty vast on this. Bass was way off to the side, guitar on other side .. and your laptop isn't going to handle that as well since the speakers are right next to each other; you hear it as a narrow stereo field (more mono).
You should also mention you want people to listen to the link on page three, as the link on page one is 404'd.
Last edited by rharv; 01/15/12 08:18 AM.
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Make your sound your own!
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Although the bass is usually panned center, I don't mind the panning far left on a song here and there. Watching the wave form in windows media, it might be a little top "light" -- but I have that same issue. Lots of effects on the voice, it seems like, you might want to cut that down. Overall, I don't think it sounds as bad as you are making it out to be (ha, ha)! I am just getting semi-serious about mixing and here is string of videos that might help: https://www.youtube.com/user/recordingrevolution/videos?sort=dd&view=u&page=3 . The 31 5-minute mixing tips from May 2011 start in the middle of page 3, while the 31 tips from this January start on page 1. I am think about getting a couple of his more in-depth videos, he seems to show stuff in a concise, uncluttered manner. Kevin
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Quote:
So to eliminate the muddy, booming, cluttered, dark sound, what are the top three things one should be doing in their final mix?
In my opinion, there are no general rules; every song demands an specific approach.
Quote:
Or if you want to get personal; what is wrong with this mix? http://www.pgmusic.com/forums/showflat.p...e=0&fpart=2. On this personel note, I welcome all comments, other than stop singing and your guitar playing sucks - I beat myself up enough in these areas.
First of all, I'm hearing a big hiss on the recording, right from the start; then, I would definitely put the bass on the center, and maybe would allow the piano playing on the entire song. Which effects are you using for guitar and vocals?
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Quote:
I am just getting semi-serious about mixing and here is string of videos that might help:https://www.youtube.com/user/recordingrevolution/videos?sort=dd&view=u&page=3 . The 31 5-minute mixing tips from May 2011 start in the middle of page 3, while the 31 tips from this January start on page 1. I am think about getting a couple of his more in-depth videos, he seems to show stuff in a concise, uncluttered manner.
Kevin
OMG, Kevin, I have to know all of that??  Can't I buy another plug-in?? 
Thanks for the input, I will spend a little time looking through the videos.
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Thanks Cerio for the comments. That hiss may be the effects. I may have gone overboard with the "effects". It is my way of hiding my lack of talent . I have GR3 on the guitar - but the flange, delay and reverb are a little much so I am adjusting. The vocal is VLT - and the reverb may be like singing in the bottom of a well. I am adjusting this also.
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Rharv, If and when I get something really good recorded I am going to contract your services to do this mixing the right way. Stay tuned. 
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Quote:
Thanks Cerio for the comments. That hiss may be the effects. I may have gone overboard with the "effects". It is my way of hiding my lack of talent . I have GR3 on the guitar - but the flange, delay and reverb are a little much so I am adjusting. The vocal is VLT - and the reverb may be like singing in the bottom of a well. I am adjusting this also.
Post it here when you're finished if you want, hearing other people comments (even if you don't agree with them) is always good. And btw, your playing is nice! 
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Quote:
Although the bass is usually panned center
That is a provocative statement Kevin that kicks off a lot more questions. I have not yet looked at your link but is there a "the way" to pan when mixing?
I do everything dead center because I don't know any better. Newbie logic would say to me that the bass, drums and vocals (basically anything considered a solo track) should stay dead center, and rhythm guitar, piano, organ, strings, etc.... could go slightly off center. Yet to push something far left or far right, unless it's a background effect that you walk through the stereo field (a la Pink Floyd) is out of my range of understanding why I'd do that.
Short course at all?
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here's something I do Dan, but I can't testify to the overall effectiveness for all systems. It seems to help it translate better to the stystems I play through First of all, the equipment on the market is widely different in the frequency ranges they handle. My thinking is that you can only control what you can hear, and you can only hear the ranges supported by your mixing monitors. So the first thing I do is take note of my system's range from high to low. (This is usually on the speakers or in the manual) Then when I mix, I completely remove any frequencies above and below the range of my monitors. In other words, I'm only assigning frequencies that I can hear within the range of my speakers. Then, if I have 5 instruments, I divide the total range of my monitors by 5, and give each instrument the full 20% of range (with no overlap) Here is a chart that reccommends frequency ranges for many instruments  For example, the instruments might be EQed as follows: (not a hard rule, just one of many possible examples) (100% = highest frequency my monitors can address) 81-100%= organ 61-80% = guitar 41-60% = tenor sax 21-40% = drums 0-20% = bass (0 = lowest frequency my monitors can address) for each instrument, completely remove the frequencies above and below the target range, then use the EQ sliders to adjust the tone using the remaining frequencies This approach should accomplish 2 things: 1) eliminate muddiness caused by instruments competing for the same frequencies 2) removes all extreme frequencies that you can't hear, can't control and which are most likely to be problematic on a wide variety of other listening devices.
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Hi Dan, On my monitors your song does sound a little on the muddy dark side. Your initial message says that both the original and the MP3 sounded good through your computer system regardless if listening by headphones or monitors. This to me sounds like you have some kind of EQ set up in the listening mode of your music computer. What software are you using when listening? I had the identical problem once when I was using Windows Media Player. I had set the 10 band EQ up for a song and forgot to reset it at flat response. All of my songs were then set up to sound good on an EQed playback but they sounded very bad on other machines. As far as additional software for mixing ToonTracks EZMix http://www.toontrack.com/products.asp?item=69 may be a good place to start. I use this quite a bit. I forget but are you using Sonar? If so I may have some additional tips on mixing I can share with you. Feel free to ask. After thought – I’m assuming that your headphones and monitors give a flat response, i.e. both are good quality units. If not you could be getting a false reading on both.
