Monitors are a tough call, there are so many options and they all have there pros and cons. One thing I found is that if the speaker is under 8" you will often mix the bass to loud and if they are 8" or more you will often under mix the bass. I think the most important thing is to get to know the set you get vs. other playback settings. And, remember studio monitors are meant to be accurate, not necessarily sound good, if that makes sense.
Going to post two songs - one recorded in the studio, and the other a mix of a live recording.
Recorded in the studio: Tindeck MP3 Hosting: Rosewood Secret - Apprentice
- A song from a musical written by some friends. After recording nine songs from it, I'm still not sure what it's about (but I know it involves magic, wizards, an evil sister and an old Italian man working in a pastry shop).
- Violins and vocals recorded with an AKG C3000b into a Focusrite Liquid Saffire 56.
- Drums from Spectrasonics Stylus (yeah, not ideal for realism) and piano and bass are just generic HalionONE patches.
Mix of a live recording: Tindeck MP3 Hosting: 2010 Science Revue - Closing Song + Bows
- Came from this year's production of this.
- Can't provide any information about the recording, except that vocalists were using wireless SM57s, and the multitrack recording was taken via ethernet from a Roland M-400 live mixer.
- You can stop listening after about three minutes, unless you enjoy listening to cheering and the names of people being announced.
Both tracks mixed ITB with Cubase 4.52, using basic Cubase plugins and plugins from here. Monitors were Alesis Point Sevens in a semi-treated room.
Monitors are a tough call, there are so many options and they all have there pros and cons. One thing I found is that if the speaker is under 8" you will often mix the bass to loud and if they are 8" or more you will often under mix the bass. I think the most important thing is to get to know the set you get vs. other playback settings. And, remember studio monitors are meant to be accurate, not necessarily sound good, if that makes sense.
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Just got me some new monitors for checking the final mix in...Behringer b3030a's and I can not believe how good these POS sound next to my high end monitors! I keep the bass at -2 (there are switches for room correction) and they seem pretty good!
The guitars are really wide and the drums sound great. I like how you diss Fruity loops in the song lol.
The production in the intro is really cool, I love the delay on the guitars. The rapping is great, I love the lyrics (purple haze lol) the synth appregios are great, the vocal sound is good.
I played with the suggestions you had for my song, and it worked too in a different way.. ABCDEFG lol! This is a great song.. Heres the chorus again great!
(still listening)
Thanks a lot man!!! Ya I like to have fun with this stuff and not follow the norm! Have you posted your new mix yet? I would really like to hear it!!!
Here is a song I recorded a couple of years ago with a Firebox, AT2020, SM57, MXL991, AKG Perception, Circuit Bent SK1 to Sonar 4. I am doing the instruments and a friend is doing the vocals. I have since gotten upgraded mics, interface etc... but still like the sound of this pretty well. Mastered at a later date with isotope ozone 4... Feedback?
We recorded all these songs a few years ago, you can check out more if you like this one at -theobjectivesubject.com
You can also check out some more recent recordings I have done at my low end basement studio at - Ghost In My House Studio
Thanks - Matt
Very good!! I think the Acoustic guitars sound very good! I also like the Vox. reminds me of Jethro Tull for some reason! thumbsup
too much gain on the guitar, it sounds very thin and weak
here's something i mixed for a friend. he did all the production and engineering using only two microphones. mixed in REAPER on some Bose headphones and crappy lo-fi speakers.
I thank you very much for you input and i agree with you on every part, The guitars are a easy fix as i am the guitarest and can re-record them with better tone, as for the mix being thin and weak i agree very strongly. is there any advise you can give me to make my mixing not thin and weak. I thank you for any advise you can give as it is much wanted to help me increase my mixing skills.
P.S. the song you posted is very good, and i really enjoyed it, can you please share with me what you did with it, mixing wise.
This was recorded using nothing but an ADA 8000 and an Emu 1820M sound card. Mics were nothing out of the ordinary.
Like I do most/all of these reviews... Just as I am listening.
Rewind to beginning again. Just gotta say obviously the guitars are very on time and very tight and good. So that means I am gonna try to ignore their goodness lol =)
Here comes the vocal, push it up a little bit?, make it fight the guitars a tad when it should
drums sound clean and tight as well, ok let me try to ingore their tightness... I like the drums but the snare could have more presence perhaps... Suck it up Princess!!! =)
nice production.. The Dog just bit your ass!
