Accelerate me please!

K

Klosure

Member
Nov 26, 2009
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I've been buzzin around these forums for some time now and I don't think I am getting anywhere. I've noticed some of you have really come on leaps and bounds over a few years so whats helped you improve. My mixes still suffer a compressed punchy bunch of bollocks and I am just going around and around, I am slowly working myself into a forum banning mood which I know isn't good but you know after doing this for a few years I wonder whether I would be better packing this up and just selling the gear, has anyone else hear done this or thinking like i am?

I have heard some of your own work around here and quite frankly its controlled, commercial quality and would shit all over my work, and you claim to have been at this a similar time to myself, do you guys collaborate? Whats your tricks?

I'm getting on 30 this summer and boy it sucks, I aint dealing with it well in relation to my music side, its going slowly down hill, everytime I feel like i am getting somewhere I am shot back its like some sort of exam I cannot pass (not that I am any good at exams).

Do you guys all get a secret membership to Jens Bogrens mixing club, or is there something I am missing.

I even watched that Waterboys video recently (cost me too) and yes its great stuff but its like somehow his stuff just came together and I can't work out how, he shows you using all this PODXT stuff and the logic stuff then comes up with an amazing guitar tone out of knowhere.

I would love to work like waterboy but he ends up with a great mix at the end after doing nothing... no way I cannot do that.

Can I have a facilitated rant with you lot to clear my head?
 
Ok let me turn this around a bit


Is there anyone here who can claim these forums have been invaluable to their development, if so what can you recommend I read up on?
 
Okay well before I came here I was a noob, and still am, but I've learned a lot. And this is my main (if not only) source of information.

It sucks to say this, but apart from the sticky topics, you really have to hang around and absorb this over time. You won't find all the information you need in one place and render your mixes awesome overnight. I'm currently compiling a Word document of really useful information that I got here. I might put it up once it has a bit more material.

What I do is keep track of every single thread in here, and while it might seem long and fruitless, I've seen gigantic improvement in my mixes over the last few weeks/months.
 
I think I worry possibly cos the only people who can offer me views are not engineers and to be fair anything sounds good to them.


I am not a bad song writer which helps but also most of my friends hear the songs and they like (even those who are not friends) but I want to be able to pull it into a great mix and its not always easy.
 
Read lots
Fiddle lots
and if you can , mix someone elses music that way you're not critisicing (SP?) the song itself and worrying about arrangements and stuff (however poor arrangement will sometimes need addressing with bands)
I usually have a picture of instruments in my head and where they sit in the spectrum
Rely heavily on the bass for the....bass , so don't dial shitloads of bass in your amp
I rely on my guitar for a tiny bit of bass/highs and a bit more generous with mids
I depend upon cymbals and all drumness to glue it all together as a whole.
oh and most importantly be confident but don't go drowning yourself and getting lost ina sea of information (this used to happen alot to me)

eidt: also forgot to mention,things like amp settings/compressor settings etc... generally are not transferable (I have the bass and mids cranked on my british laney, whereas on my vox its more halfway with everything more or less near the 12 o clock position) Also where an amp comes from makes a difference e.g. British , American and european. I haven't tried enough amps to tell you the mass of differences so im not gonna spew crap.
 
I have no idea how you guys do it, i been told to give this all up tonight.. shit 10 years down the drain I guess!:puke:

I thought i was getting somewhere but what I hear on these forums makes me realise I cant do it, even some of the basic stuff I hear round hear is 10 times better
 
Klosure said:
I have no idea how you guys do it, i been told to give this all up tonight.. shit 10 years down the drain I guess!:puke:

I thought i was getting somewhere but what I hear on these forums makes me realise I cant do it, even some of the basic stuff I hear round hear is 10 times better
Click to expand...
You should only quit if that is truly what you want to do. However, if you are like me, you have an uncontrollable urge to create and share your creations with other individuals. AM I correct?
Judging from your posts, it is apparent to me that your hindrance has nothing to do with your knowledge, expertise, or ability. It is your attitude.
I'll be completely honest, I am entirely new to recording. However, I have been playing music just shy of two decades. You will never achieve greatness unless you push through your frustrations. Your perception is completely wrong.
Mastery of the art of mixing is not a destination. It is a journey. The pros who have gotten so excellent at their craft got that way through DOING it and an overzealous interest and desire to absorb knowledge, apply it, and in return get better.
You have taken the enjoyment out of the creative process so it is no wonder you are frustrated with your end product. My advice to you would be exercise your skills and learn whatever you can and ENJOY it. If you work on your mixes until you are happy with them I assure you that you will get better with time. It takes time. You will NOT mix like Andy Sneap over night. ENJOY the journey and your end product will represent your enthusiasm and, ultimately, sound far better to your ears. Music is a language and positive words yield positive results.

