Help with high freq/eq on my mixes

broken81

broken81

Used by Protools
Dec 26, 2005
1,593
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38
Detroit, MI
Well i always seem to find when i reference my mixes to others, there muddy sounding and my mixes don't really have the high end professional mixes have. I always find myself having to high shelf on my master channel to get were i need to be. Also my guitars are the same way and find myself doing the same thing on guitar buss. I even reference my guitars as i set up Mic's and stuff and get real close but then in overall mix they just don't have clarity there dull.

Now should i be going to each instrument and boosting certain high freq to get these highs instead of doing on whole mix and on guitar tracks (I'm sure that would help separate things more). I am running cheap mic preamps (could be part of the problem) but I'm really wanting to find out exactly what I'm doing wrong and try to fix so I'm not always boosting so much in highs or maybe this is a normal thing?
 
Well, lets start at the source. Pick one thing that bothers you the most and tell us how you tracked it.
 
Microphones and well.... real life, have a tendency to introduce muddy low mids into sounds. I mean real life sounds shit, that to me is the golden rule of mixing.

When you mix, you're making shit sound better than it ever would in reality. Toms sound like cardboard boxes... even the best Sonor toms I've heard have needed substantial EQ after they've been recorded to make them slice through the mix whilst simultaneously rattling your balls.

Kicks are dull, muddy pieces of shit until you stick a D6 right in front of that batter head.

Amps and cabs are boomy, muddy, painful pieces of shit that have enough excess high mids to feed a third world nation if they could be converted to food.

I really doubt you get professional high-end naturally.. by 'capturing it at the source'. All you can do is get close then find an EQ that likes boosting (Waves SSL is a good start) and then tweak each element individually until it sounds lively to you.

Your job is to sanitize all the elements until they are palletable to the end listener. Do that any way you can. If you need to boost, then do it. If you need to cut, then do it. If you need to take off 16db with a compressor... do it.
 
I don't have the SSL plugs, but I found that a few things can help un-muddy a mix. Multi band compression on the master or on guitars and/or bass. I'm mixing and mastering a band now and I wanted to get as thick as possible without turning to mud, and I found a happy medium doing a mid/low mid C4 setup for the bass somewhat like Andy's C4 settings for guitar, but optimized for bass. I also use multi band comp on the master buss to clean up a cloudy mix. In the past, I've also used Izotope Ozone's Exciter, along with some of it's other stuff, but I'm trying to learn other ways. Ozone kinda feels like a cheap ass way to fix things I need to learn how to do on my own, if that makes sense.

For me, I've always had guitars that are too bright, so I don't share that problem. I've also found myself recently tailoring a nice crisp high end from the OH's, which seems to help uncloud the drum mix a bit. That seems obvious, but I mean boosting more than I normally would. Along with that, I've tried setting my HPF higher than my normal and it can help with clarity. On this most recent project, I'm high passing at 800-1000Hz. While it's cutting out a lot of the natural OH drum tone (which sucks, TBH, anyway), it's helping me fine tune drumagog to fit a more natural sound without going overboard. I'm working with badly/"noobly" recorded stuff (a band recorded at their house), so I'm learning a lot on how to clean up stuff, IMO.
 
i think alot of people tend to over look the high end while tracking, cus you dont really notice your mixes are dull until you bounce them. try paying more attention to each mic/input during tracking to make sure there isnt a lack of "high end"
 
wow some really good awnsers people:headbang:

I have wharfdale dimond active monitors and an untreated room i mix in. Which both could be the problem.
 
Man, I got a drummer friend who, every stereo he runs, he cranks the highs up to abnoxious levels. His fucking hearing is fucked! It aint just me, everybody notices this shit. It's sad, and just recently, he has been diagnosed with significant hearing loss. I'm not saying that's your case, bro. Just something this thread made me think of. I listen to my favorite albums through my studio monitors, and, you know, reference the shit. Headphones are the worst to work with. I won't even touch em now. And concerts, I used to stand right in front of the mains, and get pummeled! Fuck that shit now!
 
broken81 said:
wow some really good awnsers people:headbang:

I have wharfdale dimond active monitors and an untreated room i mix in. Which both could be the problem.
Click to expand...

As long as you have a reference point it shouldn't matter. I mean listen to some well produced albums and hear how they sound in the room. You can always compensate for room anomalies. I've been mixing in an untreated room for... well, ever really. I actually prefer mixing here in my bedroom over down in the studio simply because I know this environment so well from 6+ hours a day of listening to music here.

Don't cop out and blame it on the gear and environment first. Do the obvious thing... listen.
 
yea i don't think its my hearing cause i can tell a huge difference from my mixes to commercial. I can get my mixes were they need to be but i just have to add allot of highs to match professional mixes. I Guess I'm kinda wondering should i be aiming for more highs and live/brightness when tracking??

Do you guys eq on master buss and do you constantly find yourself adding certain freq in like me?? If so what ones usually i know all mixes can be different but i seem to be adding the same stuff every time so I'm almost wondering is it my gear or tracking problems.
 
I think you should look at your original tracks with an analyzer (for example Waves paz) and try to look if the tracks are missing high frequencies. if they are, you should try to figure out which part of the recording chain is causing that. If they have plenty of high frequencies, don't be afraid to cut the frequencies that are causing the tracks to sound muddy. With a good eq you can use quite dramatic settings without making the track sound unnatural. I pretty much never add high frequencies with plugins... I just cut the ones that are causing the mix to sound muddy and IMO that gives much better results. You can then compensate the volume loss by turning up the master output gain on the eq plugin.

Also remember that the refereces you are listening to have propably been mastered by the best mastering engineers on this planet...
 
so let me ask this then is it very common for mastering engineers to add highs then??

And im not gonna be sending my stuff to any mastering engineers anytime soon so i guess i would make my mix sound good at the sorces then if im lacking some higs just add them in when i master.
 
I've been using Waves to add some polish to my recordings recently. It works very well.

setup a project in Reaper that just has some general settings and use it as a template. I just load my mixed song in and tweak it until it sounds 'right'.

Here's a screeny:
waves_mastertemplate.gif
 
see i pretty much do the same thing as that with the highs maybe a shelf and bring up 3-4 db but i don't scoop the mids but yea looks like you add some highs too :headbang:

Im mixing on 6in monitors so i think there not giving me my lows corectly and im over compensating in area's and making things a bit muddy. well see i got a few things to try out.
 
your wharfedales are great actually. treat the room and reference pro stuff. Like everybody said.

If you have huge standing bass waves in the room canceling themselves out you end up adding bass because of the phasey mess in your room. then you end up with mud later. I bet thats what it is.
 
ive been bossting the fuck out of the top end on a few things since i havnt been down at the studio. Mackie 824s just have way too much top end and you undercompensate for it when you track
My mixes sound a lot better now ive been paying attention to the top end detail and not being afraid to boost where it needs it
 
my monitors have a treble decibel cut by either 2 db or 4 db

i switch back and forth depending on my "health" for the day

i never leave it at 0 or +2

my room sorta adds unnatural highs

anyways, by doing this, i know where i stand in the treble realm
 
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