My mixes sound too empty/ have too much space

[professorlamp]

When listening to my songs on a pair of decent monitors or headphones i notice that more often than not my mixes have a lot of extra space, and it makes the recordings feel really dry (?) anyway i want to get rid of that emptiness and have a fuller recording, any recommendations?

 

[gabriel g.]

maybe you should post a song so we can hear what you mean

 

[professorlamp]

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2872916/BRUSH YUR GUMS FINAL.mp3

Now this one doesnt sound as empty ANYMORE , but this is the only one i've been able to remedy succesfully (i say successfully...)
Also im not the greatest so excuse the quality if you have a valuable set of ears

 

[professorlamp]

Just before the big scream (the verse) without the synth that sounded tiny , i mean it was horribly dry and thin but my newest song doesnt sound like it needs anymore instruments but it still wants to sound fuller so i have no idea what to really do :S

 

[theNeologist]

drums seem way too far back in the mix. it sounds like only snare with very very little cymbals.

id say work on your panning, that may help your sound.

did you dual or quad track guitars? im not really hearing any bass either.

i think to fill this up you really need to bring drums up in the mix. guitars sound too one dimensional

 

[professorlamp]

dual tracked the guitars and did like most did and panned them hard left and right but for the chorus i quad tracked them

 

[keithb]

Sounds to me like the bass is missing a lot of low end, and I can barely hear it in the first place.

 

[professorlamp]

right so maybe its an issue more with the overall volume of things rather than the panning ( two mentions of barely audible sounds) I might just have to work that bit harder on trying to get my levels right , cheers guys it's good to have someone besides myself to critisice it from an objective view

 

[arv_foh]

It sounds to me like there is barely any low end content in the mix at all. Sometimes you can hear the kick a little, I don't hear any lows from bass guitar, guitars sound like they are clipping like crazy resulting in all kinds of distortion, if I was you I would just ditch this mix and start completely over. Also, where are the cymbals?

 

[professorlamp]

right its quite clear the drums are extrmemly unaudible i have this problem alot , cubase makes all the level sound fine and then i export it and play it on itunes and WHAM everything out of the window. As for the low end of things i can agree with you there but i think the fact is now that i know where the bass/cymbals and things are so i suppose i psychologically hear them (making any sense at all) and I dont really like to go back to projects after i feel they're finished however i will keep these notes for the next song i do , there all my own stuff im not being paid by anyone so it doesnt matter how much time i take

 

[Trevoire520]

I'll agree that there's a serious lack of low end, and the drums are very quiet. The guitars are also quite mid heavy. And as has been mentioned there is some awful clipping going on in some of the clean effected guitar. The vocals also seem to be taking up alot of the space in the mic all by themselves. Try pulling out some low mids to make them a little thinner. Also do some volume automation to get their level sitting more consistently through the song, as at the moment it sounds like they've been set so the quietest parts are still audible, causing the loud parts to be very loud and drown out everything else.

You actually hit on a good point in your first post. Everything sounds very dry, so add some reverb and delay to a couple of elements of the mix to give it some depth.

Best way to check the level of things is to turn your monitors all the way down to like whisper level, you'll find it really easy to hear whats popping out of the mix and what isn't.

Check your settings in i-tunes and make sure you don't have any eq, soundcheck or other crazy crap going on, what comes out of Cubase should be exactly the same as what comes out of i-tunes, so if its sounding different then there's a setting you need to change.

 

[professorlamp]

thanks alot trevoire!
sorry for the late reply (not everyones up at 4 am )
I'll bare all these in mind for future reference especially that whisper level trick , does that work on headphones too?

 

[Trevoire520]

Lol, no worries dude, I tend to work quite late sometimes so my sleep patterns are all over the place! lol.

I had never actually tried it on headphones before so I just gave it a bash, still works really well I think, though the level differences are maybe a little more obvious on speakers.

 

[Notuern]

It sounds to me like there is barely any low end content in the mix at all. Sometimes you can hear the kick a little, I don't hear any lows from bass guitar, guitars sound like they are clipping like crazy resulting in all kinds of distortion, if I was you I would just ditch this mix and start completely over. Also, where are the cymbals?

+100

Couldnt even hear the bass guitar at all?

 

[iHate]

uh.... there are no cymbals??? if there are, i can't hear them. lots of cymbals make mixes sound big.

 

[ahjteam]

Some pointers:

- this is what I call a "Jimi Hendix mix": you can only hear vocals and guitar
- guitars annoyingly too hard panned when playing alone
- too much low end on the lead vocals (especially around 140hz it sounds really boomy), highpass at 80-120hz
- bass guitar too quiet
- drums too quiet, especially the kick also need a bit more attack
- too much low mids on everything (especially around 300hz), they mask the low end
- the left and right are too much out of balance, it gets really distracting sometimes
- highpass everything else except bass and kick from atleast 80hz

 

[professorlamp]

ok thanks guys this should give me enough to read up/apply to my mixes from now.

 

[smy1]

Your room is probably fucked up to start with. Once you get that somewhat under control, you'll have an easier time adjusting the rest.

 

[professorlamp]

I wouldnt argue with you there, im going to re-record all my songs in the studio in uni anyway , it's just i like to practice a bit at home