Hello, I hope this is a good place for this question....
I recently recorded some songs as a demo for my band. It is the first time I have used my new studio (just moved and have a lot of room in the basement). Overall I am quite pleased with the results - I feel like I have gained much useful knowledge from these forums and others over the years. The main problem I had in recording this session was not micing the percussion well (or isolating it for that matter), well, I did what I could to make it useful, and got it sounding reasonable on my mixing setup, the car stereo, my girlfriends laptop, etc... Then yesterday I listen to one of the tracks at my favorite coffee shop and it sounds like the low drum is in the grand canyon, completely overwhelming the mix. The weird thing is that I have heard a whole lot of music played through that coffee shop stereo system, and nothing seems especially bassey about it.
Anyway, I was hoping for some theory as to why this might be happening, as well as some practical solutions.
I'd pan the low drum to the center, then the guitar left and the horn to the right, with the rhythm instrument (banjo?) to the center as well. over a stereo speaker system low drums in stereo can sound strange and phasey. the low drum is a little boomy, which is nice, but it lacks definition. eq is needed. alos there might be some masking between the drum's reverberation tail and the guitar.
I recorded this with a stereo pair in ORFT configuration, and individual mics on each instrument (except the percussion. two player shared a microphone) . The panning I have at the moment reflects the stereo image, I can try moving the bass drum around, but it will still be panned left in the stereo mics. I suppose I could try taking the stereo pair out completely, that would give me more control but less of an ensemble sound.
Hello, I hope this is a good place for this question....
I recently recorded some songs as a demo for my band. It is the first time I have used my new studio (just moved and have a lot of room in the basement). Overall I am quite pleased with the results - I feel like I have gained much useful knowledge from these forums and others over the years. The main problem I had in recording this session was not micing the percussion well (or isolating it for that matter), well, I did what I could to make it useful, and got it sounding reasonable on my mixing setup, the car stereo, my girlfriends laptop, etc... Then yesterday I listen to one of the tracks at my favorite coffee shop and it sounds like the low drum is in the grand canyon, completely overwhelming the mix. The weird thing is that I have heard a whole lot of music played through that coffee shop stereo system, and nothing seems especially bassey about it.
Anyway, I was hoping for some theory as to why this might be happening, as well as some practical solutions.
Hello, I hope this is a good place for this question....
I recently recorded some songs as a demo for my band. It is the first time I have used my new studio (just moved and have a lot of room in the basement). Overall I am quite pleased with the results - I feel like I have gained much useful knowledge from these forums and others over the years. The main problem I had in recording this session was not micing the percussion well (or isolating it for that matter), well, I did what I could to make it useful, and got it sounding reasonable on my mixing setup, the car stereo, my girlfriends laptop, etc... Then yesterday I listen to one of the tracks at my favorite coffee shop and it sounds like the low drum is in the grand canyon, completely overwhelming the mix. The weird thing is that I have heard a whole lot of music played through that coffee shop stereo system, and nothing seems especially bassey about it.
Anyway, I was hoping for some theory as to why this might be happening, as well as some practical solutions.
All comments and criticisms appreciated.
Omg, thats "chorinho" /cheers from Brasil!!!
PS: did u try to cut everything under 40hz in your L+R ?
I always spend time with my mixes in mono to help get things sitting right. Definitely helps with elements, like that drum, that you want to stand out but not too much.
BTW....I like where you have that drum in the mix.
__________________ "The main thing is to have a gutsy approach....but use your head." Julia Child
"Too late to the game to have any fun." theblue1 "Sometimes invisible are these glistening threads........" Janni Littlepage
What acoustic treatment do you have in your studio? If you aren't happy with how your mixes translate you should probably look into getting some bass traps and optimizing your speaker placement etc. Take a look at companies like GIK acoustics or ask at the acoustics section Studio building / acoustics - Gearslutz.com
What acoustic treatment do you have in your studio? If you aren't happy with how your mixes translate you should probably look into getting some bass traps and optimizing your speaker placement etc. Take a look at companies like GIK acoustics or ask at the acoustics section Studio building / acoustics - Gearslutz.com
Hello, I hope this is a good place for this question....
I recently recorded some songs as a demo for my band. It is the first time I have used my new studio (just moved and have a lot of room in the basement). Overall I am quite pleased with the results - I feel like I have gained much useful knowledge from these forums and others over the years. The main problem I had in recording this session was not micing the percussion well (or isolating it for that matter), well, I did what I could to make it useful, and got it sounding reasonable on my mixing setup, the car stereo, my girlfriends laptop, etc... Then yesterday I listen to one of the tracks at my favorite coffee shop and it sounds like the low drum is in the grand canyon, completely overwhelming the mix. The weird thing is that I have heard a whole lot of music played through that coffee shop stereo system, and nothing seems especially bassey about it.
