How can I get away from a good instrument sound and toward a good mix?

[Morgan C]

I've noticed that in a lot of mixes I like, the individual elements, even within the mix, can sound pretty awful, but the mix itself just works. To use one that everyone seems to know - Stabbing the Drama - I couldn't say I like the guitar tone, or the drum tone, but the mix works really well. When I'm mixing I tend to focus on an instrument and get it sounding great, no harsh frequencies, fits in well with the other instruments, and so all my individual elements sound great - soloed and within the mix - but the mix itself is somewhat lacking. There are also a number of mixes that have this the case as well, where everything sounds great but it still doesn't work. How can I avoid this, or change my mind-frame to more mix-orientated than instrument-orientated. Slipperman in his 'distorted guitars from hell' thread said that pro engineers worry about how the mix is working and don't give a toss about individual instrument sounds and I'm trying to work myself towards that view.

 

[Ermz]

Do a lot more processing with the whole mix going, rather than solo'd instruments. Try to avoid soloing and only working on one thing as much as possible. I found my sounds improved when I started thinking about the whole rather than the individual. This is especially true on drums, where the direct tracks are affected so much by overheads, ambience mics, verbs etc. With guitars of course the bass adds a ton of the perceived sound. It's just a matter of letting each element shine in its chosen frequency range. For instance, your guitar tone won't work with a ton of subs, so you have to focus on getting a good, strong and clear midrange, and letting other elements take care of lows.

 

[gorath23]

I'm far from being even an ok mixer, but I try and force myself to only solo instruments when I feel there is a problem with them. Nasty weird frequencies/clicks/pops, my Fireball had a whistle (lol) at around 2.3k, so I'd solo the guitars to remove that.

I think that when you are very inexperienced (like me) it can be hard sometimes to be able to pinpoint frequencies in a whole mix, my ears just aren't trained enough yet. So I admit, that occasionally I go, screw it, and solo something out. One thing that some hi-end consoles have is a facility to partially solo something, basically like a pad for the rest of the mix, allowing you to hear a particular instument solo'd loud but still 'within the mix'. If you have some headroom left it may be better to get used to pushing a fader up momentarily rather than solo (I don't know of any DAW's with the full console feature).

 

[Aaron Smith]

Soloing something is definitely not bad, but the danger is in keeping it soloed for too long, because you start to lose the proper perspective.