delano kerr
New member
soo im wondering how this final mix sounds from someone thats an experienced mixer or master.
HELP. my final mix
- Thread starter delano kerr
- Start date
WoodOnTheBeat
New member
Not sure if I meet your requirements of being experienced but I think it sounds good!
Hi delano! There are some nice frequencies in there, but they are totally drowning in various types of noise. If you would throw a frequency phase correlation meter on this and compare that to some high end commercial mix, you will notice a huge difference. In short, there are obvious phase issues present. So that is one thing you can correct to make a dramatic improvement in the sound. Check reverb and stereo fx applications, in what order you applied them etc. Another thing is that there is quite a lot of noise in the signal. Some of this noise you might be able to filter and gate out, but it also seems like the synth has something on it that causes noise on it. Maybe there is some clipping noise there as well, use a limiter with true peak detection to remove that. So in order to take this to the next level you definitely need to remove of all of the noise sources. I think you should look through your use of effects and use more hardware, you are using plugins, right? When you deal with noise, it helps to have headphones with a big frequency spectrum, I use cans that deliver 50 kHz for being able to properly hear that noise. Very important...
Last edited:
delano kerr
New member
Thanks man!! I use fl studio 11. I think the phase issue might be a plugin I put in the master track. It's called stero enhancer but the thing is I put 2 of them on and pan one with pre to the right and one with post to left with 20.2 ms offset on both right and left sides. On my headphones its sounds nice but for the bigger guy u might hear differently. And by noise do u mean like a white noise presence.
Yes, that's the cause of it, remove it immediately. When it comes to the use of the stereo image, it's mostly in how the production is done, because you can have a production where all sound sources are played in the same octaves, using similar sounding instruments, playing the same chords in the same rhythm. The pan knobs might do little in those cases and you'll get issues with the dynamic range too. On the other hand you might have a production where you have many different sounding instruments, playing in various octaves, with separate rhythm patterns. That makes it possible to pan these effectively, some you can even pan fairly hard to one side. Pay attention to how sound sources with quite a lot of low end frequencies are panned, since you have the bass guitar, snare, kick and vocals in the center you need enough space in the center for the low frequencies, else you'll end up with a muddy mix. Stereo enhancers are often degrading the sound, but it depends on what they are and how they are applied. What you can do is to mute the vocals, the drums and the bass guitar, so that you have the music/harmony sounds in solo, then stereo enhance those a little, isolated from the other sound sources when you do so. You can use a frequency phase correlation meter as guidance and also of course a good monitoring process. But keep in mind that great stereo images are usually great because of the presence of great harmonic sweet spots, which has to do with the quality of the production and recording, and then the monitoring process focuses in on those sweet spots, causing a very balanced sounding stereo image - due to great panning. It takes some time to develop an understanding of which sound sources can be panned hard to one side, which ones be panned more narrow and which ones should be panned wider. In this regard there is one rule that rules them all, and that's not to have the drums panned more narrowly than a lot of other sound sources in the mix. In my experience the drums seem to fit quite well at around 50%L and 50%R, that makes them not hit hard on the sides, but with more narrowly panned sound sources in the mix you'll still be able to create lots of size and then you also have more room for rhythm elements on the sides.
In terms of noise, yes it is various types of noise, I hear it on the synth but I think there is white noise there as well, so it's a combination of various noise sources. This makes it difficult to perceive the reverb tails, so it eats on the ambience a lot.
I hope you find it, check out the synth, sounded noisy, I wonder if it clips somewhere or if it is just some noise coming from the plugin algorithms. If it is in the sound you should mute it, because it really eats on the mix as a whole. You can use filters and the mute buttons to find out where the noise is coming from, it's a fairly high frequency type of noise. I think this then also blends with some white noise, so all in all it makes it a bit difficult to perceive the ambience. I am sure that is due to the phase issues as well, I think you will find it...
Keep up the good work man!
delano kerr
New member
i used and imager to see the stereo field of my song and compared it to another. im wondering how can i make it more controlled like the more professional songs.
