How to mix vocals successfully

hia03jsm · New Member Joined: 01 Mar 2007 Posts: 9

Have tried searching the forums for an answer but have not found one so...

Just mixing down a project of mine and the vocals are muddy.To be honest, the whole project is a little muddy sounding. Now, some of this is undoubtedly down to not having the best mic (AKG C1000) and sound system (Tascam US-122L) in the world. But the setup isn't that bad is it?

I am new to mixing, and so get a bit bewildered by the amount of options. I'm going for a "natural" sound, so basically, I have just been adding some reverb and compression. It still sort of plods along though.

It all needs sharpening up...if you know what that means? I can't think of a better way of explaining it. The mix is thick. What sort of processing do you guys apply to just touch up your mix, give it a "sparkle", just sort of raise it out of a dreary plod?

Hackenslash · Posted: Sat Sep 13, 2008 9:56 pm Post subject:

Are you playing it back on the same sound system? Your equipment isn't a factor in this, and it's most likely problems with your monitoring. If oyu have a room that exaggerates high frequencies you will overcompensate with low and low mids. This can lead ot muddiness. It could also be your monitors. It should also be noted that overcompressing can lead to this, as a lot of your transients are in the upper band, so reducing them can also lead to muddy mixes. Your mic and interface are fine, so it's doubtful that they are the cause, unless there is a fault with one or other of them. Also, what format are you exporting in? Low res MP3s are notorious for not sounding as clean as they should. Try exporting and importing bacvk into the same project, so that you can rule out something in the export process.
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kevbag · Guest

I use almost the same setup - C100 with a US-144. The C100 should give you pretty crystal clear vocals. You just need to bump up the midrange in the eq a bit - use your ears to find where works best for your mix. Make sure your input level is good, add a bit of reverb in the send and you should be set. I wouldn't even mess with compression at this point until you get a good base tone. (Not bass tone - foundation tone) Good luck.

hia03jsm · New Member Joined: 01 Mar 2007 Posts: 9

Guys, it was the EQ. Thanks for your pointers. After having just a little explore with altering EQs, it is making it all sound a bit more sharp.

I didn't even think about the EQ before *blushes with stupidity*

Off the back of that, just another question: if I want to just sharpen everything up, should I just push the mid's and highs a bit for every track? Or should I drop the bass out. Do you add or do you remove?

I have piano, guitar, vox, harmonica, violin. Can I apply a similar principle to all of the instruments or do they all need vastly different EQ patterns? I'm aiming for a quite "authentic" sounding mix so it's not like the piano has to boom or whatever.

wil72810 · Member Joined: 29 Jun 2007 Posts: 179 Location: Belgium

Every instrument has its own EQ requirements based on what you want with it. Apart from each individual EQ there is of course the EQ you will need to apply to all elements to "fit" them in the mix and balance the sounds of all components into one coherent image. There are some great books on these subjects or some searches on line you can do on these subjects.
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celtsound · Posted: Mon Sep 15, 2008 11:25 pm Post subject:

hia03jsm · New Member Joined: 01 Mar 2007 Posts: 9

Hackenslash · Posted: Tue Sep 16, 2008 3:44 pm Post subject:

Recommended reading:

The Mixing Engineer's Handbook, by Bobby Owsinski
Mastering Audio - The Art And The Science, by Bob Katz
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wil72810 · Member Joined: 29 Jun 2007 Posts: 179 Location: Belgium

+1 on those Hackenslash ... these were the books I wanted to recommend.
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hia03jsm · New Member Joined: 01 Mar 2007 Posts: 9

Thanks guys. Your suggestions are helping me to go in the right direction (although it's early days still!)

Have another newbie question - I want to gradually increase the volume of certain tracks towards the end of the song. How would you go about doing this? (i.e. like the piano on "hurt" by Johnny Cash - towards the end it increases in volume. I like the effect, just wondering how to do it!)

Peace Dog · Posted: Wed Sep 17, 2008 9:29 pm Post subject:

bfpower · New Member Joined: 17 Sep 2008 Posts: 3

TheRealRoach · Member Joined: 20 Aug 2008 Posts: 160 Location: Toronto

celtsound

hia03jsm · New Member Joined: 01 Mar 2007 Posts: 9

Thanks people for all your help. I do read the manual and other websites etc... but I find with these things a certain level of technical proficiency is assumed, and this is my first real project, so my knowledge is normally below that, resulting in lots of grey areas.

Had a quick one about headroom: how much headroom should you leave? Does it suffice to just make sure it doesn't clip on the master bus? I read somewhere that you should leave 3-4db of headroom: should you leave 3-4db of headroom per audio track, or just on the main master bus? (the article didn't say Sad

)

p.s. I won't be doing much (if any) mastering - due to a lack of equipment, money and time. So it isn't being passed on to anyone to master etc...

TheRealRoach · Member Joined: 20 Aug 2008 Posts: 160 Location: Toronto

When recording, I usually aim to record any sources so that they are consistently lighting up my -12dBFS meter (in other words, 12 dB below digital clipping (which occurs at 0db)). This leaves plenty of room in case the performer strikes a really loud note unexpectedly.

When I mix, my master bus is usually reading between -6dbFS and 0dbFS.

It's worth noting that a lot of digital interfaces (like my MOTU 896s for examples) actually don't clip until about +4 dbFS, or +6dbFS. A lot of hardware manufacturers calibrate their hardware so that the "clip" or 0dbFS LED ACTUALLY lights up at -4dbFS, so as to leave a little extra safety buffer.
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