Enjoyed this one! This is an attempt to hit the moment that Joe hits play on each mix. Final 1:54 Bad Levels 3:07 Muddy 4:40 Hollow 6:24 Harsh 8:33 Muffled 9:14 Over-Compressed 10:58 and - what a relief! - back to Final 1:54
Thanks, Joe. My hearing claps out at 13kHz so I have difficulty with the highs. It's not bad for a 60-year-old who went through a war and then spent 30 years playing bass next to noisy drummers.
13k is enormous, I'm envious!, I have nothing beyond 4k at 77 years old. I can mix my music though, I put a low pass on every track at 12k and high pass at 80hz. I use EQ mostly subtractively to sweep and eliminate bad resonances. When those bad frequencies are cleaned out the sound emerges with a new clarity and usually needs little or no EQ. Electr-acoustic guitars leap to life when a 120hz high pass is applied. Bottom line: the soul of the music is in the low to mid range up to 4,000 so it's not all bad for me!. You can listen at alancrosthwaitemusic.com/pagesen/music.php
@@notablemusician I know I'm lucky. What matters is the joy music brings into our lives. Good tracks, where do we go from here makes we want to listen to a song by the same name from the Alan Parsons Project.
Who knows what I'm doing to my mixes. I haven't measured things as you folks have. All I know is that at 62yo, when lying in bed with the windows open during a rain shower, it sounds so lovely when I'm laying on my left side. When I turn over on my right side, the rain disappears almost completely. Too many years with a keyboard amp blasting into my left ear, I suppose. Yet, when I listen to other folks mixes and references, they don't seem right heavy or thin on one side and murky on the other. Confusing. Time to pony up the bucks for a mix engineer?
I record with compression and eq. Never more than 3db of compression, eq through test recordings or just by ear, never more than +/- 3db of and frequency unless its a high pass filter. Using UAD Apollo it's easy to get a good sound that still has room for shaping later. Folks are too afraid to make choices going in. There are a million different plug-ins that can do a million different things, but back in the old days you didn't have access to everything--you had what you had and it helped mixes have a consistent personality. These days inexperienced mixers have too many choices and that can lead to mixes that have no identity.
You are absolutely right! That was my biggest pitfall when I began mixing! "That compressor is better, I should use that one!" or "Which reverb do I use? Let's try them all!" In the end, you end up with either a bad mix or no mix at all, because you couldn' t make choices. Truth be told, it took me a while to learn to find my go-to plugins, but I think I'm in a good spot right now: knowing what to use, what not to use and where I can experiment, because I understand not the specific compressor, but how compression works in general (as an example).
In particular, most people who grew up w/ digital are way too afraid to use a little analog compression to let their players and singers be more dynamic. Roll off about 3db of the peaks and you can record a way hotter and better signal. Sure, digital has huge dynamic range, but the mic and the preamps are still analog, so a hot signal is still better.
Honestly I am currently elbow deep in mixing my band's album right now, and your channel has been a HUGE help in addressing issues I've had with recording and mixing in the past.
It’s so cool to see that I’m a beginner that produces music since december and this video shows my whole mixing progress i did nearly all of that types but now my mixes are near to your „Final Mix“. Might sound kinda weird but I’m very proud of my progression. This video was a very big motivation for me. Thanks!!!
This song is actually pretty fire 🔥 just saved it on Spotify. I'm definitely the one that turns the bass up like crazy cause I think no one will hear it, but then it's too loud. Thanks Joe!
De-complexification is where it's at. I've spent years writing and recording pieces that were deliberately complex - big layered vocals, percussion, sound FX, blah, blah, blah - and relied on a studio pro to sort it all out. Now doing it all at home, I've found that developing an understanding of mixing using very stripped down songs is the way to go. Focusing on a small number of elements gives my small ape brain time to grasp this sciencey-art stuff. Also, it challenges the songwriting, which is nice. BTW, de-complexification might not be a real word.
Finished my track today and In my studio it sounded fine but in the car there was a frequency around 50hz thumping my brain. I would say I tend to be a muddy mixer. Love your videos, they are really helping me mix better.
Thanks Joe, I have done all of them at one time or another. I think that you hit the nail on the head with me. I'm 66yrs old and tend to mix a little to harshly. Thanks for being honest about that, now I can take that into consideration when I'm mixing.
Great video! There are tons of videos teaching how to mix, but most of them are too subtle. Thank you for presenting a great video that can be easily understood even by people who are just starting to learn mix like me.
Thanks so much for this Joe! I have 2 things going on. First, ya the hearing isn't what it used to be....too many years of headphones and playing in a band tooooo loud. So of course my high end is pretty much toast. Second, I'm a bit if a bass junkie. There's a part of me that wants to feel it in my chest on every note and I have to be conscious of that and control it in my mixes. I definitely identify with the muddy and muffled mixes. Great job!
