Synth-made tracks sounding 'Boxey' - How to avoid?

[audioconsult]

you talk like someone that mixes in ableton live..

beside that you use eq´s, saturation and reverb to melt the sounds together or seperate them on the soundstage.

maybe rent a day in a studio with a real desk and do a mixdown there.. a few hubdred euro just for the experience? why not.. there are people that pay that much for a parachute experience or a dinner in an michelin star restaurant...

[Brassica]

Originally Posted by audioconsult

you talk like someone that mixes in ableton live..

Yep... care to share something about mixing in Live?

Originally Posted by audioconsult

beside that you use eq´s, saturation and reverb to melt the sounds together or seperate them on the soundstage.

?

Originally Posted by audioconsult

maybe rent a day in a studio with a real desk and do a mixdown there.. a few hubdred euro just for the experience? why not.. there are people that pay that much for a parachute experience or a dinner in an michelin star restaurant...

Maybe in your world they do, certainly not in mine. I'm lucky if I can afford to buy groceries. But thanks anyway..

[explorer]

Sounds like you could do with some better EQing. Do you (carefully) filter out unnecessary frequencies on each track? Are you carving out frequencies to prevent masking? Don't forget to filter/EQ your effects returns. Also, you may need to add some more high end to certain sounds?

[Reptil]

yes, lay back on the EQ and processing.
try to get the results you want with DRY signals
only use a cut once or twice to scoop out mud or to highpass a vocal etc.
if that doesn't work record the original sound again, or use better quality loops
never ever ever ever ever ever use MP3 or AAC

[Reptil]

speaking of... (sorry for the OT)

Originally Posted by audioconsult

you talk like someone that mixes in ableton live..

beside that you use eq´s, saturation and reverb to melt the sounds together or seperate them on the soundstage.

maybe rent a day in a studio with a real desk and do a mixdown there.. a few hubdred euro just for the experience? why not.. there are people that pay that much for a parachute experience or a dinner in an michelin star restaurant...

did you see that Lowswing Studios in Berlin got robbed?
Stolen Equipment

be careful with posting gearlists online folks!

[Goa-Dubs]

your mix sounds like it needs beefing up and summing in the analog domain(ac?).Even i feel (on my laptop speakers)i can hear abletons thin,clean mix effect.........Pleasant complex mix tho.

[Brassica]

Originally Posted by explorer

Sounds like you could do with some better EQing. Do you (carefully) filter out unnecessary frequencies on each track? Are you carving out frequencies to prevent masking? Don't forget to filter/EQ your effects returns. Also, you may need to add some more high end to certain sounds?

Thank you for this answer. Yes I'm generally pretty 'on it' with EQing sounds that mask each other. I usually cut a lot but rarely boost. Perhaps I need to try and emphasise the highs on each track a little more.

I've just revisited a mix and dipped a wide-ish Q at 100hz on the bass track, about 3-4 db. Despite it going against logic by 'removing bass from bass', I think this might solve a lot of my problems.

As I said this boxiness issue doesn't normally strike me as a problem until I start to compress the master buss.

Thanks again, a lot to learn still I guess...

[Brassica]

Originally Posted by Reptil

yes, lay back on the EQ and processing.
try to get the results you want with DRY signals
only use a cut once or twice to scoop out mud or to highpass a vocal etc.
if that doesn't work record the original sound again, or use better quality loops
never ever ever ever ever ever use MP3 or AAC

Thank you. Actually, some of my older tracks where I knew nothing about EQ or compression had a better final result. I need to go back a few steps..

[Brassica]

Originally Posted by Goa-Dubs

your mix sounds like it needs beefing up and summing in the analog domain(ac?).Even i feel (on my laptop speakers)i can hear abletons thin,clean mix effect.........Pleasant complex mix tho.

Okay, I always thought this 'Ableton sound' thing was either BS or related to Warping artefacts. Now I'm starting to think it could be true.

I own Logic too from my student days. I'm going to upgrade and try a few mixes.

I would love to own a mixer and hardware, but at the moment it's just not feasible. I'm not about to stop making music though... I need use 'the cards I've been dealt', so to speak.

[Karloff70]

Originally Posted by Brassica

Thank you. Actually, some of my older tracks where I knew nothing about EQ or compression had a better final result. I need to go back a few steps..

Go forward a step instead. What usually happens is people get into 'new to them' topics and as they learn to integrate them into their skills they overdo them for a while, or get stuck in one way of thinking about something.

Shake it loose. Likely in the beginning you were not scared to boost tops until you were happy and not worry about it if that's what needed to be done, and then you read something along the lines of 'boosting is bad' or some such crap.

Get into checking reference material EARLY ON in your productions is the key tip I think, as to not arrive somewhere you didn't want to be at the very end and only then find out.

