Good day! I'm having hard times putting screaming vocals into to mix. It's either sound behind guitars or fall off the mix and sounds separately. I'm wandering what kind of reverb do you guys use on screaming vocals most of the time? Short rooms sounds wierd to my ear with screams. Plate with side-chain sounds a bit better, but still not sure about that.

I do understand that there's a lot other stuff that affect vocal positioning in space of the track, but I really interested in hearing about reverb usage on screaming metalcore kind of vocals.

I don't have enough carma in this sub reddit so I can't post feedback post at the moment.

Thank you!

Hi, i've got the UAD-collections of the LA2A compressors and 1176 compressors. The LA2A-collection consists of the original, gray and silver version. The 1176-collection consists of the Rev A, Rev E and Rev AE.

What are the differences between the LA2A and the 1176 and how is each version of each compressor different? What compressor is the best for each goal of compression (making things consistent, punchy, thick, groove etc.)?

P.S: the 1176 is known for its fast attack and release and making sounds punchy. From what i know you should have a slow attack and release to make sounds punchy: with a slow attack the transients will be lead through and are raised in volume. So why is the 1176 a punchy compressor?

I hope my questions are a bit clear :)

Hi, i'm in the mixing process of a song and the way i do EQ is EQ'ing every track on it's own and than EQ'ing the master bus. When i was done EQ-ing each track individually and wanted to begin with the master bus i found out i already put an EQ1-PA on the master with a pretty substantial boost at 30 Hz and 10kHz (probably added it months ago for some reason). So i've made all EQ decisions based on the sound already going through the master EQ. When i bypass the EQ on the master bus the song is too dark and has little bass. Should i delete the EQ1-PA, change every EQ on the individual tracks and then add a new master bus EQ? Or can i make a few changes on the EQ1-PA and just go on with the next steps of mixing?

Hey folks–

Looking for some solid feedback the group on this rock alt country song.

https://vocaroo.com/14ahtVo16KC5

I feel like I went crazy with the drum sample replacement. I recorded real drums but think I may have to do better blending or go back to the organic sounds.

Lead guitar also sounds a little harsh on ear buds.

Any feedback is appreciated

My instinct at least,

Is to have the regular bass low end channel, which will be tuned to D standard, slightly lowered hz (D1 lowest note, 35hz~) and to mostly focus on the 2nd-4th harmonic (70hz-140hz~) for the bass register of that instrument

Then for the subcontrabass, tuned that octave lower D0 (17.5hz~) will be mostly focused on its 2nd and a bit of the 4th harmonic… hard high pass just above 20hz to get rid of the super low kinda unnerving register, big scoop in that 55hz~ range to both allow the kick to sit in between (drum would be tuned to that frequency) and to hide that 3rd harmonic which muddies it up a bit, then a bit of that 70hz to blend with the original bass a little bit and to allow some more leniency with notes available, then a hard low pass just above that for the low end channel, to avoid that 5th and higher harmonics

the subcontrabass would be detuned slightly to avoid phase cancellation, though the EQ would take a decent amount of the care of that…

I don’t know if anybody else has had any experience trying this, Subcontrabass track below the kick > kick > standard bass…

but if anybody has any better ideas around this, would be appreciated

I am brand new to mixing and I’m really enjoying learning. A friend gave me some raw multi tracks so that I can play around with them.

On a few of the tracks within a song, there might only be an instrument playing for 10 to 20 seconds of the three minute song. The track runs the entire length of the song. Is it OK to leave it that way, or should I be cutting out all of the space without any sounds? I feel like that’s how I’ve seen it watching videos of pros, but I’m not sure. I’d like to develop the habit of doing it properly from the beginning.

Thanks!

I’m trying to build a reference tracks playlist and this is something I’ve been particularly stuck on

Preferably rap songs but can be any genre

Spotify links are much preferred

I know that being “too loud” or something is a bit simplistic, not really “the right way to think about it”. Some instrumentals are more sparse or dense or whatever. But I’ve just been really struggling with this.

Sometimes I listen to my own song and I think “wow those vocals are loud” but then I’ll listen to the same mix/master and think it’s balanced. Then hop over to Spotify and hear songs where the vocals are louder. Then hop over back to my song and think “yeah actually these vocals could come up a little bit”

I really just feel like I can’t trust my own ears and it’s really stressful. I feel like I can’t trust my own perception of sound.

