Soft/weak/muddy low mid build up in my mixes :(

[johnjm22]

I've never figured out how to get rid of excess low mid frequencies in my mixes with out making the overall mix sound weak. If I don't cut them, mix sounds muddy, if I do cut them mix sounds thin.

Just curious if anyone else has this problem or has over come it. I high pass just about everything except the bass and kick.

I have a pretty standard ITB setup (PTLE, Digi002).


EDIT: Here's a mix I'm trying to improve - http://chrysalismusic.net/msmeD.mp3

 

[Audiosprite]

have you tried HPFing the bass and kick anywhere from 10-40hz?

 

[BLUElightCory]

In addition to using high-pass filters to cut unnecessary sub-lows, try cutting some excess low mids - anywhere from 200-500 Hz (use a narrow boost and sweep the EQ to find the problem frequencies) on most drums, bass, guitars, etc. In heavy music low mids tend to accumulate during tracking and usually require some attention at mixdown. Just cutting out the excess crap (even if it's just a little bit on each instrument) will create tons of space in your mix without thinning things out too much.

 

[johnjm22]

have you tried HPFing the bass and kick anywhere from 10-40hz?

I haven't tried a HPF at 10hz-40hz, but I will. Perhaps on the stereo bus? I remember reading somewhere that CLA does that. Still, the problem seems to be occurring in the low-mid range, not the sub range.

In addition to using high-pass filters to cut unnecessary sub-lows, try cutting some excess low mids - anywhere from 200-500 Hz (use a narrow boost and sweep the EQ to find the problem frequencies) on most drums, bass, guitars, etc. In heavy music low mids tend to accumulate during tracking and usually require some attention at mixdown. Just cutting out the excess crap (even if it's just a little bit on each instrument) will create tons of space in your mix without thinning things out too much.

I haven't been able to find that balance where I can cut the low-mids with out losing body. Especially with heavy guitars and bass.

I'm curious to know what freq you guys are high-passing heavy guitars at. Currently I'm high-passing at about 100hz, with a multi band comp on the low-mids usually centered around the 200hz range.

If I go any higher than 100hz on the HPF, the guitars sound thinner.

Major label mixes always seem to sound sharper, with less low-mids, but at the same still sound bigger overall. I've been chasing that sound my whole life but haven't figured it out yet.

 

[BLUElightCory]

Major label mixes always seem to sound sharper, with less low-mids, but at the same still sound bigger overall. I've been chasing that sound my whole life but haven't figured it out yet.

This is because big-shot mixers don't rely on the guitar tone for heaviness/big-ness. The "bigness" comes from the combination of the guitars, bass, and drums working together. The overall effect sounds huge but the solo'd instruments have been sculpted to compliment each other.

 

[espartaco]

what Cory said , also multi band compression is more effective than aggressive Eq in the low mid area on some instruments.(at least thats what it works for me ) a combination of both tools can bring you better results. Recently i discover (thanks to ermz tutorials.) that my mixes were suffering a lot in the 400hz to 800hz hz area. i was almost never putting enough attention to the build up in this area so my mixes were lacking definition and depth and have this boxy fell. sorry for the potentially bad english of my post XD.

 

[Scottxx]

Multiband compression.

 

[johnjm22]

Thanks for the replies everyone.

Cory, I never said otherwise, I'm just trying to figure out how to do that, and what I'm doing wrong. I listened to some of your stuff. My mixes sound thin in comparison to yours. It's like my mix needs more low end, but if I add lows, my mix just sounds muddy/soft.

Here's a rough mix I'm working on:
http://chrysalismusic.net/msmeD.mp3

Maybe I'm just over thinking things and I need to start over again from square one.

 

[johnjm22]

A shameless bump...

If anyone could take a listen to mix posted above, and give me some feedback on this issue, I'd greatly appreciate it.

 

[C_F_H_13]

Sounds decent enough man, here's my thoughts...

I think the majority of your problems are balance problems. Just listening on shit laptop speakers, the guitars seem too loud, vocals too quiet, bass too quiet, kick too loud, snare too quiet, keys too loud in some spots...

Get all that balanced, and I bet it'll sound alot better. Sometimes if cutting the mud makes your mix sound thin, it's cause you've boosted too much in the mid-high range and it's making it seem even thinner.

Try reblancing, then check your mud cuts, then your high boosts....rebalance, and check again. It's easy to add brightness in mastering, but it's hard to master a mix that isn't balanced from the beginning.

 

[LeSedna]

I agree, I was expecting mud-land opening the mp3. Bass is seriously missing, and guitars are too loud compared to the drums. Try limiting the bass to hell, pasting it to another track where you will remove everything that is not between 500hz and 2khz, distort it a lot through a pedal or a guitar amp, and blend them to taste. The distortion is here to glue with the guitars. You can automate it so that it doesn't show during the bass solo part.

I dig the song A LOT.

 

[LeSedna]

BTW, how is CDbaby, is it interesting to work with ?

 

[jimwilbourne]

Cdbaby comment was pretty random.

 

[Fama]

Not really, since there's a link to CDbaby on Chrysalismusic.net.

I'd like to stress the importance of referencing. Take some good mixes you enjoy and import them to your wav, pull down the volume (and route them straight to output, not through your master bus). They're mastered and your song is not, but you can still compare your low end to theirs.

 

[johnjm22]

Thanks for the replies.

The mix I posted has had most of the mud cut out, and because of that I think it sounds thin and kind of small. I'll try bringing down the guitars a bit. That should help bring out the vocals, bass and snare a little more. I like quieter vocals than most people though.


LeSedna,
I like CDbaby a lot. Much more than any other physical distributor I've used. CDbaby has it's own loyal customer base of music consumers, that use the site for discovering new indie music, because of that, I've been able to make sales to people who would have never heard of us other wise. You won't get that if you're just selling your album through PayPal, Amazon, SmartPunk or whatever.

Their digital distribution is nice too. They give you access to TONS of digital retailers both major and obscure. They even collect royalties from LastFM. I do prefer TuneCore for iTunes though.

 

[LeSedna]

Thanks for the input on cdbaby

Ill listen to the last mix tomorrow, just wanted to point out usually if well recorded and if the tones are well chosen, all should blend naturally with basic volume and not too drastic highpass filter. If you feel bass or lowmid is missing and makes it "thin", maybe the bass and kick dont have the right colour to them from the start. I often dial my bass tone according to the rest of the mix because of that. I dunno if this is standard, though.