[Reptil]

analogue gear of lesser pedigree (mongrels) can sound very muddy too
mixing ITB just requires a different approach (gain staging is different and seperation of instruments in a good analogue desk is better sounding when mixing)
IMO clean up the original sounds, no plugins or compression (also on mix bus) and don't mix too loud. once you get that sounding right you can tweak with an eq or limiter, it'll be easier to finetune instead of departing with a full set of (interacting) plugins that were inserted to "fix" slightly dodgy loops.

[Brassica]

Originally Posted by Karloff70

Shake it loose. Likely in the beginning you were not scared to boost tops until you were happy and not worry about it if that's what needed to be done, and then you read something along the lines of 'boosting is bad' or some such crap.

It's actually the opposite, I avoided what I didn't understand. So there were drums machines and synths recorded, no EQ, no compression, nothing. Just layered with some reverb and delays.

I think you're absolutely right, I need to use reference mixes from the word go. Unfortunately I forget until the final stage where I am trying to roughly match volume. It's then I realise the tonal balance is completely wrong.

[Brassica]

Originally Posted by Reptil

analogue gear of lesser pedigree (mongrels) can sound very muddy too
mixing ITB just requires a different approach (gain staging is different and seperation of instruments in a good analogue desk is better sounding when mixing)
IMO clean up the original sounds, no plugins or compression (also on mix bus) and don't mix too loud. once you get that sounding right you can tweak with an eq or limiter, it'll be easier to finetune instead of departing with a full set of (interacting) plugins that were inserted to "fix" slightly dodgy loops.

I'm aware of gain staging thanks to GS, although I've never recorded my sounds in too hot, so I've never needed to use a gain plugin to avoid plugins receiving too hot a signal.

All my tracks are made from hardware synths and drum machines. The clip I posted is made with a Sequential Drumtraks (not samples, the real thing played via midi), a Nord Modular, a Vermona Mono Lancet playing the bass part.

I don't have a mixer so unfortunately I write these parts one-by-one with the synths and record them through my Apogee Duet.

Everything is sounding fine up until this point, but of course my master channel is bouncing at around between -12 and -6db. This doesn't create much impact in the real world.

Solution - whack a limiter on the master buss? Of course there's more to it than that.

I go through my tracks, firstly 'fixing problems' i.e. bass cuts on non-bass sounds, some light compression on the drums to gel them, occasionally some tube warmth type plugins sound nice... normal stuff, nothing ever extreme.

Little by little, the track is sounding better to my ears. More defined, louder, more characterful.

I use some mastering plugins on the stereo file.. again, I do nothing extreme, just a few subtle boosts, no squashing.

The minute I hear it next to another track... Where everyone else's tracks are "DAH, KAH" mine is "bubbububb"

I can't pinpoint where it all goes to crap. It's happens too gradually...

Thanks for all your tips anyway. I think reference mixes from absolute beginning is probably key and much less processing along the way, although I just cant see how to create any power without processing things along the way.

[Karloff70]

Printing lots of hardware is a great way to assemble a sweet sounding track. And your master peaking between -12 and -6 is good too. Just sounds like the actual mixing is lacking. Time and more time.....maybe get a really good engineer to mix one of yours and see what you can learn from what he does (i.e. attend the mix)?

[ozy]

Originally Posted by audioconsult

there are people that pay that much for a parachute experience

which has one advantage: if you tackle it as an unprepared amateur used to sitting in front of software synthesizers,

you'll probably spend the money just once.

[depulse]

Check your arrangements, often over-arranging and having too many optimised sounds (i.e. effected and polished) together makes the whole less than the individual parts.

Apply generously lowcut filtres (-12 db at 100Hz or higher) for everything except bass and kick.

Add some reverb to selected parts to give a bit of space

Run a few parts out thorugh a speaker/monitor and mike them, letting sounds push some air atoms and breath real air makes sounds more alive and real.

[Brassica]

Originally Posted by audiosculpture12

Would suggest a lot of this is to do with the panning of sounds in the mix, (woosh not connected to hit), the slightly clinical bass tone, and the icy reverb which is possibly a bit long. Separating frequencies is possibly contributing to that 90s midi-esque vibe, yet oddly there is some congestion with some sound events - perhaps allow a little more space for those moments... ? all imho. Cool sounding shizzle.

Cheers, but there is absolutely no reverb on this track. No delay either. The clinical bass tone is a Vermona Mono Lancet. Presumably any clinical-ness is a result of EQing out frequencies that was cluttering the mix, mainly between 200 and 500 hz. Other than that, there is no processing. Just a 2 osc analogue bass recording.

In theory I'm doing many things right, however my end result is rarely satisfactory.

Cheers for the feedback though, really appreciated.

