Issues With Muddy/Cloudy Rap Metal Mix

[Osc1lfo]

The electronic music section might not be the best place for your question. We're a bunch of synth-heads.

Anyway, you can try soloing the vocal against the different tracks to find where they clash in time. Then, find where they clash in frequency. If you have an EQ plugin with a frequency display, you can see what frequencies are overlapping.

You can then eq out one or the other's clashing bits, or carve out some frequency 'space' for the vocal. Also check for phase cancellation.

Some overall noise reduction might help - compressors on a real gentle setting can be used as gates - if a track isn't a certain loudness, it doesn't play. When a phrase stops, the gate snaps shut. This prevents noise from building up in the mix.

And, if that is the one thing holding the song back, and the other stuff doesn't work, let it go, man!

Good luck!

[ChrisCwizzMorris]

Thanks Osc1lfo! I will defiantly take all you said into consideration, I'll post back with an update to see how it works, among yours and possible others advice

[mrwonderful]

Compress metal vocal screams have mad compression

[ChrisCwizzMorris]

Hi guys, I decided to post a link with what i have so far (non downloadable and on soundcloud for streaming, so I believe its safe).

Anyway, I know some parts (like the intro..which isn't mixed) and the palm muting part (could be mixed a lot better) are a little out of place

The focus I need help on is the distorted part with vocals, I think the drums and strings are in good place, but I'm just sure about the guitar/Vocals/Back-up screaming vocals. I just think it sounds too muddy still, even after re-eq'ing all three

I admit I'm not the best, heck I use freeware plug ins, but can someone plz give me tips on how to make this less muddy

Here's the link Muddy mix Help by Cwizz Exclusives on SoundCloud - Create, record and share your sounds for free

[ChrisCwizzMorris]

0_X Soundcloud really f'd up the quality of the hi hat

[punkjesuit]

First and foremost, make sure that none of the tracks are clipping, open up a master track and make sure THAT is not clipping.

Then the bulk of your problem lies with you EQ'ing

What it seems that you are doing is either NO eq'ing, additive EQ, or not utilizing notch EQ to create pockets for instruments in the mix. OR all of the above to some degree.

Additive EQ is when you Boost a frequency instead of Cutting it. This is an extremely bad practice. Think about it, every time you boost a frequency you are adding volume to your overall mix, and once you do this to every track you will no longer have any headroom, which results in a mix that is crowded sounding.

-What you need to do is subtract the frequencies you dont want instead. For example, If you want more punch and sizzle in a guitar track, your brain would tell you to boost the frequencies from 2kHz to 8kHz. That is wrong, what you want to do is first remove completely unnecessary frequencies first. so cut out anything below 80Hz and anything above 8kHz or 9kHz (for guitars, each instrument is different). This will get rid of a muddy low end, as well as a fizzy high end. Then make sure you are EQing while listening to EVERY track you are going to use. now instead of boosting from 3kHz to 7kHz, try subtracting a little from 80Hz to 3kHz, then some more from 7kHz to 8Khz. This way you get the tone you want, but not the loudness associated with boosting.

Now the other thing to do is to make sure you EQ while listening to every track like I just mentioned, and while doing so make sure you create pockets for instruments and vocals. If you create a "pocket" for the Bass drum where nothing else is, except maybe bass guitar. Then you dont have that "fighting for room" sound going on. There is no exact science to this, just guidelines. You just have to fool around with frequencies until everything sits in the mix in its own frequency plane.

Make sure Kick, Snare, and Bass are sitting at 0 in regards to panning.
Everything else needs to be panned L and R to varying degrees.

Also out of personal taste I would cut out some of the highs on the cymbals maybe around 12kHz-13kHz and up, that'll cut out some of the brittleness and ear piercing frequencies of the cymbal

If you still have issues or need me to re-explain something just shoot me a PM and ill help you out.

[LeoLeoLeo]

your main problem in my 1st listen was the compression on the 2 buss. dead obvious at 32 seconds & 46 seconds. dead obvious...

it more of a level balance & compression problems than eq problems, but those too...

everything doesnt have to go to 11.

[ncoak]

turn the metal down

[ChrisCwizzMorris]

Hi guys, I took a day-2, to mix other songs instead of this one, maybe I would come up with more ideas. Well, To give an update, I re-did the vocal take, with aggressive rapping vocals, instead of the soft ones I had. It sounds like a yell in rapping form, so it has that aggressiveness, that makes the background screams un-needed. With that said, @Leo, you are right. What I ended up doing, (So far), Is I took the compression off of the guitar, and re-eq'd it, so it sounds less muddy and more audible. Then, with the new vocals, I re-eq'd them, and used less compression, and a tad of delay. So the only compression on the track, is on the Master bus, except for a little on the vocals.

I'll post an updated version in about 2-3 days if you guys wouldn't mind helping me again

Thanks guys! Much appreciated