8mm Forum: Audio mixing suggestions ....

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Posted by Osi Osgood (Member # 424) on January 18, 2013, 12:53 PM:

Hey folks ...

I hope we might have some professional audio technicians and mixing guru's (so to speak), ,as i need some advice ...

I am ready to do the final mix of my first two albums to be released in either late March or early April, (I have to get he music videos done too, so lots of work).

I have noticed that the really nice mixes that I have done on my PC where the mixing happens, sound great on the PC speakers (note, they are not the regular PC speakers, I have these great small professional speakers on the PC), but I get it on the main stereo system (8 large old school "Optimus" speakers, surrounding the living room), and some songs sound tinny, others are way to bottom heavy, ect. I already know to mix quiet as well, (not at a loud volume) ...

Now, I also have a Realistic old school two channel equalizer. I know enough to turn off the surround function and "extra bass" option on the Realistic, but how should I set the equalizer itself? Should all the knobs (levers) be dead wven all the way across or what?

I just want to make sure that the audience that will buy these albums will get the same great sound experience that I'll have.

Posted by Dino Everette (Member # 1378) on January 19, 2013, 02:37 AM:

Osi
forgive me for not answering your email, as I have been swamped at work, but the best advice I can give you as a musician who actually still makes a tiny amount of money from the CD's and work I have released, the best advice I can give you is to take your recordings and have them professionally mastered...It is the best investment you can make since they will make sure that it will sound good on people's varied equipment and they will even out the various recordings you have made. Otherwise you run the risk of it only sounding good on your equipment.

ps the pic is to show I am a legitimate musician (albeit a poor one), not just a garageband "weekend warrior"

Posted by Michael O'Regan (Member # 938) on January 19, 2013, 04:09 AM:

quote:
the best advice I can give you is to take your recordings and have them professionally mastered...It is the best investment you can make since they will make sure that it will sound good on people's varied equipment and they will even out the various recordings you have made. Otherwise you run the risk of it only sounding good on your equipment.

I totally agree. I found this out to my cost many years ago...

Posted by Osi Osgood (Member # 424) on January 20, 2013, 08:37 AM:

Well, yeah, that would be the best case scenario, but we just do not have that kind of cash (or credit) lying around. which is why I ask about a home mix.

I think the problems come up with the hard driving rockers. I like loud and that can easily be fu**ed up. Quiet songs, they're easy, not too much going on, but the loud ones, a problem.

... but professional studio mastering, much wanted. They can take these mixes (some of them with upwards of 40 tracks), and have the room to seperate each instrument with more "room' for each track to breathe which quite frankly, a PC mixing program, really doesn't have.

Posted by Michael O'Regan (Member # 938) on January 20, 2013, 01:18 PM:

It might not be as expensive as you think, Osi. Sell a film or two.
[Smile]

Posted by Rob Young. (Member # 131) on January 20, 2013, 02:06 PM:

Osi, these guys are right.

Posted by Michael O'Regan (Member # 938) on January 20, 2013, 02:09 PM:

If you put out below-par stuff it'll always be out there. It really is worth going the extra mile.

Posted by Claus Harding (Member # 702) on January 20, 2013, 02:41 PM:

Good advice. Let's not forget, though, that a mixing engineer actually does the "blend" and color, working with all the tracks.

He then sends the final mix to the mastering engineer, who, working from what we used to call the "2-track master" puts the ultimate shine and level tweaks, among other little tricks.

Just saying, that if your home mix is badly skewed and mixed together, even the best mastering engineer can't fix it. You'd need a multitrack engineer for starters who has the room, the tools and the ears so that the only variable in playback becomes your tracks, warts and all.

I think if you look around these days, you will find, due to the depression of the recording industry, that there are a lot of good people willing to make deals. Conceivably, you could get first-rate service at less than what you imagine.

All the best of luck with it, and let us know what happens [Smile]

Claus.

