Wow Joe, this is the first time I've seen someone put a low end shelf BOOST!! I'm just a singer songwriter so my recordings are just acoustic guitar and vocals, amd (probably from watching too many RU-vid videos) the first thing I always do to the guitar is a high pass filter!! Then it sounds a bit "empty"....I'm gonna try this way, looking for any bad frequency FIRST! Great vid thanks!
boosting sub 100hz if the guitar is in a multi layer mix is a very bad idea; a lot of instruments occupy this frequency area, but if its a solo acoustic with voice then a boost makes it fatter
Some time ago I took a course from you called Understanding EQ. It literally changed my thinking and the way I approached EQ. My mixes improved dramatically because the tracks sounded much better by fixing small problems first with subtractive EQ rather than boosting right away. You're applying what you taught in the course here and It just works. Thanks for all the content you share with us. I really enjoy the videos and the Tuesday live stream.
Some well known low frequency vibration modes of the acoustic guitar are at 188Hz and 204Hz (hence boomy). You don't have to find them by ear. This is why the lower G notes can be boomy.
Thanks for the great video Joe! I was hearing a consistent ringing frequency around 1k that you chose not to notch out; was that on purpose? I'm thinking that maybe you didn't want to cut out too much from the original tone.
I'm new to your channel, and I produce Gospel, R&B, and Jazz music. I'm also new to Studio One, left Profools! Lol! Every mixing technique I have seen you do, on all your videos have been on point. You are very good at what do. Keep up the good work! Thank you for sharing you knowledge and wisdom.
GREAT VIDEO AND I REALLY APPRECIATED THE DETAILED EXPLANATION ABOUT YOUR EQ DECISIONS. I WOULD LIKE TO SEE ANOTHER VIDEO LIKE THIS BUT ABOUT THE COMPRESSION OF ACOUSTIC GUITARS AND THE MIXING OF DIFFERENT LAYERS AND GUITAR TRAKCS. THANKS! LOOKING FORWARD TO IT. I JUST SUBSCRIBED!
Training yourself to hear these problems, how do you do that? Do you know from the start that a bass, drums, vocals etc typically has a problematic area in the EQ, or how do you adress it?
I'm writing biker ballad for my first metal album, and acoustic just sounds weird in mix. Distorted rhythm guitars I always doubletrack. Solo I know where to place. But acoustic just sounds weird and not like in songs that I like
On that narrow cut in the Low-Mid you're cutting I believe what's known as the wolf note of the acoustic guitar so if you can figure out the specific note that causes the "pop" you can find the frequency and save that EQ for that specific guitar it literally changes from instrument to instrument, but you will always be able to have that note cut out and it will save a bit of time
i can still hear a kind of harmonic sound coming from that middle-high frequencies, like a little whistle.... but yeah, pretty much the same things that i've been doing in my mixes... i'm used to put more than one EQ plugin, like the first one just for the cuts, like high pass, and low, to create room and remove this littles problems that we kind always have, as you said this is pretty much the same for most acoustic guitar tracks.... thank you for the video!
Yay! I was hearing everything you were :D I even thought, "Hmmm, I think he should widen the q on the low end dip," and lo and behold, you widened it! Thanks for your awesome channel.
Awesome video, what the best way to record an electric acoustic guitar? Mic ? Cable straight to the interface and create an audio file? (I did the last one. and sound so weak!! )
I am at 8:03 currently and you asked if there was anything else that needs to be adjusted, I am definitely hearing a harmonic ringing somewhere around 700hz ish I am guessing but I am just commenting ahead so I can look back at what I mentioned and see if you tackled that haha
I am not sure if you can hear it on your monitors but its very apparent on mine and I am using sonarworks reference 4 as well.. Do you normally leave the harmonic ringing in your guitars? I find the ringing drives me nuts, so I end up notching it but then another one appears and then I get stuck notching a 1000 frequencies haha
Thanks for this one Joe, just what I needed as a newbie Studio One User. My first thing I want to record is acoustic guitar. This has been very helpful for my needs.
Super helpful to see you hunt for frequencies in real time. A lot of tutorials just show you the results without showing the steps it took to get there.
Again, great. Question. I do not see nor can I find that side menu that allows me to "click" normalize" as you did early on. Can you send a note as to how do I access that? see a lot of other info, but not that.
Anyone have any advice for me. My acoustic guitar always sounds boomy and if I eq out some of the mids and lows then it just sounds thin. This is mostly noticeable when Im plucking the strings. Any help appreciated
Thank you so much! Joe, tell me please, what is the guitar and what strings do you use in this video? It sounds very... soft. My guitar sounds more... higher and "angry" and I don't like it (Fender CD 60 + d'addario strings 10 - 50 standart tuning).
Hello Joe, would u do a video on what Producers should look for when they receive a final mix and mastered wav from engineers? A checklist at a high level. There seems to be none on You Tube........All the videos created are for engineers. Some want just listening and judging skills as a Producer....
Great video! You might turn that notch into a dynamic EQ. Then you can exaggerate a bit more without affecting the rest of the sound (between the down-strums) too much..
Great video, just wanted to point out something. Recording at very low levels like you're doing does in fact affect the sound quality, but it's not about tone so much as bit depth, which has more to do with clarity than tone. Obviously 24 bits sounds clearer and more natural than, say, 16 bits. When you record at these very low levels (and just looking at the pre-normalized wave file, it looks like you are recording at VERY low levels), you're wasting all that bit depth. When you do that track after track, and then mix them all together, it does have a noticeable effect. If you're worried about clipping, just play as loud as you would reasonably expect, find the ceiling, and adjust your input so that it's a little below that. Or, if you have the gear, you could always preemptively run it through a compressor set to knock down those extreme peaks. Or you could use a limiter, although a compressor with the right settings would probably sound a little better.
