A good mix requires patience and respecting the challenge. First I would suggest a few things and please have an open mind as I don’t suggest these things as I think I know more than somebody else. These are just things that work for me and if you’re already doing them good for you as they work for me. -When adjusting EQ, trust a tight Q and subtle 1 to 3DB changes. They are more useful than you may imagine. Quite often that’s all you need to do is just get the tracks a bit out of each other’s way. -Turn down the volume when listening, and take breaks every 30 minutes or so. Refresh your ears take a five minute break. -Really get to know the frequencies that are the “hair of the sound” that you’re working on. If you’re working on a guitar or a vocal or whatever it is, truly know the heart frequencies that generally make the character of that sound. Do the research. This approach really helped me. Yes, I use my ears but I’m also looking to the science. And have fun for crying out loud!
Tangentially, isn't it amazing how we can use words like "muddy" and "warm" to describe aspects of roughly the same frequency area and understand it?! Human minds are incredible Edit/addendum: muting instead of solo is such a small thing, but it's HUGE!😱🤯 That blew my mind lol. When I solo things, I instantly switch to a different analytical mindset that might end up hurting more than it helps
I just HPF *everything* that has low-frequency rumble except for kick, snare, bass and leads. I also find that a lot of mud happens around 250-300Hz so I make a shallow dynamic EQ cut with a wide-ish Q on the offending tracks just to tame the excess mud.
When I started, my mixes were way too muddy. Then they got way too bright and thin as I boosted highs left and right and carved out all my low mids obsessively. Now I'm slowly figuring out how to let some low mids back in. I feel like my journey is a pretty common one.
don't boost highs by a default, just cut the low mids until it doesn't sound muddy but it's still full and warm but not empty or thin. It's easier to boost 1-2dB of highs in a mastering if the mix is a bit too dark in the end
@@huberttorzewski no dont boost the highs during mastering make sure your source is bright and then cut excess freq during mastering to polish the sound
@@KevinCoblerOfficial usually the opposite is easier to fix but maybe it's different for you. Cutting highs during mastering dulls the sound while boosting opens up the sound if the mix is good. But if the mix is too bright you usually need to sacrifice the elements that were bright enough and make them a bit muddy to fix the overall brightness of the mix in the mastering. But as I said earlier, maybe you had different experiences
It doesn't matter what I use reverb or delay for but I always eq after them at 400-600Hz LC and 4-6kHz HC. It really adds clarity to the mix and stops low mid build up.
Holy smoke first time I watch a video where I learn something I never ever taught about or even knew about, reverb and delays and their baggages of noise and boominess. wow thanks a lot
Do not try EQ solution only. sometimes compressor and gate works. they control time of sound. Try reducing attack or reducing sustain with compressor and gate . for example, there will be many rythmic source in mids and also be some long sustain source? reduce sustain. It can solve problem and you can still have solid sound. kick and bass? Try reducing attack of bass when kick and bass play together. Try side chain gate/compressor between sustained source and attacked source. first think about time, then think about frequency. if you only try with EQ, you will have thin mix.
RU-vid needs to give more than one like button, like there needs be other buttons to appreciate some great contents like this one right here. Brother you are wonder.
I don't know ir I heard it from you (probably) or somewhere else, but it seems that this kind of thing can exist in several places, but small in each, and then all together they pile up on each other till it gets HUGE.
Thanks Joe! Muting seems like a solid approach in tracking down the culprits responsible for a problem. Also agree that EQing reverb and delay often helps
Damn fx sends... lol, thank you sooooo much! I'd have never even thought to look for reintroduced low buildup from fx sends buggering up a clean send. I thought I was losing my mind 😅 Revisiting fundamentals today really paid off!
Hands down the best guidance I've taken away from you. That's saying a lot, your pro advice and training is invaluable, but this one is perfect for me at this point in my journey
Is it bad to apply low cuts on everything? I use a lot my EQ presets that apply low cut on all of them. And they work great. My mixes always improve a lot but I'm not sure if it might be bad to take away low end on everything by default.
I think the most pervasive hidden source of mud is: The listener's equipment! I've had several mixes that sound perfect on my ATH MX40's and even in my car but then I put on some Apple AirPods or Beats or cheap JVC ear buds and BOOM, it sounds like hot garbage being crushed underwater. One thing we have to account for is the listener's equipment and if most people are using AirPods, Beats and their various knock-offs, most people are getting an artificial boost to everything below 250 Hz (and probably a cut at 1000 and another boost at 10k but that's another story). So my secret is to use a Dynamic EQ on the 200-500 range with a gentle cut on the louder sounds and I bring it down as far as I can *without being able to tell the difference* on my nice mixing headphones. It more or less sounds the same in the good equipment but it then becomes bearable and maybe even halfway decent in the bass-heavy consumer schlock that everyone is actually using.