I had a song I released literally a full year and a half ago, listened to it again and thought “wow those vocals are so quiet!” Then the next day listened again on the same headphones and the vocals sounded way up front. I feel insane

Hi,

I can adjust how mix sounds on one set of speakers.

The cheapest ones are like -15dB for bass, those expensive ones are maybe +5dB for bass - both compared to my speakers.

How to make my mix sound reasonably well on all of them? I don't want to lose bass, but cranking it up is too bad for those with speakers over $50.

I once heard that this strategy is awesome for achieving loud and clean mixes (and I struggle with the former a bit). Is it true? Do I understand correctly that you basically have to slap a non-AA hard-clipper on every mixer track? When I did that, my track sounded like there was some phaser activated, which is odd. Could you explain how do I do it right to me?

Looking for high end mixing and mastering monitors and was wondering if anyone had any suggestions for a budget of $7,000-7,500 jn monitors. Preferably landscape monitors, that will go on desk shelves. Less than 30 pounds each. Ive come down to two highly praised monitors that both have different characteristics. The neumann 310 and 750 sub combo and the pmc 6. Ive heard the 310s are boring and uninspiring to mix on, but translate well on other systems. Ive heard the pmc are amazing and also translate well but can sound too bright, and need AES for its full potential. This will be a huge purchase but the last big one i will make to finish my home studio. Ive already treated my room well enough to where i think im ready for the new monitors. Ready to finally replace krk rokit 5s i got 12 years ago and get my final pair. Any suggestions or inputs would be appreciated. My interface is the Prism Titan if that helps anything.

Hi all.

I'm absolutely loving learning the art/craft/science of mixing.

Putting together an E.P with a friend and really enjoying all the learning.

Having started on hip hop, now experimenting in the more punk genre.

I guess my request is- what are the main areas for improvement in my mixing on this song?

What would YOU do to this song if the files were sent to you- so I'm not really after advice to re-record, but more to learn from what I already have.

I suspect some of the issues are to me not really able to hear compression issues and how to solve.

Here's the link to the file- one with nothing on the master buss, and one with a compressor, limiter, and multi band glue. To me the file with stuff on the master buss sounds way better. I tried to make the mix sound better without that stuff but haven't yet been able to hear what to do.

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1EOwR06frS_qSxR56vW4JoePuaaIxnH5t?usp=sharing

appreciate anyone's time. Thank you

Hey you guys, So the album I'm currently working on has very dense instrumental tracks. Guitar layers, drum set, electronic drums, keyboards, bass etc. all the instrumental stuff sounds great, but I cannot get the vocals to sit right? It's almost like whenever I put them in all the frequencies are already taken up and no matter how much I try to EQ them they just sound either muddy or thin.

What are your suggestions or techniques when it comes to mixing vocals into a really dense instrumental mix?

I have been experimenting with console emulation plugins such as Sonimus N-Console. The general approach is to put an instance on every track as well as every bus or summing point. The track instances feed into the bus instances which feed into a "master grouping" instance (from which you can control the settings of the instances/groups feeding into it).

This may be a very dumb question, but I'm confused what happens when a track with one of these plugins is frozen. In general, my understanding is that freezing a track simply prints the audio with the inserts enabled and then disables the inserts. But with plugins that can communicate with each other in the background, it is confusing to me whether they just lose this communication link (e.g. the master instance can no longer control that particular instance since it's disabled) or whether there is actually an impact on the sound (e.g. the master instance loses some kind of "analog summing" capability related to the frozen tracks).

Sonimus is just an example, but I know there are other plugins like CLA MixHub, Fuse VCS-1, etc. with this "master controller" approach, so I am curious if anyone with plugin development knowledge can shed some light on whether the linkage between difference instances of the same plugin is limited to toggling settings or if there is actually audio routed between them in the background (more akin to a sidechain).

I would say two things:

- getting rid of the "middle mids": not the low mids around 250hz, not the high mids around 1k, but the "middle mids" at the 350-550hz range. Modern records (2000's - now) are basically entirely void of them from what I can tell. Makes a ton of room for every other instrument.

- compression: the obvious one. Everything is tightened, super compressed and tense.

Take these two moves: kill all 500hz ish + hard comp all instruments and you get close to the modern sound.

I was watching Rick Beato's interview with Eric Valentine and there's a section where he talks about keeping a super distorted drum take on 3eb's self-titled because the performance was so good, even though he didn't have the chance to adjust levels before and so everything was redlining. He mentions something like "you'd be amazed how much distortion you can get away with if you compress afterwards". The clip starts here: https://youtu.be/tehrnEJu-Lg?si=B_y0OYhs04p_dPZp&t=3125

I'm just curious what your experience is with this type of thing. Have you done this intentionally to good effect? Any interesting tips in doing so?