Keep rockin' brother!
 
Who told you to give it all up?

The question is what do YOU want to do? Do you WANT this enough to spend time to improve? I think it's pretty much a no-brainer to decide wether or not to continue with audio engineering or whatever. If you feel it's mostly a PITA and there is no joy in it, then you can stop. If not... well then the decision has already been made :) It's not about how good you are in my opinion, there will always be people better than you. It's about enjoying it!

I enjoy "audio engineering" because it helps me get my music out to people. I'm not really that into audio engineering myself. If it wasn't for my own music, I would've never gotten involved in the first place. However, my interest in it has grown over time so now I could consider advancing beyond my own music and work in a studio or something but that's for the future.

You should just sit down and listen to your feelings and fuck all the "I'm not good enough" thoughts. Good enough for what? Producing a best selling album? Well most of us aren't good enough for that, I can bet my balls on that :)
 
I guess it depends on how you look at it. I've been doing this whole audio production thing for quite some time now, I've gotten better, but nothing like some of the folks around here, but for my needs I think I'm doing OK, but the key is, I look at myself as a musician first and use this as a means to get my output down into a more permanent form - I'm not looking to do this for a living so I focus much more of my energy on music than how it gets recorded.

So ask yourself, what are you? What do you want to do with this audio engineering thing? If it's something like me, just keep trying to get better at whatever pace you feel comfortable - small gains are still gains. If you want to make a living doing this then you need to throw yourself at it, it's not really for the fainthearted as you seem to be coming across. The people that are getting great results here, have dedicated large portions of their lives at this - they want to succeed and they don't let little setbacks make them question their dedication. You know the old saying that "Genius is one percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration." - the same can be said of ability and success.

You need to look in the mirror and first decide what you want from this - then really think about whether you have the desire to do what it takes. Nothing comes on a platter, but your goals can only be measured in effort - there are very few "naturals" in this world, most of the folks that get stellar results have worked long and hard for that ability.
 
Honestly, I'd say your best bet would be to just post what you've got in the Rate my Mix section, and we'll do our best to help :) (on that note, referring to those guitar clips you posted in that muddy/harsh thread, you can't ever expect to get a good tone without at least two separate takes simultaneously, hard-panned L/R)
 
AudioPhile777 said:
Some people have it, some dont. Its pretty simple and is just how life works.

If you've been at it for 10 years and your mixes still sound like crap, its probably best to chock this up to a hobby and move on... its still useful to record when songwriting, though.
Click to expand...

Yeah I have to agree with this, as harsh as it sounds, but reality is what it is
 
Well....

Ok my attitude last night was not positive. However I have spent a lot of time already and learned stuff along the way, I also get frustrated easily. as you can see.


But I think I have been at this long enough to not give up. After all I will have asted the last few years.

My Issue has never been one of the basics, and I am sorry cos its my fault for blasting away on here without appreciating that you guys have no idea about me really.


And I have a huge amount of information about mixing, that in itself does not help cos I can't just mix, I constantly think about whether if I a going to be trying to get something to a certain way I should push here cut there.

So heres my issues and with a positive kick in the arse please help!

1. I generally get left with a mix that sounds fucked because I don't follow a routine I can stick to this is due to below, the reasons that make me question my routine. Either this or my routine is too much the same and getting me in a trap.

2. I panic that its sounding crap as I am going along. I have been doing this long enough to realise grabbing the EQ is not ideal, you may have seen me around here trying to understand EQ. For example should I even have to hi pass the guitars, should I have not moved the mic correctly to start with. Yes you can use EQ but am I going to stuggle to get a good enough sonding song by the end.