Anyway, I was hoping for some theory as to why this might be happening, as well as some practical solutions.
All comments and criticisms appreciated.
Maybe the coffeshops stereo is more precise in showing whats going on in the low end, compared to your own mixing facility (as already mentioned room treatening), your car stereo and your girlfriends laptop. I would bet that this is the primary reason for your problem. Room treatment is the most underrated step in mixing, while it actually should be the most important. It doesnt matter how much high end gear you got. If your room is no good, you simply dont have a chance, to know whats actually going on. Not even the top of the pop, could do a proper mix under those circumstances.
As one of the other posters said, try to cut some low end with a HPF, or you could use a shelf. I recommend the first option. Also check the region in the 350-450 hz region on the kick drum, where i guess it could benefit to cut a 1-2 db. I know it sounds stupid but sometimes IMHO, the kickdrum sits better in the mix when you boost the area of attack/snap i little. Its typical around 4000 hz. However you should be aware, that if you mess to much with the eq on a setup like this, it will change the overall balance. I would also use i linear EQ in this situation, so you minimize phase issues.
I recorded this with a stereo pair in ORFT configuration, and individual mics on each instrument (except the percussion. two player shared a microphone) . The panning I have at the moment reflects the stereo image, I can try moving the bass drum around, but it will still be panned left in the stereo mics. I suppose I could try taking the stereo pair out completely, that would give me more control but less of an ensemble sound.
Hmm that makes it tougher. The ensemble sound is nice. Like others said, HPF everything to make sure you don't have a ton of sub bass eating up headroom, and then eq the low drum to bring out definition and separate it from the guitar. then I'd try eqing the room mics and maybe playing with width of the stereo pair to bring it all closer to center, and then pan using the close mics to create the soundstage you want.
You have many options, but the song is great and so is the playing, so I wouldn't fret too much
I think in this case your monitors may be lying to you.
Damn things.
A cheap fix for this would be taking an eq (putting it in signal chain to monitors) and lowering the bass of your monitors. Since I assume the mix sounds good on them.
This tricks you into mixing a more focused (and louder) low end, due to the smaller amount of bass response the EQ applied to the monitors. Could work with headphones as well I think.
Another fix that I think may work, but is a pain in the nuts is to simply sit down and study the bass characteristics of similar style tracks. Then u apply the same logic/characteristics when mixing. = pain in the ass. But works.
On my monitors, the kick sounds tooo wide. Or, too in the background, or too reverb'd washed or something. Just not focused.
Seems around 60hz or the lower bass needs cutting on the monitors. Unknown. Both methods require experimentation. But may be worth it.
Yeah I just listened to this in my studio on KRK VXT8's, and the low drum is fine, its a little loud in the mix if anything. The main reason why it could be doing that in the coffee shop is down to the EQ. In order for it to work well across a number of medium, you'll need a low shelf around 40 cycles, and again do a little cutting at 250 cycles with a medium to high Q setting. I think this is where the boominess is coming from, its a combination of the two frequencies. Don't cut too much though or you'll lose the bottom energy of the track. Also, have you tried to compensate for the drum with some bass frequencies from the bass/cello parts? This is whats masking as the post earlier suggested. There is not enough separation between the two, try the old trick of cutting one and boosting the other at similar freqs, that should cure it, again not too much. Also, you could cure this in the mastering stage, try to cut those frequencies mentioned above on the 2 bus. Hope it works out. ;-)
I have no treatment whatsoever, unless carpet on the floor counts :-) Still have some construction to do, including building a wall to finish off the room after which I can try and figure out what I will need for bass traps and such. Just watched a Pensado's place that dealt with room treatment and has me excited to get to that point. Until then I am mixing in the dark, so to speak.
The high pass filter seems to help, although I have not yet bounced the tracks down and taken them to the coffee shop for a spin.
Also, have you tried to compensate for the drum with some bass frequencies from the bass/cello parts? This is whats masking as the post earlier suggested.
I'm tinkering with this now, and it is helping give the low bass line (a seven string guitar) some definition - seems to pop out more.
Another fix that I think may work, but is a pain in the nuts is to simply sit down and study the bass characteristics of similar style tracks. Then u apply the same logic/characteristics when mixing. = pain in the ass. But works.
Actually, this is a great idea. I have just the recordings. Thanks for the suggestion.
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