A project I'm working on sounds too clean, all the different elements sound good to me but everything is too audible individually, especially the drums. When I reference other works they have a much more glued sound. What can I do to achieve this?
Too Separated? Help Please
- Thread starter HCL
- Start date
Dawn Patrol
Member
After having similar problems I talked to Andy LaRocque at Sonic trains studios who did the stem mastering for me. He told me to not to pan the guitars all the way, maybe 80 L and 80 R, put more saturationplugs on the drums, bass and on the master, make a drumbus with som reverb to have that 3d feeling. Or use some nice outboards to glue the mix together. Maybe something will work for you.
Sounds weird to me as we - in general - are trying to get a super wide wall of guitars. But everyone has his tips. Personally, I tend to not pan the drums hard left/right but 80% at max and the guitars at 100%. I don't like when a cymbals or a tom is too much far from the center, I find it very distracting.
Maybe it's time to quad track, that still won't fix my drum issues though. They're already running through a ton of reverb (I love verby 80s snares and roomy drums). I've got VCC on every instrument/master running the neve emulation and plenty of fx busses. I've even run doubler effects and subtle room verb on guitars to get things sounding bigger.
I'm running samples on the kit and I get that this is to a degree an inherent problem but I'm referencing sampled mixes that sound great for glue.
DanLights
Santa Hat Forever
I'm no Andy Laroque, not even close, but I think all these points are perfectly valid and always helpful in my experience.
smy1
Member
Maybe you are simply cutting too many frequencies from the instruments? Bus compression/clipping/limiting can also be your friend.
Christian WUFU
Member
I have the same issue at times. Post a clip so we can actually hear what may be causing causing the problem, rather than throwing hypothetical solutions at you
crillemannen
Member
I usually pan pretty wide. OH 100 L/R, Rythm guitars 100 L/R. Its more about how you mix, use proper saturation tools, mixbus compression, eq and compression in general etc. It takes time to learn this trade. There is probably a ton of information out there. Check out Ermin's Mix guide for example.
KillFrenzy
Member
- Nov 21, 2007
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I think it's normal to feel the mix a bit incoherent. Remember you are comparing your mixed only project to finished works - it means they've been mastered.
Other than that, without hearing your mix, the other guys have it pretty much covered. Maybe you are hi-passing your guitars (and other instruments) too high, maybe cutting too much mid-lows of your bass.
Just yesterday I was mastering a project of mine and applied a bit of stereo widening. It completely ruined the mix cohesion setting the rhythm guitar apart from the rest of the instruments. It was just a "detail" that made my mix fall apart!
Other than that, without hearing your mix, the other guys have it pretty much covered. Maybe you are hi-passing your guitars (and other instruments) too high, maybe cutting too much mid-lows of your bass.
Just yesterday I was mastering a project of mine and applied a bit of stereo widening. It completely ruined the mix cohesion setting the rhythm guitar apart from the rest of the instruments. It was just a "detail" that made my mix fall apart!
Yes maybe try to apply some mastering to see if it helps, it is what I tend to do when I think my mix is 80-90% over it helps me to glue everything and make some adjustments
ashgallows
resonant manipulator
are you mixing into a limiter? you may find that slapping one on the master bus and bring the threshold down a bit will make the elements kind of spread out a bit. I mix this way so I wont have any surprises when it's mastering time. it may also be that you are cutting too many frequencies or simply cutting the right frequencies too much. If that's not it, I would recommend bring the guitars and or the bass up in the mix, they tend to want to fill in everything.