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Quote:
Quote:
Although the bass is usually panned center
That is a provocative statement Kevin that kicks off a lot more questions. I have not yet looked at your link but is there a "the way" to pan when mixing?
I do everything dead center because I don't know any better. Newbie logic would say to me that the bass, drums and vocals (basically anything considered a solo track) should stay dead center, and rhythm guitar, piano, organ, strings, etc.... could go slightly off center. Yet to push something far left or far right, unless it's a background effect that you walk through the stereo field (a la Pink Floyd) is out of my range of understanding why I'd do that.
Short course at all? -- Eddie
Eddie:I think I mentioned on your last song that everything was centered and therefore was muddy and nasty. So, Yes, there is "the way" to pan -- but it is a very breakable rule. Drums, bass and vocals in the center (but drums is usually a "stereo" input, so it spreads out around the center) and then you pan everything else as little or as much as possible to get things out of each others way. I do most of my listening under headphones and it was surprising to me how far things are panned on some of my favorite music. That mixing guy has a 5-minute video on LCR (left-center-right) panning HERE. Vocals, bass, drums at 0 and everything else panned either 100% left or 100% right. I haven't gone all the way yet, but on "A little Bit of Loving" I have the acoustic guitars panned 100% to either side and the backing vocals get panned wider and wider as the song goes along. I don't really recommend pure LCR panning, but hard panning can be cool.
Between volume, panning, EQ, compression -- you have to try and find a safe home for all sounds.
Kevin
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Quote:
On my monitors your song does sound a little on the muddy dark side.
Exactly what I want to address.
All final mixing is being done in Reaper (initial arrangement in BIAB then D&D to Reaper. I have more tools than I know how to use. Moniotrs are Active - Near Field Samson Resolv 50a.
I use Melodyne to help with pitch - but unfortuately I sang these vocals with the VLT with a Double Effect which know I think was a mistake has it adds a heavy layer to the vocals. Only way to fix that is to resing.
I have Ozone Isotope as my final mastering plugin - but I am a little lost on optimizing the configurations. And in the individaul track mixing I do tend to use volume controls when I should be using EQ's - I will try to work on that.
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Dan,
I'll give some of my opinion. I think you suffer from a little bit of the same as me. We are live players and thus recording is a whole new thing, sort of.
So my comments:
1. Don't use pitch correction-that's the odd sound to the voice you hear.
2. Panning as mentioned is skewed-easy does it as Eddie says
3. Guitar and sax a little too out front
4. sax is dry compared to the rest-sounds live except the sax
One other thing that is really just a preference in production. I'd like to hear the piano comping in the beginning were you're playing melody.
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Quote:
I have Ozone Isotope as my final mastering plugin - but I am a little lost on optimizing the configurations. And in the individaul track mixing I do tend to use volume controls when I should be using EQ's - I will try to work on that.
I've just bought this book, It's very well written and it's a great resource about mixing in general, and mixing in reaper in particular:
http://www.lulu.com/product/ebook/reamix...y_viewed/left/1
I think you should fix several aspects of your mix before applying any master plugin like Ozone. Btw, I've tried that plugin, but I've founded it VERY complex; Mastering is a BIG topic on itself and that plugin is intended for proffesional engineers, IMHO.
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Forgot to mention that I also played it over my PA so of course panning is no longer an issue.Not dark to me on the PA.Would be a good live sound.
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Quote:
Dan,
1. Don't use pitch correction-that's the odd sound to the voice you hear.
2. Panning as mentioned is skewed-easy does it as Eddie says
3. Guitar and sax a little too out front
4. sax is dry compared to the rest-sounds live except the sax
One other thing that is really just a preference in production. I'd like to hear the piano comping in the beginning were you're playing melody.
Got ya John, Thanks. Not ready to resing so the vocals stay the same for now except for New Isotope Nectar (free trial download) with Jazz preset.
Did a lot of Panning changes - discovered a "Width" setting I never knew about (and just heard about here) - I think it is specific for stereo tracks (all RTs are Stereo) - so the bass in now center and very narrow, and the drums are center and wide.
Added a verb plug to the sax to wet it up and will try to reset levels for both guitar and sax.
Guitar effects now have compresssion and removed flanger and decrease reverb removed delay.
Still working on these changes will post shortly - Wow thanks to everyone for the suggestions and helpful comments.
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Quote:
Forgot to mention that I also played it over my PA so of course panning is no longer an issue.Not dark to me on the PA.Would be a good live sound.
This live verses recording is really tricky. I don't spend half this much time on a live version .
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Dan, It sounds to me like you were trying to recreate the jazz club experience where the acoustic bass player would be standing off center. I think your mix was just a bit too wide for the effect your were after. I'm still learning myself - it's a never ending process. I'm not as good as I want to be but I'm better than I used to be. And I don't think this sounds as bad as you seem to think. On eq - drop 400 by 2 or 3 db and it'll brighten things up without having to add higher eq. Remember mixing is a matter of taste. On some things I like a slightly "darker" or "warm" sound. Too much high end can be ear fatiguing. Did you use the highest bit rate for your mp3? I've never rendered to wma but I've heard some great mixes on here done that way. Hang in there. You can learn. You're not off to that bad of a start. Editted to add: looks like you got some great advice while I was typing this. LOL! Josie
Last edited by Sundance; 01/15/12 11:44 AM.
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Quote:
I think you should fix several aspects of your mix before applying any master plugin like Ozone. Btw, I've tried that plugin, but I've founded it VERY complex; Mastering is a BIG topic on itself and that plugin is intended for proffesional engineers, IMHO.
Just to clarify, All tracks are first mixed and rendered to a single stereo track, then I use the Mastering on that. Although not to imply that I really know what I'm doing. So I do appreciatee all comments.
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