Pro songs are routed that way, that is what is creating the stereo depth. But not through phase creating software busses, through real hardware busses. That's the difference. You need to remove all of that phase you have present in your setup. That's it. You don't have to add any imager plugins, all you need is to get accurate phase. That's it. Then you start to hear the reverb tails that I bet you are not hearing right now. Then when you have that you use the monitoring process in conjunction with mixing techniques to make the right panning moves. When you do all of this as a mixing engineer, you need to also do it from the perspective of the producer and recording engineer. You have to understand how the production impacts on this and how your moves impacts on the production. So treat it holistically with the right setup.
Look, engineers out there freak out about this, even the very high end pros. This is stuff that can be quite tricky to deal with, because this is also achieved through the right monitoring solution and process and pros move around etc and need to start all over. You simply must hear the reverb tails and for that to be possible you need to remove the phase and use the right monitoring solution and process.
There is one very very fundamental condition that must be fulfilled to make a mix go to the top. It cannot have phase. It must be incredibly phase accurate. Because that is the difference between a big, clear and good sounding mix, and a small, muddy and bad sounding mix. That is why pros find a clock like the Antelope 10M to be a bargain, it brings their mixes to the top... That combo of having hardware busses and a 10M clock, it just does what nothing else can do.
Here is an example for ya: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dIcuU58Oy8
Then listen to the real final version of it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOa07NIkW7U
These are two totally different sounding productions. They are based on the same content, but it's the awesome mastering of it that truly nails it thanks to the hardware used in conjunction with the mastering process...
Last edited:
SomOne
New member
1st, Im no pro. Bu I agree with aforementioned statement. It will likely make you much more satisfies with your mix.
As a general rule of thumb, I keep the master buss free and clear of plug-ins (generally speaking)
An Aux send typically works quite a bit better for me.
Some things I would change, strictly as a matter of opinion. Again Im no pro.
The reverb pre-delays sound out of time with the tempo.
The Ad-Libs/ Backup vox on the first verse. I would turn the reverb down, maybe roll off some LF.
The first verse sounds a bit nasaly, maybe an EQ cut somewhere between 1-1.5k. Sounds quite compressed, but im not sure. Maybe decrease the compression to give it some dynamic range? Maybe a touch of shelf at the 7-8k range to brighten it up. I would probably play with sidechaining a 1/4 note delay as well.
Both Verses are pretty sibilant, I would throw de-esser on them, before most every other effect in the chain. Certainly before the compressor and reverb.
The second verse, I would lower the backing vocal, and roll off some of the bottom end on it. That would provide a little more emphasis on the body of the primary vox, and (in my opinion) make it a bit more comprehensible.
Good Job on the track man. These are just things that I would change, Im not at all saying that they are "correct" or concrete foundations of mixing (if such a thing exists)
I found your input to be helpful, I think it will help OP...
Also want to add that in OP's case since he is struggling with phase that issue might be amplified by lack of system capacity in his DAW, in those cases it pays off to EQ on the bigger scopes to keep the phase at a minimum, especially when EQing the high end. It can also help to split the high end bus in two, so that all recorded sound sources with a great high end go into the high fidelity high frequency bus and all those that are of less quality go to a low fidelity high frequency bus. You can do so with the mids and lows too, in order balance off that quality against other qualities, across the whole frequency range. But it sounds good only in a low latency system and it sounds the best on hardware busses. But this balancing in conjunction with a great monitoring process can really improve the sound of the mix a lot.
But the thing is this. Even the gain process ITB can damage the high frequencies. So even when you take the high fidelity high frequency bus and leave it totally unimpacted by any processes after it (not even dither it), you still have the gain and all the phase that sooner or later is going to mess with it. What you can do, if you have a low latency DAW, is to split the high frequencies of each sound source to separate busses and then leave the high fidelity high frequency bus at unity gain and then build the mix and master around those. Then you are relying on the production and recording to do the heavy job, but the thing is, you should anyway... So, if you don't have hardware busses, then this might be the best route for you as long as you know the amount of phase you've got in your system and know that phase is kept under control. But if you are not aware of that, then it might not work. Because if you have a phase issue in your setup, that will override everything else in terms of what you'll be able to achieve...
Last edited: