Balancing...

myownsilence

myownsilence

The Influenced
Jan 10, 2007
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I've realised in recent months through this forums and a few others that my main issue was always balancing.

Since its such a crucial topic can I start by asking what is balancing? I know its about setting fader levels, but from what I gather its not about EQ and Compression as such is it?

For example my mixes have doubled in improvments as I no longer turn my guitars up so they mask the drums (too much) I used to wack them really loud and then you couldnt hear areas such as the kick without boosting the EQ around 3k, problem is if you do that you end up with a totally bullshit sounding drum with no substance (low end). Now I also know low is something of a difficult area to work in due to the energy. Listening to a lot of my fav recordings by say... Jens Bogren reveal the kick to have low end but not heaps of it. And the gutiars seem to have energy, although they don't dominate.

Lead tones I try to turn up louder and treat with delay or reverb (short and long) but they can get overpowering and harsh.

I know just about everything is to do with the sound you record so I start there and accept what I have first and foremost.

guitars seem to benefit from being mixed in and sharpened up (in focus terms) by gentle boosts and cuts. The same seems to apply to a drum bus.


But Balancing is doing my head in a bit. I stuggle sometimes to pull the guitars in size without hitting the volume nob. So I presume there is a problem with the guitar sound.

I also find sometimes the drums just sound either too loud or lost, I presume this is just experimentation until it all fits in.

Im using Superior drummer by the way, although I do mix live drums sometimes.


I find messing around with electronic drum samples easier but I don't tend to pop distorted guitars in that style. The wall of guitars sound is for example 4 tracks of guitars playing the same thing right? Does seem to help. I feel like I am never quite up to where I want to be with mixing but before I keep going messing with stuff I would love to know what you guys found made the biggest improvement to you appreciation of balance, volume levels and understanding of what is really happening in a mix. I for example spend a lot of time turning guitars up loud then cutting, which is not the way to do it is it. Volume first then EQ.
 
I think I have trouble finding the spot for each instrument when it comes to EQ like you filter out xyz in guitars and abc in drums and tbc in bass so they all sit well together. I think if that part is taken care of well then balancing becomes a lot easier because they don't really 'fight' with each other for that space and then I guess when you crank it up or compress it to sound bigger you get a more desired result. Which is where I feel I have a problem. And feel free to correct me if I'm wrong somewhere :D
 
Demonstealer said:
I think I have trouble finding the spot for each instrument when it comes to EQ like you filter out xyz in guitars and abc in drums and tbc in bass so they all sit well together. I think if that part is taken care of well then balancing becomes a lot easier because they don't really 'fight' with each other for that space and then I guess when you crank it up or compress it to sound bigger you get a more desired result. Which is where I feel I have a problem. And feel free to correct me if I'm wrong somewhere :D
Click to expand...


You see this is where I believe I would disagree where you say "crank it up or compress".

You use a fader to do this, not EQ or compression. So your use of EQ and compression is incorrect.

You set volumes first. Then you might have low end you don't like so you filter it out. But to then turn up the guitars at this point is wrong, you might have filtered out too much. Perhaps you should turn it up first.

But fighting for space is something that is not corrected with EQ in my view, EQ can take away crap or unwanted sound or boost the nicer bits of sound.
 
I hope it helps, I know where you are right now I think.

Best advise I can give is to use fader for volume and when you use a compressor always A/B at same volume, I do not mean the same METERED volume I mean USE YOUR EARS.

This way if you EQ something and it goes up in volume you may need to bring it back down.

You can see here why your initial faders and decisions are very important they will guide you as you EQ and compress. Compression is an effect treat it as an effect, if the volume increases, bring the compressor back down., keep stuff going like this and you'll soon grasp it.
 
Balance is about how each track is "sitting" in the mix. It's about Volume, EQ, and sometimes parallel compression, multi-band compression, or even mix-bus compression. It's about getting the mix to sound like it's "glued together" or "unified". Obviously, the first thing is making sure no single track is too loud or overpowering. Then I like to check my pans out and make sure my Stereo imaging is just right, using cans of course. After that, it's all about fine tuning the mix so that, even though everything was tracked separately, it doesn't come out sounding so separated. To me, balance is about the whole mix process, right up to where I choose the reverbs/delays that tie the whole thing together.

Hope that helps.. :)
 
Balancing is perhaps the most challenging aspect of creating a quality recording. The two most important items (IMO) to keep in mind are these: 1) SERVE THE SONG, not the ego. Each musician wants to hear his part, which is natural, however the song en-total is what is truly important - do what's best for the song. 2) FOR EVERYTHING YOU BRING UP IN A MIX, YOU MUST BRING SOMETHING DOWN. All too often, frequency in-fighting and part prominence will lead to "fader creep". Proper "shelving" of the parts is enormously important and use of creatively panning tracks can lead to more balanced and interesting mixes. The more parts you incorporate, the more creative and compromising you have to be concerning part dominance. This is where "band by comittee" decision making can become very tense. This is often where an executive producer / engineer earns his money.

Bearing in mind that parts can step on one another spacially and in terms of frequency is a huge part of the song writing phase and again in the part writing phase (i.e. 2nd guitar part, bass part, BG vox, etc.). Keep in mind at all times that eventually everything will be mixed down to two tracks, one left and one right and that often times (depending on the number of instruments / voices) two or more instruments / voices will be fighting for the same frequencies which in turn creates balancing and EQ issues. It can be challenging to remember that "less can be more" and that jamming 10 pounds of stuff into a 5 pound bag simply creates a muddy mess.