[NYCruiser]

Also try running your synth to an amp and mic the amp for a little depth.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[audiosculpture12]

...seriously, from 15s, no reverb or delays? Must be the decay on the instruments confusing my addled ears :p

[Brassica]

Originally Posted by depulse

Check your arrangements, often over-arranging and having too many optimised sounds (i.e. effected and polished) together makes the whole less than the individual parts.

Apply generously lowcut filtres (-12 db at 100Hz or higher) for everything except bass and kick.

Add some reverb to selected parts to give a bit of space

Run a few parts out thorugh a speaker/monitor and mike them, letting sounds push some air atoms and breath real air makes sounds more alive and real.

Cheers for this. Yeah I realise my taste is to have busy elements, but it's never anything a band wouldn't do. I'm not keen on the tradition of electronic music being '1 big riff'. I think if a piano, guitar, drum kit, bass and vocals can all do something different and sound good, I'm sure electronics of a similar timbre can too.

[Brassica]

Originally Posted by audiosculpture12

...seriously, from 15s, no reverb or delays? Must be the decay on the instruments confusing my addled ears :p

There is a shiny stabby synth sound. That's from my Nord Modular, perhaps the release is a little long. But honestly, no reverb effects or delays. I completely removed them in an attempt to 'de-clutter' the track.

EDIT: That's a Nord Modular 1 with no built in effects.

[Karloff70]

Just listened to the snippet. Like it! I don't think it's too busy at all. Just sounds like a bunch of healthy sounds interacting in a healthy, bouncy way, waiting to be mixed.

I would seriously consider getting a decent engineer to mix a track of yours and see that you can attend (without speaking much....lol). If your stuff is also arranged as sweetly as that snippet of groove feels I can't see why you wouldn't get a great result. And then check out what he did to make your stuff 'a rekkerd'. But it does indeed sound like you are doing things right. Only after that it still needs mixing. Sounds like a healthy 'faders up' starting point at the minute.

[Brassica]

Originally Posted by Karloff70

Just listened to the snippet. Like it! I don't think it's too busy at all. Just sounds like a bunch of healthy sounds interacting in a healthy, bouncy way, waiting to be mixed.

I would seriously consider getting a decent engineer to mix a track of yours and see that you can attend (without speaking much....lol). If your stuff is also arranged as sweetly as that snippet of groove feels I can't see why you wouldn't get a great result. And then check out what he did to make your stuff 'a rekkerd'. But it does indeed sound like you are doing things right. Only after that it still needs mixing. Sounds like a healthy 'faders up' starting point at the minute.

Haha, depressing... In terms of a 'step by step', following my ears, fixing sounds, making things sound sweeter, trying to avoid clashing sounds, + basic mastering... this is meant to be "mixed".

I would be really interested to mix with a professional. I did a one-to-one tutorial with a really good engineer a few months back. I came away feeling as though I actually have the right idea. He showed me a couple of really invaluable techniques that I've employed such as using the Waves Renaissance Bass to separate the kick and bass synth frequencies.

Generally I feel like the more of this 'how to' stuff I learn and apply, the worse my mixes get.

My recordings of MIDI'd hardware via the MPC straight on cassette sound better to me than my ITB mixes.

It's a never ending battle...

[Karloff70]

Originally Posted by Brassica

Haha, depressing... In terms of a 'step by step', following my ears, fixing sounds, making things sound sweeter, trying to avoid clashing sounds, + basic mastering... this is meant to be "mixed".

I would be really interested to mix with a professional. I did a one-to-one tutorial with a really good engineer a few months back. I came away feeling as though I actually have the right idea. He showed me a couple of really invaluable techniques that I've employed such as using the Waves Renaissance Bass to separate the kick and bass synth frequencies.

Generally I feel like the more of this 'how to' stuff I learn and apply, the worse my mixes get.

My recordings of MIDI'd hardware via the MPC straight on cassette sound better to me than my ITB mixes.

It's a never ending battle...

You do have the right idea! Following your ears led you to a very natural and quite respectful treatment of the sounds. That is more than 90% of people out there if I hazard a guess......

After that it is about going further, but not in the wrong direction, applying fx and compression to build a bigger interactive 3D shape. Only getting good at mixing takes a long time.

What if you make the decision to let go of mixing on a temporary basis....let an engineer mix a couple of tracks for you and end up with a "Yes sir!" result a couple of times and not "Depressing.". Then slowly let yourself back in......get the bad vibe out of the picture. Focus on building tracks as ready for mixing as you can, and whenever you have the money to mix one go do the do with whoever it will be. That also gives the bonus of sharpening your senses, as you wouldn't want to turn up with something not ready to mix and waste money......these days the cost wouldn't really be prohibitive, regardless how skint you are.

