Quote:
Originally Posted by Khazul
I had a quick listen to the first track on my PC speakers (which sound horrible at the best of times - ugh!))
My first suggestion is to cut the low end of all your lead synth sounds at 130-160Hz whenever the bassline is sounding too. Some could perhaps be cut even higher up. basically stick a low cut in there att 120Hz, then slowly crank it up until the low end of the mix starts to clean up, but you dont yet feel you are loosing anything important from the low end of the synths.
Next consider a narrow dip (3-6dB) to the kick at about 100Hz and a broad boost at about 2K or so. For the bassline, a narrow dip (just a few dB) around 80-90Hz and a broad dip of maybe just 1dB from 300Hz to 1K.
You may want to stick a sidechained compressor over the bassline and key it from the kick, but if you do, just gentle compression. set the threshold about 6dB below the kick peaks and use a ratio of about 1:2, quite a fast attack and quite a fast release (depending on type of compressor). That should be just enough to separate them in time without killing the bassline. Bring the bassline up by a dB or so to compensate for the average level reduction. Both the kick and the bassline should end up clearer now and you may find you can drop the kick level a tiny bit which will make the overall mix easier to manage.
You may need to re-level some parts after. You may find you can actually drop the levels of the leads parts by dB or so and still keep their clarity - at the moment they sound loud, but that could easily be these speakers.
You have alot of fx on it as well - apply a low cut at about 200Hz to the reverb and delay returns if you can (unless they are buried in synths in which case cut to synth has allready done this job for you).
Also reverbs, delays etc all get significantly boosted in perceived relative level through post mix levelling tools (compression/limiters etc), so drop their levels quite a bit to compensate for the amount of dynamic range reduction in post mix - 6dB or more.
|
Dude I really appreciate this. I'll have a long hard look at how I EQd this track when I get home and apply some of your suggestions to see what sort of difference they make. The little cuts and boosts you suggest are probably the small details that i'm missing from my mixes and will only come with experience I'm sure.
Do I need to be keeping levels as high as possible while mixing or is that something to sort out on the master channel later on during mastering?