Different music styles have slightly different needs for mixing (low end - solo voice) but yes bad tracks are the first impediment. Bad monitoring will also have a big impact. Lastly, untrained ears is the biggest factor. You cannot fix or mix what you do not understand or cannot hear or differentiate.
I've done 'em all, Joe. Usually, trying to avoid the mistakes I made in the last one. Now my ears are stuffed from old age and aural abuse but I can still identify each of the stages you demonstrated. Thanks for that. I will continue to strive for the mix that will put the smiley face on me and not my EQ.
@@HomeStudioCorner What I mean is to make it more stereo sounding. It just seems 1 directional. I'm just not sure which tracks I should really pan left-right and have the most comfortable and balanced sound.
I feel that I generally will fall under the hollow category because I know especially how good the 300-400 hz cut is on drums and sometimes I tend to translate it to other places in the mix. However this is getting better for me. I have to tell myself every frequency needs to be there in a balanced way
The origin of the "smiley curve", btw, is simply the crappy home stereo speakers we had in the 70s & 80s, before the computer companies taught us the value of a subwoofer. In the 70s, there just weren't subwoofers anywhere, except in the clubs. Also, the standard cheap home stereo speakers just had a single 7" or 10" type driver, so they weren't so great with highs, either. In fact, the whole reason graphic EQs started appearing on stereos is cause it was a cheap way to make crappy speakers sound better.
I recently took a hearing test & I can still hear all of the high (yet very soft) frequencies. I'm 49. I don't want to lose the ability to hear everything, because I'm just getting started with using EQ, compression, etc... I used to use an external multi-track & I would just keep what I had. The only thing I would add was a little bit of reverb. Now that I'm doing things right & spending more time on my mixes through a DAW, I want to make my songs sound more radio-friendly.
I think my instincts are pretty good and I seem to have typically avoided almost all of these. But I am older so I have had to consciously watch out for the harsh mix. I am going to replay this video with various speakers and headphones though. I really appreciate your way of teaching this stuff. You set up great examples. I also want to note that "scenes" is something I need to start incorporating into my workflow.
To add to your comments on as we get older we start to lose the higher frequencies in our hearing. We also gain more response to the lower frequencies. So the range of frequencies we typically hear shifts to the left on the spectrum as we get older. I actually did some frequency tests with my daughter when she was about 6 or 7. It was very enlightening for us both. With that said, it all adds to the potential leanings towards a harsher mix; if we're not compensating for it.
What about flat mix? When everything is equally balanced, nothing goes forward and grab attention, everything pushed back on the scene, the track is not overcompressed but lacks dynamics and breathing. While everything is mixed kind of right but the mix sounds boring. I should mention that Gregory Scott of Kush Audio partly opened my eyes on this subject, although he doesn't cover all problems. The link is below. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-1DX_1c47s48.html The layering and the desire to create a spectral wall of sound plays a huge role there. And a big number of instruments that should share the scene. The loudness over 10 dbfs make this kind of tracks even worse. Usually in this tracks there is no space left for ambience effects.
Over the time I’ve tried to mix, I’ve fallen in all of these categories at one time or another. I would love to have someone like you listen to my mix or look at my project and tell me where I’m going wrong! The Final Mix sounds amazing dude! Exactly what I want my mixes to sounds like!
Thanks for this video, Joe. I think I went through all these problems 😅 The best solution for me is to have reference tracks in the mix file and compare my mixes with them often. Still learning though. And I see it takes time and experience to avoid the problems you’ve mentioned. Thanks again for these great examples
A very good presentation of what are possible examples of bad mixes. Yes they do sound familiar. Thanks. P.S the muffled sounds better than the muddy though.
This is really helpful, couldn’t get my head around why my sound was dipping, been through lots of videos, then I found this- bloody over compression! 😅
I feel like I always end up with a muffled mix. Which I actually don’t mind cos it’s maybe the easiest to fix and everything else feels fine once the wool blanket comes off. Levels also screw with me from time to time
Thanks for this! It makes so clear the issues I will def run into from time to time. Listening to the Same song in different mixes is really useful! So thanks again for taking the time to demonstrate this
Hi Joe. Again a wonderful educational video on mixing. I enjoy the way you explained bad mixes to us using these examples. Thanks! Also - I am a HUGE fan of your music and listen a lot to your songs on Spotify. Best mix ever is 'Fighter' - what an awesome song (and awesome vocals!!!) 'Shell' is great if you need an acoustic guitar reference. I use your songs as my reference tracks for mixing and my mixes have improved so much 👍🙂👍🎵🎵🎵🎵
A very informative video Joe. Since this is a video about “what not to do”, which is often times more important than “what to do”. We are ‘doing’ way too much anyways while mixing, i guess.