More presence on the cymbals here?
Make that kick dominate a little bit more? maybe just personal preference on my part
I thank you very much for you input and i agree with you on every part, The guitars are a easy fix as i am the guitarest and can re-record them with better tone, as for the mix being thin and weak i agree very strongly. is there any advise you can give me to make my mixing not thin and weak. I thank you for any advise you can give as it is much wanted to help me increase my mixing skills.
P.S. the song you posted is very good, and i really enjoyed it, can you please share with me what you did with it, mixing wise.
Thank you,
Matt
the song i posted was a bit of a challenge to mix as all the tracks were recorded with 2 mics in a less than ideal environment. first thing i did was start with the vocals because i thought they were the most important aspect of the tune and should be out in front of the other instruments. lots of people like to mix the drums first but i find if you start from the bottom layers of the song first you run out of headroom for the things that should be out front. basically it was just tweaking the EQ of each of the instruments so that they sat well in their respective "niche" but weren't too separated frequency wise.
the artist actually recorded 2 bass tracks (one played with a violin bow) each with 2 mics so there were 4 bass tracks which was tricky to get the balance between all 4 tracks and the rest of the instruments as well so they weren't overpowered by the bass. drums were impossible to mix by themselves as they were recorded with 2 mics so i had to work with what i had but using a very accurate EQ i was able to create a pretty decent drum mix. there was too much ride cymbal in the drum track too but i was able to isolate it with EQ in a duplicate track and flipped the phase, then adjusted the fader to vary the amount of cancelation. if you have any other questions please feel free to ask here or pm me. if you head on over to the REAPER forums you can hear this song go through several stages of mixing and mastering.
Thanks. It was done with quite inexpensive recording equipment. The most expensive piece of recording gear was the Cubase software itself (VST 5.0 from back in 2002) and the RODE NT1000 mic.
I have to admit that even though it is not anyone's idea of perfect, it is perfect to me because it is almost exactly what I heard in my head when I imagined building the song from a vocal and acoustic guitar into a full arrangement.
These songs are 2 parts: instrumentals are written by me, and lyrics/melodies written by my drunk friends. I am not so great at writing rhythms and leads, as I have basically been drumming exclusively for the last 15 years.
The purpose of these songs is for me and my friends to do something more creative than playing drunk card games each weekend. We have way more fun coming up with these dumbass songs, and we don't particularly care if they are that great sounding as long as we have fun and they make people laugh.
That said, I don't have a choice on the vocal talent, its who ever wants to sing at that moment, and they always REFUSE to sing without autotune. Also, the topics are crude and immature, so if you are easily offended, STAY AWAY.
Anyways, I enjoy mixing and was wondering how you guys think these mixes sound, the newest one is called And I Wonder. I think it is the strongest mix. I know they aren't great obviously! Wide Open is also strangely catchy. Everyone dances to it at our parties lately.
These songs were done in the house on a PC some with Cubasis which came free with a Creative sound blaster module at about £100 and some on free Cubasis with Emu Proteus Sound Module at £90 quid. I use an Emu keyboard controller that cost just over £100. Vocals done on Shure SM58 and Red Audio Condenser mic at just over £50.
These songs were done in the house on a PC some with Cubasis which came free with a Creative sound blaster module at about £100 and some on free Cubasis with Emu Proteus Sound Module at £90 quid. I use an Emu keyboard controller that cost just over £100. Vocals done on Shure SM58 and Red Audio Condenser mic at just over £50.
Nice songs ! But you have a problem in the low frequencies and the reverb seems a bit too much… Try to improve your listening while mixing.
What are your monitors ?
Nice songs ! But you have a problem in the low frequencies and the reverb seems a bit too much… Try to improve your listening while mixing.
What are your monitors ?
I used a pair of Altai 8" speakers with hi frequency centre cones in home made gyproc cabinets. They cost about £5 each years ago and I find them excellent value. I have a pair of Gauss 15" that I used to use in my studios that I no longer have and they would obviously give a far better bottom end representation but are too big for home use in a small flat. I recently got a pair of JVC bookshelf speakers and noticed the bottom end is louder. Thanks for your opinion.
Ok, I see… You have lows in your room, because all your speaker enhance them, so you hear good lows while mixing, but in fact, these lows vanish when someone listen on other systems than yours… like me with my Sennheiser HD-25 cans or my 5" monitors…
What's happen when you play a CD on your system ? Doesn't it sound bassy as hell ?