Posted by Bill Brandenstein (Member # 892) on January 21, 2013, 01:19 PM:

You've been given excellent advice here, Osi. That's my opinion based on my part-time interests in audio, as well as having met or met with mastering engineers occasionally over the years. A good mastering job isn't meant to fix deficiencies in the mix, but because of the monitoring circumstances you describe, the mix is almost certainly not to be "trusted." Yet.

What is a good mastering job? It involves stuff like making sure that track-to-track relationships are pleasing, making modest alterations to the frequency balances, bringing out details, and setting the overall loudness of the project. (The latter is a pet peeve of mine because it's almost always overly done.) The success of it means your music sounds acceptable in a wide variety of contexts, which is what you're saying you want.

The basic, no-cost next step is for you to go back and listen to your mixes on as many different speaker systems (old-school, new school, car, portable, ear buds) as possible, not just yours but any you can "borrow" for a few minutes. Tone controls should always be neutral, unless it's well established that EVERYTHING sounds better a certain way on a given pair of speakers. Then be looking for anything that bothers you the same way after multiple listens in multiple places, and tackle that.

Listen soft both before and after listening loudly. If your music is played at background level, can you still hear the most important parts?

quote:
...professional studio mastering, much wanted. They can take these mixes (some of them with upwards of 40 tracks), and have the room to seperate each instrument with more "room' for each track to breathe which quite frankly, a PC mixing program, really doesn't have.

Osi, the conclusion of what you're describing here (a multitrack mix, not mastering) is simply not true. If you're finding it true for you, then different software or hardware would be advisable. But pretty much all pro mixing these days is done in software, nearly all of it on PCs and Macs. It can be super.

Posted by Bill Phelps (Member # 1431) on January 21, 2013, 01:43 PM:

Just to repeat something Bill touched on.....I have recorded music over the years and I do my own mixing and I always play it back in different places...the car, boom box, junk stereo, good stereo, headphones etc. to make sure it sounds acceptable on different systems. The overall mastering by a professional is good advice. It will give you overall good balance throughout your album. Some of my own recordings don't have this final step as I do everything myself. They do come close but they lack the pro polish...but my recordings for the most part are for my own amusement.

Bill [Smile]

Posted by Osi Osgood (Member # 424) on January 21, 2013, 06:49 PM:

Hey What's this comment about just being a "garage band" artist?

Some of the best tunes or licks have come out of those myriad of garages and are far better than the excellently mixed, technically brilliant recordings out there by the mainstream studios, in fact I hear a lot of technically brilliant music out there today that is absolute crap!

Still no advice on "home mastering"

Posted by Bill Brandenstein (Member # 892) on January 21, 2013, 11:45 PM:

Yes, very true that many brilliant recordings have been captured over the years under "humble" circumstances. Isn't film the same way? It's not always the quality of the tool that's important, but whose hands are holding it.

It just occurred to me that perhaps "Home mastering" hasn't been touched on because, to be completely blunt, it's something of an oxymoron. Still, if you go to the support page for Ozone and scroll down to the documents portion, there are mastering and dithering guides there that can give you a great idea of what needs to be done.

But I still think it needs to start with work on the mix. And one thing I forgot to mention earlier when I suggested that you listen in many places, is to acclimate yourself to new speakers listening to several minutes of a recording you love and know well - one that can serve as a model for what you wish yours to sound like.

Posted by Dino Everette (Member # 1378) on January 22, 2013, 12:24 AM:

Osi sorry if you got the wrong idea about my comment. I am not knocking garage bands...I said (garage band weekend warrior), meaning someone who plays music on the weekends but maybe has never released any product unto the world. You were asking advice on releasing your music to a buying public and I wanted you to know that my advice was coming from someone who actually has had to worry about selling units, rather than someone who has only done it for fun..So erase garage band from the scenario and insert whatever insinuates a musician who has never released a CD, album, etc..

