Advice on EQing a track with MANY instruments: Vox, Piano, Guitar..
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Posted on Jun 08, 2009 05:36 am
wilymark
Member Since: Jun 07, 2009
Hey all, I'm currently working on a track that has many instruments and I'm finding it hard to feature each instrument without any masking.
Here is the list of what I have in the track, in order of importance of how prominent the part is:
Vox (2-6 tracks running here, with 3 part harmonies in the Chorus)
Drums (sounds big, think Britney Spears' Sometimes)
Keyboard Instruments
Guitar
Piano
Strings
Bell
Bass
---------------------------------------
A main problem I am encountering is that the strings come in to add extra interest to the song, but they come in late in the song. Without the strings, my mix is pretty okay and acceptable, but cuz of the notes or EQing or combination of the two, the strings sitting on top of everything already going on (vox, drums, guitar, piano, keyboard instruments, bell, bass) gets lost in the mix and makes the mix muddy sounding. thus far, i've just left the strings out cuz without them mixed properly, it just detracts from the song.
My voxs are thick enough even they all have HPF at around 190Hz
The drums are big sounding and have been EQed a lot so I can play them loud without my ears bleeding
The guitar (mixed brighter than the piano) currently masks the piano somewhat but this is totally ok since the piano's part doesn't need to be a featured instrument (it's only there to fill in the chords and space)
The bell is EQed so it takes up no low (this was an easy one)
The bass was also easy to EQ, i HPF at around 30Hz and LPF around.. i forgot. lol
I have panned each of the instruments, but so far, no instrument is panned too far from the center (I've been having panning issues with my stereo tracks... anything less than hard R and hard L leaves me with a 'thinner' sounding track)
Don't know if anyone has any suggestions on perhaps specific frequencies each should sit in or specific frequency ranges to try bumping on each instrument. Although I've been making recordings for over 10 years, I'm still quite the newb when it comes to mixing. Any advice on mixing would be helpful. thanks in advance :)
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Dematrixhttp://www.reverbnation.com/2ndgMember
Since: Nov 27, 2007
Jun 08, 2009 06:57 am you're gonna have to give us snipet to really be able to help much.
if the keys are masking everything then you'll need to pull out alot of bottom and mid freq to get it to sit above everything.
Or basicly try not to cross frequencies with anything else you have going on. there's plenty of options really. but the basic fundamentals are, seat everything in its own place in the mix.
that means no, or little competing frequencies.
anyway, apart from that rant on stuff you already know,
i do mixes that are full as well, and ive kinda come to the conclusion that you just cant hear everything all of the time, or not everyting can be the star of the show all the time.
that's where automation comes in.
fade stuff in louder when it needs to be heard, or for a different texture, whilst fading back something else, that can take a break for a bit.
for me its all about texturizing the song.
The snare can get lost in the mix alot with what im doing. so i keep my eye on it.
also on guitars, i might either back certain tracks of em off a bit vol wise in certain vocal spots, or maybe take off some attacking frequencies to make them sit back.
Then return to the full sound when the vox stop.
Mixes dont have to be one dimensional ya know?
hope this helps a little.
Jun 08, 2009 07:30 am hey deon, it occurred to me while i was at the gym today that it would help to automate things... i never learned how to automate plugins in PT though... guess i will learn to do so or simply just put the different treatment of the instrument on a diff track and run those tracks through the same bus with the other effects. lemme try out some stuff and then i'll put a clip of the stuff on here soon :)
cruxTypo SzarMember
Since: Jul 04, 2002
Jun 09, 2009 05:43 am If the problem is mainly ur strings, instead of eqing u could try a big dose of reverb to push them behind everything.
u probably thought of that but yeah
BeerHunterwww.TheLondonProject.caMember
Since: Feb 07, 2005
Jun 09, 2009 12:13 pm Yes, automation will help A LOT. You don't really want to hear everything at the same time.
Noize2uCzar of MidiAdministrator
Since: Apr 04, 2002
Jun 09, 2009 07:19 pm Indeed, I will third the automation idea. When I get into very heavy instrumentation parts it is all automation that makes it work and gives everything its own spotlight throughout the piece.
Quincysanhttp://www.unitedmusicians.infoContributor
Since: Nov 11, 2007
Jun 09, 2009 07:44 pm In Pro Tools, you can automate your levels on the fly.
In the edit window on take a look at the track you wish to automate. There should be a button that says "auto read". Use the dropdown menu to select "write" then use the popup window to select which parameters you want to automate. Playback the song and adjust the levels to taste. When you're done, set the "write" button to "read" and you should have your automation to listen to.
Hope that helps!
Jun 11, 2009 08:51 pm @quincysan,
that definitely helps!! i'm still learning how to do a lot of things, esp in the new pro tools 8, which i might add is really AWESOME, imho... i think the fact that they bundled it with the air instruments is really cool. for the first time, i'm actually using midi in pro tools just cuz they've made it easier now with 8. i will definitely need to learn to automate and do midi stuff and tempo changes and all that good stuff!!!! thanks for the help! :)
Jul 22, 2009 03:44 pm From what you say about the strings being muddy I would suggest scooping out some of the low mids and adding a little reverb to give the strings a bit more mix. But its hard to say with out hearing the mix.
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