Interesting. I have to try the notch thing next time; that's new to me. Thanks for the tip! Please don't stop the playback when switching between processed and unprocessed. It is much easier to hear the differences if there is no interruption and the track just plays on. Also, please do not _speak_ at the point of switching. Leave a few seconds to listen to the difference in the signal and _then_ speak. This pause almost completely resets my ears, especially with speech in between and I don't get any of the significant difference you are talking about.
So is this stereo recording with 2 mics panned output to separate mono tracks panned hard left and right. Or a stereo out channel. Or out a mono channel?..
Really good tips. One thing you mentioned I've been telling people for years....crap in, crap out. Gotta make the tracks as good as you can from the beginning. It's way easier to "sweeten" a well recorded track than to "fix" one in mixing. Peace.
there is a better way to fix that, I figured out 2 months ago, just do automation on certain wave peaks. only automating fader little bit without using Eq.
Just a tip to those listening on laptops and tablets with tiny crappy speakers: If you can't hear some of the things Joe talks about don't feel bad or think your ears aren't good enough. On tiny computer speakers some of those frequencies being discussed literally *may not be there* when you play them back. If you're into audio and listen to a lot of this cool stuff, it's worth it to outfit your computer with some good speakers and/or headphones.
Hi Joe, I'm trying to record some of my blues tracks, so I thought "ok, record rhythm with the strat, vocals, and some lead fills with the strat, that's it..." then I started thinking, wait, if I go that route I really should have drums, bass etc...right? So if I don't have drums, bass, etc, then recording rhythm on acoustic, then some lead fills with the strat....would be a better option, wouldn't it? :( I'm confused
This is a matter of arrangement. If your rhythm guitar is lightly or heavily distorted or crunchy, it will sound piercing and not so enjoyable by itself, without the drums, bass and other elements of orchestration. Strat clean rhythm alone could work with a not so crunchy blues solo. If you're unable to record real drums and bass, I could recommend installing drums and bass plugins on that work on midi, so you can program them to get them to play what you want. It never holds the place of the real thing but being able to at least hear some orchestration for your tracks could give you a motivational push. But you could also record your rhythms on an acoustic and lay on top of it a nice, tastefully dialled strat tone. For some reason I tend to feel that will sound better tonewise and give you a pleasant track to listen to. It's a self evident fact that the best way to decide which method sounds better is to try and see it for yourself. No single person around the globe can give you a specifically tailored recipe that will make your recordings better. You are the one that's in the room in which you're recording. You're the one playing the specific guitar that you have in your hands. You're the one going for a variety of ideas to work on. Don't confuse. Nobody learned arrangement or mixing in their mother's womb (this is a direct translation of how it's said in my native language) :) Always spend time on trying new things and never have a day without music.
Hi joe! I'm a big fan of your tutorials! You are one of the best teachers alive! Really :)) I'm a one man metal band. Recently working on my new EP. And your tutorials are helping me a lot. But I had a small question. Is that! In another video about Studio monitors you said. In the DAW its better to keep the Project volume level for mixing at -10DB but here you are mixing the acoustic song on a normal 0 DB ? May I know why is that ? And once again thank you so much for your tutorials
What I was just thinking when you where speaking of not recording to loud was: You have a given bit "deph" at which your sound is recorded. lets say 16 Bit (for CD). So if you are recording at quiter levels you are not really using the whole range. thus your signal has not the best resolution it could have. Correct me if I am worng here! Id like to know better. :D
Not using the full 16 bit range results in a little extra noise or hiss. As long as this is not audible it is no issue. By the way I only record in 24 bit when my source is audible without many other sounds, and has quite parts. For instance a song with only guitar and vocal. Bit depth is highly overrated.
Bonjour I have a phase problem When I try to hard pan my guitare left or right In fact When I look at the analyser since I pan more than 50% I start to have phase and correlation issue... at the point my guitare sound almost disapppear When I sum the mix in mono Any suggestion ? Merci
you probably placed the mics in a wrong way, you're experiencing phase problems, you should try to move the mics or follow some stereo placement technique following exactly the distance suggested, you will solve It this way!
Hey Joe, you wonderful teacher of all things recording, mixing, mastering and producing, can you add guitar playing to that list? I play guitar and are always looking for ways to improve. Just in that few bars there of the guitar track you used I’m thinking “how is he doing that twiddly bit?” etc.. Could you do a video on some of your guitar playing techniques? Just a thought. Cheers
Man, love your video! Could I ask which technique you used for recording the guitar? Because it looks like it is stereo signal, but I don't know if you recorded it that way or just recorded mono, used some processing and bounced it to stereo. Thanks a lot for the answer! Greetings from Czech Republic!
I've been watching all of your videos lately as I'm new to the mixing world. Perhaps this topic has been addressed elsewhere before or it's simply a matter of doing a better recording, but some of my older songs from over 10 years ago have a lot of gliss when moving up and down the fretboard on an acoustic guitar. Is there something that can be used to lessen this in the mix?
great video Joe. Can you make one where you explain compression on acoustic guitars in some situations? and also, really waiting for another mix together series :)