Cassette only sounds better because of its brutal 'everything becomes a cosy pulp' effect.....which is the most helpful when a mix isn't right before you hit it, and the most damaging when it already is.......

[audioconsult]

Originally Posted by Brassica

Cheers, but there is absolutely no reverb on this track.

there is reverb in the sythsouinds thru theire noise component and releasetime... and than totally dry drums.. of cause that sounds a little whimpy on a homestereo.. in the dancehall that can be just right when the bass is fat enough..was there a bass in the track?..

anyway.. mixquality is often the quality of the reverb..still the audio fx you can spend the most money on..

the trick is to have reverbs that just make the sounds 3 dimensional but dont wet the mix with reverb tails all over the space..

of cause you can achive the sense of space without reverbs and clever sound design too.. see your synth line that sounds like having a reverb.. stereo synth sounds in layers like an onion out of the middle..and just a liitle reverb on the drums and bass and all in various amounts..

dont works so well with itb plug ins.. ,,often better to have one reverb per channel.. especially with the crappy ableton reverb...

programs like logic are much better suited to achieve a professional mixdown just with the inbuild tools..with all the various reverb options and distortion plugs and the overall pretty clear sound you get quite far..

having good sounding 3rd party plugs saves a lot..something like the old waves renisiance eq still smokes all daw plugs in the mixdown.. and there even better ones out there now like the fab filter stuff aso.. also on the compression side you dont really want the ableton compressor doing it in the sum.. its ok when nothing else is there.. butr irt has teh ableton sound.. and that sums up..in the end you have the "bubbubbub" sound you were talking about..

switching live to 96k during mixdown helps a lot when you only use ableton plugs.. even that your source recordings get samplerate converted than dont hurts too much, the wins on heavy plug in use are drastical.. espoecially when you have many warped loops.. theire quality rises significantly on doublerate.. so much that this easily outruns the samplerate conversion on other tracks. the SR conversion sounds better on doublerate too.. But of cause you can start projects on double rate and avoid the samplerate conversion this way.. there is no other daw on the market that benefits as much from a higher samplerate than ableton live.. in other daws the wins are mopre in subtile department.. but on live its a major quality step.. Lets say.. live sounds on 88/96 k as logic/cubase do on 44/48 allready... This all in regard to the mixdown..

[audioconsult]

Originally Posted by Brassica

My recordings of MIDI'd hardware via the MPC straight on cassette sound better to me than my ITB mixes.

thats normal and happens to everybody.. my old tape mixes from the 80´s sound gorgeous too even when i only had a crappy mitec desk back than.. but the tape easily outruns the losses by a bad desk..

with itb mixes its different..hard work to make them sound good..and a much longer process than on an analog desk where you can do on each run hundrets of fine adjustments because each parameter has its own knob .,,while in a daw you have to catch these parameters with the mouse and open and close windows on the way...you adjust 3-10 parameters per run and that it was.. you need to hear the track way more often than on an analog mixdown and need much more time to have the same refinement of a mix..

itb only can win when you get pretty creative regarding the mixdown.. nobody sayed that one synth only gets one track in mixdown.. you can give it 3 with varius pan and eq/fx settings...

[ryandfl]

Originally Posted by audioconsult

you talk like someone that mixes in ableton live..

Seriously, something is not right about Ableton. I tried out Reaper one day and never went back. Well I moved over to Cubase for a more polished / idiot friendly workflow, but never back to Live.

Pulling down some EQ around 500hz will help wiht boxiness.

[Thee_Adleen]

Originally Posted by audioconsult

you talk like someone that mixes in ableton live..

beside that you use eq´s, saturation and reverb to melt the sounds together or seperate them on the soundstage.

maybe rent a day in a studio with a real desk and do a mixdown there.. a few hubdred euro just for the experience? why not.. there are people that pay that much for a parachute experience or a dinner in an michelin star restaurant...

Can you go further in how you made that educated guess?
I'm guessing you have used ableton before?

I find it VERY interesting because I always wondered if Ableton did not "hang" with ProTools, or even an analog console when it came to mixdown and sonic quality?

I am very intrigued by your comment and knowledge
if you could further explain the differences
I would greatly listen to every last word

Thank you so much for posting!!
I hope to hear back from you!!

[Karloff70]

Originally Posted by Thee_Adleen

Can you go further in how you made that educated guess?
I'm guessing you have used ableton before?

I find it VERY interesting because I always wondered if Ableton did not "hang" with ProTools, or even an analog console when it came to mixdown and sonic quality?

I am very intrigued by your comment and knowledge
if you could further explain the differences
I would greatly listen to every last word

Thank you so much for posting!!
I hope to hear back from you!!

No DAW hangs with a good analog console. Including PT.