I think that the core problem for alot of folks out there is production, choices of sounds. At least for me! Mixing can rarely saves a poor production.
I just learned the other day that when you send to a parallel compression bus, your high pass filter that you were depending on to cut out the lows becomes less effective.. the low lows WILL be going into that compression bus and getting back into the mix -- when i figured that out i was just like "SON OF A BITCH!!!!"
Great and helpful to us newbies!!! I noticed you said and showed the eq after the reverb, with the high and low pass. That looks like what I think is referred often as the Abby Road. I don’t recall who said to have it before the reverb. Does that make a difference?
Joe, Thanks for all the great content. I discovered your channel and it has helped me so much in my mixing. I have a question for the car test and maybe even a little bit into mastering territory. And, if I've gone full nerd here and off the deep end please tell me to GIRATS, fix the offending tracks, or that my studio monitors need an upgrade. I have a lot of low end on my car speakers that just isn't there in my studio and to me it sounds like rumble not thump and punch. After some investigation I realized the frequency range of my studio monitors only goes down to 55hz. And some googling around I found that premium car audio can go down as low as 32hz. Now I don't want to cut it out completely but what do you think about on the master bus putting a high pass filter around 40hz and slightly boosting the 50hz area to compensate. The mixes sound great with plenty of low end in the studio but in the car it drowns everything else out. Appreciate your input and all the great work you do!
Thanks Joe. That was super helpful and a clear presentation of how to hunt down the mud banks! I recorded a song where the individual tracks sound fine but the complete mix gets muddy. With your help I will check out the low frequencies on each track and hopefully have a much cleaner mix. Thanks for helping us non pro's get more professional sounds. Have a blessed week.
My first move wen I find my mix sounding thin is to mute d high instruments like d hi hats I bring them down to enable me identify what's adding more brightness outside of those, fix them and then slowly bring up d HI hats to a reasonable level. This works of the case is not from cutting off too much of the mid range form other instr
Hi Joe A thing i wonder about is when i watch your or Gregors posts your output on the studio one view is always in the red I always avoid that am i missing something?
Yes and no. Internally there is no actual clipping with 32bit floating point. So as you are working or composing it doesn't really matter. But as soon as you are actually mixing it makes a difference because when rendering/bouncing to a wav or MP3 you will run into digital clipping and it will sound horrible. So stay out of the red most of the time. Gain staging to 0vu or -18dbfs is important if you are mixing hybrid or are using analog emulations like Acustica Audio plugins to avoid distortion. But if you are purely digital you don't really need to worry about gain staging much.
Monitoring is usually the reason for muddy mixes. DT770s, too little low end. 280 Pro and M40X, too much low end which could result in a bright mix. Sony MDR 7506 fairly middle of the road. I even like Rockville M50, oddly enough because they also seem in the middle. Harsh, inexpensive, but nothing seems exaggerated. Can't afford those 650, but I will have to go to Sam Ash or some place that carries them and compare them to other headphones to find something similar. I just got Shure SRH 440, M50X and Superlux 681, all of which are great. As for speakers, some cheap Mackie, Presonus and a pair of Rockit 5 4g, which are ok. But I wish I still had my 3 foot speakers with horn, 12 inch, bass reflex and a 15 inch in the back. I think Cerwin Vega makes ones that look similar, but who knows if they are good for mixing. The Sony MDRs rarely make me overcompensate for anything and that is my only concern. I still use the all the ones listed through a headphone amp before writing to CD just in case. What would you recommend that is similar to the 560 under $200? I even have 599s but find them very muddy with no sound separation. Just one big midrange. I have M50X coming in the mail today since they seem preferred over the M40X, which I will sell if they are almost identical. And Sure SRH440s on the way. As you can tell I've become a headphone addict. Mainly because I don't know how someone can say to get the 770s OR 280s/M40X. They sound drastically different. Especially in the low end.
What audio interface are you using and what microphone am I hearing your voice from both in the video as well as in the demonstration you play of you singing? I have tried and tried and tried but can't seem to figure out why I get hissing in my audio mixes. I've tried everything at this point, setting the gain knob all the way to zero and everything. No matter how low or high my gain is there's always going to be humming and hissing and I can't get rid of it.