It's the reason why you need real monitors, my 2 cents…
Three artists - first one is me solo
Then two singers that I'm producing.
Dig!
I really like your stuff!! Really digging the guitar sound on "five", everything sounds good!! Acoustic sounds very good on "all this time", can I ask what kind of guitar it is? and of course the chain? You did a really good job capturing the instruments!
And a big "hell ya" to the vocalist, nice job!!
EV RE20
Cascade Fathead
Shure KSM32
Oktava MC-012
Audix i5
Aphex 107
ART PRO VLA II
Mackie ONYX 1640i
Reaper
Tracked live into Reaper in my living room. Mixed on the Mackie with KRK V8 2's. Reverb and delay busses done in Reaper and sent to the console. This recording was from band practice, but I thought it turned out well. Originally posted in the Post your good recordings with "junk" gear, but only half of this gear has been called junk. So, I moved it here.
Ok, I see… You have lows in your room, because all your speaker enhance them, so you hear good lows while mixing, but in fact, these lows vanish when someone listen on other systems than yours… like me with my Sennheiser HD-25 cans or my 5" monitors…
What's happen when you play a CD on your system ? Doesn't it sound bassy as hell ?
It's the reason why you need real monitors, my 2 cents…
When I play CDs by say Planet X , Allan Holdsworth, Little Feat and MP3s by most artistes they all sound fine and there is no problem at all with the Altai speakers in Gyproc cabinets with the amp eq centralised, however with the JVC speakers there is more bottom and less top. The whole thing with speakers is relative and most albums tend to have a bias towards the bottom end when looking at the spectrum graph. I have only experienced one track that I have noticed on the spectrum graph where the top, mids and bottom end are the same and that was the Rolling Stones, Sympathy for the Devil, most likely because of the percussion used but it is well worth checking out mixes on a spectrum bar graph to see how they compare with established artistes who's music is top quality. The problem with top quality speakers is they are superior to the average stuff people have at home and I find the bottom and top stands out on quality monitors and you may have a tendency to roll it off as a result. Also it is difficult finding headphones that match speakers for response. That is why people use graphic eqs. and the tone controls on amps, I try to mix songs to sound fine with the controls centralised, however, everybody's systems and ears are different. That is why it's worth comparing with established artistes and checking the spectrum graph readout which I'll have to set-up on my current system, incidentally, to compare readings.
Having checked out 3 tracks so far, Jerrick, Eric Pederson and Whiskey Jonny, I have to say the quality is very good and will have to save all the uploaded songs and transfer to my PC which is wired to the hi-fi to do them justice as opposed to listening on my laptop which doesn't really. It just goes to show that there is no need to spend a fortune on expensive equipment to get quality results.
I really like your stuff!! Really digging the guitar sound on "five", everything sounds good!! Acoustic sounds very good on "all this time", can I ask what kind of guitar it is? and of course the chain? You did a really good job capturing the instruments!
And a big "hell ya" to the vocalist, nice job!!
Hi there! Thanks for the compliments!
Here's (hopefully) some answers to your questions:
"Five" - the bass guitar (it's the only guitar) is a Mosrite Black Widow that's been bi-amped; one for a bit of dirt, one for clean, round bass. It's played by my friend Paul Casey. I'm playing all of the keyboards and drums in that song (as well as having wrote it).
"All This Time" - The acoustic is a Takamine (I'm not sure of the model) using a SP B1 and Kel HM2D then run through an ART MPA PRO II and DBX 166; the same goes for the vocals. The idea wasn't to achieve "stereo" froma mono source, but rather, to have two mics with different strengths, merged together to sound like one great mic.
I'll join the party, my most expensive equipment is the macbook i'musing to write this, record and compose...
Made in:
Ableton Live7 using free samples downloaded around the net for the drums.
Bass is a fender jazz (not mine) into the line in of a novation XioSynth.
Synth are TAL Elek7ro, Novation VStation
Noises are from a Korg Kaoscillator
Vocals are from my band's singer :D recorded using an MXL v67g (completely modded by myself, FET rebiased, reccaped, peluso capsule) straight into the pream of the Novation XioSynth.
Mixing and mastering done in Ableton Live using custom made Audio Units (i meand i programmed my own eq and compressors)
...if you are interested drop me a message, i'm going to release my Channel Strip plugin sooner or later, but i need someone to test it in logic 9...
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