3. I am starting to realise any sound sounds good if played well. Something I just realised.

4. I find that loudness is not an issue for me, anyone can spank the crap out of a 2 bus, I sometime worry that as I mix I am going for loudness when mixing, should I push in mixing? Do you push in mixing? Or do you take levels back - if so do you take the bus compressor threashold down to meet the peaks of the drums?


5. Somewhere inside of me something tells me that I should be struggling so much with this, in fact I struggle more now that I think I did at first.

After all its just levels right.. and I think he first thing should always be correct volume levels, so what am i really trying to do when I grab the compressor, am I compressing, why am I compressing, to keep dynamics consistent? Why not just turn up that instrument if its disappearing. Maybe I want the sound to be more - flavoured, maybe the sound is just not doing it for me, so I might try adding some distortion of some sorts, a channel emulator for example. Why?


Number 5 is a pont I notice never gets ansered, someone asks what if I cannot see the point in vintage distortion. I listen back however to my fav artists (Katatonia mainly) and their mixes are very dark, I love that, is that all the character distortion or do thet just hi pass everything?



6. Bass, bass should it bee seen and not heard? I often find it sticks out like a sore thumb in my mixes, and I cannot get it right, Should it be louder than the drums.. what is typical in metal, I thought drums loudest, how does it interact with the bus compressor, should the bass cause the bus compressor to pump?


7. Do small tine adjustments make a mix, or is it the bigger picture.





These questions I don't expect answers to. But these are the thoughts spinning round my head when I am recording and mixing my own material.
 
A) Stop thinking about it and simply mix your ass off for 1 month. Mix every day. Use old tracks and remix them from scratch. These days I can make mixes in 2h that totally shit over everything I did last year. It's called "ear-development". If I listen to my mixes from 2006, I cry - but people said they were good back then, too...

B) Buy the book "Mixing With Your Mind". It's rather expensive, but it totally adresses all of your problems that you mentioned in your post above. It's also the best book on mixing ever written (in my not-so-humble opinion). If you have tons of money left, buy Owsinski's "Mixing Engineer's Handbook" and Gibson's "The Art Of Mixing".

C) Stop thinking, start mixing. From all the terminology you used up there, it is so totally evident that you are a what I call a "lost forumite". That means you read a lot and are probably aware of all kinds of technology/techniques, but you don't have any idea how to mix a song and make it exciting. Your nitpicking about bass loudness reveals that quite clearly, because the answer to your question is: "The loudness of the bass depends on the effect you achieve in each part of that one song that you are currently mixing" <- that means that the fast doublekick part gets a softer bass and the chugga chugga breakdown in halftime gets massive low end that puts Korn records to shame. All that counts is the excitement you create with that song and that your mix goes along with the story of the song.

D) It could totally be that Audiophile777 is right and you simply don't have any talent for it. A lot of people like that end up as "lost forumites", so it might be you.

E) Try this:

- stop visiting forums
- forget all the bullshit gearslutz terminology of compressor "flavors", EQ-emulations, tape saturation etc.
- buy "Mixing with your mind" and read it twice before mixing anything
- collect your 5 favorite CDs and listen to 2-3 songs of each every morning and every evening for 1h
- pick 2 compressor plugins, 2 EQ plugins, 1 Delay Plugin and 1 Reverb plugin
- mix one song every day by using only the plugins that you used above
- use songs of similar styles as reference mixes while you are mixing

If after 1 month of this you don't have CONSIDERABLY better mixes. Give it up.
 
I've never known anyone to have a natural talent for anything, and im not really sure if i believe in the 'Some people dont have talent for it' thing, if you keep at anything sooner or later you're bound to see improvement. Take for example the 10000 hour rule (yes i know thats a LOOONG time) but it states that if any one person is going to spend 10000 hours practicing on one subject then by the time thats up you are a perhaps not virtuosic but definitely exceedingly good at your craft, this 10000 hour rule sounds absolutely shit but it equates to about 3 hours a day (or so it says). I do believe in natural talent, but I dont believe in natural shitness :D

edit: so you don't all think im spewing crap here is the article , http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/article4969415.ece
 
I'm not trying to be rude... but if you still have those questions in your mind and all those doubts which most of them are of a beginner in the area then probably you should deal with this as a hobby... You spent 10 years to perfect something and still feel like you're a beginner and ask some questions that are pretty basic. How about you show us something? It may not even be that bad at all...
 
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