Getting back to your advice I think Bill is giving you some excellent mixing advice, but i still say that if you want to take this seriously then you need to invest in your music and be willing to let someone else master it, otherwise it would be like someone writing, directing, photographing, editing, starring in, making the poster, printing the film stock, etc. for a movie..It may be technologically possible to do everything yourself at home, but only one in a million is going to be able to pull it off and have it stand alongside the other music that your audience will be buying...If this wasn't something that you were selling then I would say go for it! But because you want to sell the music I really think you have to invest some money into it...

Posted by Bill Brandenstein (Member # 892) on January 22, 2013, 11:40 AM:

And by the way, Dino (great comments there), congrats on BMI royalties. I can't imagine how many of us who professionally deal with music have never seen a check for royalties, even if it's only enough for a nice dinner out!

Posted by Osi Osgood (Member # 424) on January 22, 2013, 12:56 PM:

I knew you weren't knocking garage Dino!

This has been a very good couple of months for me. The Christmas album and single did OK, (considering I'm an unknown) and I even finished doing a soundtrack for an upcoming DVD in the UK. I think this is the year, so I'm working very hard to make the music sound great.

The ironic thing is, I used to go to studios 15 years ago to do my material and I swear that the music that i have crafted in my home studio is not only artistcally better, it is sonically better as well. Part of that comes from not being in a hurry to get the music done because I only have a studio booked for a day or two, (that was ALWAYS FRUSTRATING), where I can take, for instance, a week alone to do over 67 vocal takes on one song (yep, that's happened, I'm insanely picky!) completely free and un-fettered by time restraints.

My learning curve has been astounding over the last two years!

Posted by John Clancy (Member # 49) on January 23, 2013, 04:09 AM:

I have a myriad of different sound systems here and I can confirm that Osi's own mixing of his tracks sounds excellent on all of them. I am of the opinion his CDs actually sound better than almost any 'professional' CD I have ever purchased. Osi's CDs even sound very good through the cheapo stereo speakers on my editing PC so unless you have money to throw at your music Osi I'd say you're doing fine as you are.

I can't wait to hear the final mix of the Retro album because I think it's pretty terrific in the early mix form you sent me.

Anyone on this forum who hasn't heard anything Osi has done is in for a treat. He has written some classic tracks. A very talented guy and I wish him every success with this music adventure he is currently on.

Posted by Bill Brandenstein (Member # 892) on January 23, 2013, 12:28 PM:

quote:
...the music that i have crafted in my home studio is not only artistcally better, it is sonically better as well.

I completely believe that. Times change, skills improve, and some studio experiences weren't that valuable to begin with.

Posted by Osi Osgood (Member # 424) on January 23, 2013, 01:14 PM:

Well one of the things I have learned ...

The more silence you can remove from all your tracks, the better fidelity your songs will have. That's not as noticeable on the loud rockers, but definitely noticeable on the quiet songs.

I was just remastering "REFRAIN" (from the "RETRO" album you mentioned John, a whole new version of the song, you'll love it when you hear it!), and I first listened to it untouched ...

... then, I went through and took out every little bit of dead silence on the tracks as, it really isn't silence. You don't nortice the "silence" on perhaps one track, but you get 20 tracks (this song has upwards of 30), and there is an identifiable "hiss" in the background. I eliminated all of that, made a Mp3 file of it, and played back the song over the 8 speaker sound system. It was quite startling just how much sharper the piano notes were, as well as the vocals and needless to say, I was well pleased.

It's not the first time I have been recording though. Back 15 to 20 years ago, I used to record at a place called "Tin Roof Records", owned by a friend of mine, complete with the "padded rooms" (good to bounce off the walls and record in!) and I watched the mixing and got involved in much of it, so I'm not entering into mixing and mastering without any background.

I do have a plan, however.

Lets say (fingers crossed) that after people have watched the videos and went to my site and downloaded the albums, word gets around and I can entice a record label who wants to "get in on the money" and offers me a contract, THEN I will have the option of going back over these albums professionally and kaing them even more beautiful as, many of these orchestral rock numbers have upwards of 30 or more tracks, and I'm sure that to have a seperate channel for each and every violin, cello, horn sections ect., would make them have an out of this world feel.

Anyway, that's my fantasy ...

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