I think never listening properly or even asking if what i did was better is main one. Levels are everything though. A recent project i vowed to never do any plugin except using the basic amp sim or drum plugin (of course in covid lockdown). Sounds and levels going in, people said it sounds better than my mixes and i have been showing it saying "unmixed".
I do a lot of the common ones (muddy or over-compressed). I have a lot of low bass drones in the backgrounds, which are cool and atmospheric where done right, but really easy to make everything sound blah when done wrong... and I'm a beginner, so it's often wrong, lol
Using reference tracks I always feel I need a certain amount of distortion on the drums. And some how a bit of compression I find helps the bass and drums cut through and helps with the tone.
In classical music (and jazz etc.) the contrast between soft and loud is vitally crucial - cannot be overestimated - as it is possible to the instrument and the player. "Sliding" louder & softer will be done by each instrument in a short amount of time ... and then we can talk about articulation (how notes begin and how they are released). I find compression really kills that nuance, making everything sound like a "medium" loudness, when what the musician has spent decades perfecting is the exact opposite. So is compression really overrated?
So this was an overview of my last 3 years? 😂 I've determined that I have some high end hearing loss in (just) my right ear. Other than flipping headphones around while mixing, any suggestions on how to compensate please? Thank you for all you do!
If you are geting old and have problems whith hearing high frequensis---put an equalizer between the soundcard and the headphone amplifier--and put on a referance track and equalize
My man, very nice video! Really enjoyed it and genuinely well explained with real examples. Currently dealing with a bit bad mix here, sounds bad in Mono. Can you make a video about that? Cheers
Still in the middle of watching but the bad example at 3:05 I mean on headphones I actually liked that if I heard it on the radio I'd accept that. MY bad mix/recordings don't sound as good as that. I like distance/reverb though. Ok yeah I think your song just sounds good no matter how you mess it up with mixing. My DI guitar sound is tinny and fuzzy, harsh at the top once amp sim-ed but take that away and its worse, my piano (piano one) sounds weak, my drums (mtpowerdrumkit) sound fake, my bass plugin (ample bass) has no sharp clang like I hear in pro bass stems, my voice sounds ok but no real low end to boost like you have which just makes the whole thing sound even more tinny, I think comparing mine against pro stems even the whiny nasal pop punk singers have more low to work with on their high notes or something, my monitors are 7506 headphones, and I'm always trying to tweak these things to make rock. Lately I've been practicing with other people's stems which is better
Hey Joe .. nice Channel .. i am your 160.000th Subscriber by the way .. and i am looking forward to helpful VLOGs about the Presonus Stuff .. I am on Sphere now I am a former Drum n Bass Artist and now doing Music at my Home Studio just for Fun and to clear my Mind. Cheers from Cologne - Germany
Gonna sound like a plant here, but until I got some order I went through ALL of these. Sometimes all in the same song. Muddiness then lead to harshness, etc. Especially since I am recording myself, which provides another opportunity to monkey with stuff too much, in my opinion. That Home Studio Mixing Guide of yours provides that order. It has been great for me. I can still manage to jack things up, mind you, but they are a lot easier to fix at least! Not sponsored by HSC, Joe Gilder, or his affiliates...
I'm definitely in the muddy category...sob...but I have also another question: why do my mixes sound "good enough" in mono, or in "old stereo" (think most Beatles tracks with the drums on the left, all the guitars on the right and other extravagances) but quite bad\hollow\empty in stereo? I mean, think a simple 4 elements rock band mix (AC\DC stuff): stereo drums, 2 rhythm guitars (L\R), bass, vocals and sometimes a third guitar in the center. If I try to mix something like this, it sounds full in mono, but empty in stereo! It's like the rhythm guitars are VERY separated, while on an AC\DC song you can hear this fullness, maybe the room, I dunno...If I try to compensate with a room reverb it just sounds muddier, but not fuller...help me please! I like sparse arrangements: few elements with a big, dry sound.
It could be studio one audio engine needs a massive update. songs sound different when you export. Every one talks about the features of studio one. but never the audio engine. Protools exports exactly what u hear 👂🏾
Hey, there seems to be an unpleasant frequency/feedback in your talkback mic. Sounds like it’s around 390-420hz. I’ve been hearing it for a while now and thought I should let you know!
My mixes kinda sound "crowded" and a little bit on the edge of distortion. I just now learned to gain stage everything internally and it seems to of helped a lot. Always knew how to gain stage external gear, but somehow missed it internally.
Did you just say "turd"! 4:11 Wow! Joe! Put it out there, buddy! Tell it like it is! Although in my mixing experiences, I've definitely polished my share. Turd. Wow.