We certainly encountered some of these issues while mixing the HEDDA stuff; learning the ropes of balancing is an ongoing lesson throughout one's career.

Good luck.
 
@myownsilence - I find most of my stuff needs some treatment. I was trying your idea but my kick sounds like shit till I compress and eq it. Then once when I have everything sounding good on its own then i balance it. like set the drum balance right then add the bass and guitar and so on and then EQ further depending on how it sounds. I very rarely look at numbers I rather listen to it. As long as I can hear it then its fine.

My main issues are creating the space for each track to breathe which I hope to overcome soon :D
 
myownsilence, I think you're going the wrong way about this to be honest.

If you're struggling to get things to sit right just using the faders then chances are there's frequencies clashing between the instruments. In which case some eq'ing will help. For example if both the guitars and the drums have alot of energy around 3KHz then frequencies are going to clash and cutting that area from one instrument will help the energy from the other come through.
Compressing can help too is a instruments' dynamic range is out of control.

You're totally right that you should get the sound as close as you can at the source, but really no song is going to sound it's best without some degree of eq'ing.
 
Trevoire520 said:
You're totally right that you should get the sound as close as you can at the source, but really no song is going to sound it's best without some degree of eq'ing.
Click to expand...

James Brown's sound engineer at Pori Jazz 1995 used over an hour carefully placing the mics and what I heard that the house FOH engineer said that James' engineers only eq:ing was that he added a 2dB boost on the low end of the kick drum. Otherwise completely straight EQ on all channels.
 
Demonstealer said:
@myownsilence - I find most of my stuff needs some treatment. I was trying your idea but my kick sounds like shit till I compress and eq it. Then once when I have everything sounding good on its own then i balance it. like set the drum balance right then add the bass and guitar and so on and then EQ further depending on how it sounds. I very rarely look at numbers I rather listen to it. As long as I can hear it then its fine.

My main issues are creating the space for each track to breathe which I hope to overcome soon :D
Click to expand...


Shit in shit out on that one. I spent many times treating an instrument like it needed treatment. The truth is if you kick sounds like shit to start with, it will sound like shit to end with. I'm not saying dont use EQ, but eq will not make a good sound, it will just reveal it.
 
Trevoire520 said:
myownsilence, I think you're going the wrong way about this to be honest.

If you're struggling to get things to sit right just using the faders then chances are there's frequencies clashing between the instruments. In which case some eq'ing will help. For example if both the guitars and the drums have alot of energy around 3KHz then frequencies are going to clash and cutting that area from one instrument will help the energy from the other come through.
Compressing can help too is a instruments' dynamic range is out of control.

You're totally right that you should get the sound as close as you can at the source, but really no song is going to sound it's best without some degree of eq'ing.
Click to expand...

This is where I feel strongly against. There is some truth in cutting but sometimes 2 instruments support each other, and by cutting one you remove the combined energy.

The sound at the source thing is a definite, but as you say EQing is for the mix, not the individual sound.


Let me give example. When you solo your kick it should sound good, if you pp the mix around it and it no longer works you must deal with it in that context. Chances are though that I bet your faders are wrong.


A post up above by Tommy Gun hits the nail for me I think. Its about achieving separation without losing the gel holding it together.

One of my biggest issues I had till recently wasI sould dive in and pull the kick up at 3k (for example) live the snare up around 2-5k (for example) mess with EQ on guitars and bass, sit the vocal in.

It would sound like utter dogshit.


Then I decided to stop using EQ and compression for a while and my mixes sounded a lot better trying to acheive ta good mix with just the faders.

In many posts here I noticed how you view EQ as a repair tool, and the same as compression I fear that you miss the point about where I am at and what I am trying to acheive.

I don't repair with EQ, I repair at source. I mix with EQ.
 
myownsilence said:
Your kidding right?

Ill give this a go but not convinced yet.


Not saing its not good advise, ive just always felt bad about limiting the bus.
Click to expand...

Dude, ahjteam's post in that link is fucking golden. He has the knowledge and speaks alot of good stuff. His recommendations definately work. Try it, persevere with it.
 
myownsilence said:
Your kidding right?

Ill give this a go but not convinced yet.


Not saing its not good advise, ive just always felt bad about limiting the bus.
Click to expand...

Of course the purpose of the limiter in that case isn't to be an active part of the mix, more just to safeguard from the odd spike, hence why you'd start with the bass that low, the final mix won't actually end up being too hot and require hard limiting before the mastering stage.
 
Gave it a go but its not working for me im afraid, its not a blind leading the blind thing I don't like presets shoved at me that everyone is convinced is the recipe.

"Then add the guitars. They have to cut thru the mix, but not overpower anything else. If they cut thru the mix only by overpowering something, do something about the guitar sound"

I do get however where its going.

The problem I find is that I think a lot of times you are better just adjusting the faders than arse fucking your lovely guitar sound to death so it "fits". This rarely works and more often than not you take the meat from the guitar leaving harsh harsh stuff sat there.


In fact its very concerning that the bass is the first thing that gets pushed up and then use the kick to turn it back down. I don't have an issue with side chaining but this sounds like a hash of presets in one pot. I am not a beginner in this art and would like to stress that this is not the be all way to get there. It might work for some.
 
BUT.....

Before anyone slams me I do understand his method, I think if you are a beginner however you will totally fuck this up if you ignore the importance of the faders to start with.
 
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