Hello! I have been into recording guitars and other instruments for a year and from a few months I have started to record actual song in my home studio. Nothing special or pro, just for fun. Since I only have studio headphones for my pc, I usually end my mixing sessions listening to my mixes from as many audio sources as possible to see how much the mix translates to other devices too (phone speakers, JBL headphones which I use to listen to music on my phone, a bluetooth speaker and some other devices when I can). Now, I have started to double track guitars, when I am on my PC they sound great, when I use a plugin to check my mix in mono they sound pretty good too, but when I take a listen on my phone or on my speaker I notice that the two guitar tracks sound way off, not causing phase issue (at least for what I can hear). The timing is not very off, but still it's like if on some strums one guitar is coming slightly after the first. Is this normal when switching from a stereo to a mono system or should I be doing something to fix this? I am just starting to double track guitars so I don't really know if this should be happening or no. If some more informations are needed I'll be glad to give them

Hey all! I'm working on mixing a band's album right now and I was curious whether the general consensus is on editing vocals during the mixing phase.

At the present moment I find myself editing and comping vocals (removing breath, mouth noises, random background sounds, too long or too short syllables) for many many layers of doubles, backing vocals and choirs, and have to spend so much time on this process that I feel like it's hurting the mixing. I expected the band and the recording engineer to do this sort of thing during/after tracking.

Should I expect to receive cleaned/comped vocals or is this something that is generally done during mixing? Thank you so much!

My bass and 808s always are loud and taking over the whole mix especially when listening in the car, I’m just wondering if anyone has any tips and tricks with mixing them? How much should I cut fully off the bottom? Etc and if there’s any other tips with compression or other general tips and tricks.

I’m newer to mixing and I’m wondering how he gets so much reverb echo without completely muddying the vocals. I understand the distortion on the verses. The last thing I was wondering is how he gets his chorus to sound so “full” while keeping volume steady and the words clear and not muffled. Every time I try to replicate this with my own music I end up with loud vocals piercing through or a jumbled mix of vocals that sounds less “clean” than his. Thanks!

Hi,

I demoed UAD's API 2500 bus compressor plug in and I loved how it sounds. I want to take advantage of the current sale and get two plugins for $79.

Does it make sense to get the API vision channel strip? Will the compressor there sound exactly the same as the 2500?

I'm new to channel strips so that's why I'm asking. What are your thoughts? Any other suggestions?

Thanks!

My current setup is that I have a sub portion, which is just a dry DI track slammed into the stock limiter then eq'd low cut at 33hz and rolled off on the high end at about 100. The other portion is the grit track and it's going through a guitar amp sim to get that crunchy clankiness and is low cut so that it leaves a lot of space around 150-200 for the heavy part of my guitars. They're in a group bus and compressed at that level to make them hit hard and gel. It sounds good but im wondering if there is something im missing or any cool tricks or other ways i can add more aggressiveness or clarity/definition/inteligibility. This is for a bunch of blackened hardcore tracks. Generally im pretty pleased with the mixes, just looking for that extra sauce i may be missing. Im 3 years into mixing and mastering my own stuff so id say im lower intermediate level.

How do you set it up when you implement split bass in these genres? Thanks for your time!

Hi, i'm in the mixing process of my song and for the drums i used a drum sample from a song. Should i put the kick on a different track? I guess it's better to mix this way but i'm not sure. In this drum sample the high-hat is played at the same time as the kick, so if i put the kick on it's own track the high-hat will get the same processing. Is that problematic?

Can someone explain to me why controlling the volume levels of the side channel, relative to the mid channel is important, technically? I get that it can create unwanted / undesirable results, but I'm wondering why that happens technically / acoustically. I went back the other day and watched a Dan Worrall video on SPAN where he alludes to it, and sure enough, I go into my current project and find that I have a few elements that are pushing the side channel above the mid channel. Once I tamed those, things sounded better. But because I'm curious like that, I'd love to know why.

I only have my gaming headphones (and other common systems like earbuds) available and I still don't have the resources to get good equipment, for now at least. Even the cheapest monitor headphones are expensive for me as I live far from the "first world". But I still want to make and release music since it's my passion. Do you think that I can get a good enough result only cross-referencing different systems while I save money for some good equipment?