[timaeus222]

Originally Posted by Etherealurtz

Oh, here's something I was working on for everybody's reference:
An Instrumental Rock Track.

http://www.mediafire.com/?783t20xdaadeid8 - The original track. Everything just slapped together. No volume, panning, EQ or whatever.

http://www.mediafire.com/?0eutr4w41q0ptas - The modified track. Here are some of the modifications. The rhythms are untouched.

Bass:


Drums:

I took a listen to it too. Ironically I also use Shreddage and Evolution Strawberry. Here are the things I'm noticing:

The bass is creating some compression, most likely. From the image I'm looking at, the frequencies around 90-150Hz are overloaded with Scarbee. I also never use Soundgoodizer... ever. That usually just boosts the instrument WAY too much, and I prefer just using ParamEQ2 combined with volume sliders and all the conventional stuff. You might want to try using the mouse wheel more often; try rolling it while your cursor is in the ParamEQ2 window, but not touching any band tokens. You'll shift the entire EQ up and down. If you roll it while hovering over a band token, it changes the bandwidth. Personally, I EQ things out so only the necessary frequencies to make it sound full in the context of the mix are left in. Then I just shift the EQ up and down if I have no other choice to change the gain. It's a good idea to EQ out anything below 40Hz, according to various ocr users. I just put a high pass at Steep 8 to cut off everything below about 45Hz or something. Then, I'd scoop frequencies at around the 60-100Hz range just a little bit to leave room for the strongest frequencies in the kick. Try this:
- High pass at Steep 8 above 40Hz.
- Put Token 1 at about +6dB (look at the right edge of the EQ window).
- Put Token 2 at about +7dB, and about 110Hz.
- Decrease the bandwidth of Token 2 until you get a slight scoop between Token 1 and 2.
- Then just do an incline like you had in the bass picture before, but make it less steep; similar to an e^(-x) graph.
- Oh, and take out Soundgoodizer. Turn up the volume within Kontakt, or something that doesn't boost unnecessarily. :D

On the drums, definitely remove Soundgoodizer before doing anything. Also, remove any internal effects on the drums, because I find it best to start out with dry samples, so you can mix the reverb and stuff any way you want. This is how I usually EQ my drums, assuming you'll keep all the instruments on one mixer track (which I usually have to do on FPC for a video game soundtrack I'm working on with the project leader):
- Token 1 should be high passed at about 40Hz at Steep 8, lying at around -2dB.
- Token 2 should be at about 90Hz, +7dB, with as low band width as possible. Hover your mouse over Token 2, and roll the mouse wheel down as much as you can, then roll it up maybe twice.
- Token 3 should be at about 200Hz, +5dB, with the band width at about 2 mouse wheel rolls down.
- Token 4 should just be scooped down to about -9dB, really, and at about 800Hz, from my estimate (I'm not actually at home, I'm just trying to use your Bass picture to create an EQ in my head).
- Token 5 should be at about 3200Hz, +4dB, more or less, and about 1 mouse wheel roll down.
- Token 6 and 7 should be at about +7dB. Token 6 should be at about 5000Hz, and Token 7 should be at about 14000Hz.

I drew something up in Photoshop, so this might be easier on you:
http://i49.tinypic.com/25h1xet.png
Haha, kinda crappy, but you get the idea.

Until you fix these things, it's hard to hear what else is going on. This is roughly how the track should sound, in terms of EQ and balance. It's a recent version of a remix I made, but it'll do. It's decently realistic too. It's kind of like the type of sound you have now.
https://www.box.com/s/f624fec5d76eff707cee

[Etherealurtz]

Originally Posted by timaeus222

I took a listen to it too. Ironically I also use Shreddage and Evolution Strawberry. Here are the things I'm noticing:

The bass is creating some compression, most likely. From the image I'm looking at, the frequencies around 90-150Hz are overloaded with Scarbee. I also never use Soundgoodizer... ever. That usually just boosts the instrument WAY too much, and I prefer just using ParamEQ2 combined with volume sliders and all the conventional stuff. You might want to try using the mouse wheel more often; try rolling it while your cursor is in the ParamEQ2 window, but not touching any band tokens. You'll shift the entire EQ up and down. If you roll it while hovering over a band token, it changes the bandwidth. Personally, I EQ things out so only the necessary frequencies to make it sound full in the context of the mix are left in. Then I just shift the EQ up and down if I have no other choice to change the gain. It's a good idea to EQ out anything below 40Hz, according to various ocr users. I just put a high pass at Steep 8 to cut off everything below about 45Hz or something. Then, I'd scoop frequencies at around the 60-100Hz range just a little bit to leave room for the strongest frequencies in the kick. Try this:
- High pass at Steep 8 above 40Hz.
- Put Token 1 at about +6dB (look at the right edge of the EQ window).
- Put Token 2 at about +7dB, and about 110Hz.
- Decrease the bandwidth of Token 2 until you get a slight scoop between Token 1 and 2.
- Then just do an incline like you had in the bass picture before, but make it less steep; similar to an e^(-x) graph.
- Oh, and take out Soundgoodizer. Turn up the volume within Kontakt, or something that doesn't boost unnecessarily. :D

On the drums, definitely remove Soundgoodizer before doing anything. Also, remove any internal effects on the drums, because I find it best to start out with dry samples, so you can mix the reverb and stuff any way you want. This is how I usually EQ my drums, assuming you'll keep all the instruments on one mixer track (which I usually have to do on FPC for a video game soundtrack I'm working on with the project leader):
- Token 1 should be high passed at about 40Hz at Steep 8, lying at around -2dB.
- Token 2 should be at about 90Hz, +7dB, with as low band width as possible. Hover your mouse over Token 2, and roll the mouse wheel down as much as you can, then roll it up maybe twice.
- Token 3 should be at about 200Hz, +5dB, with the band width at about 2 mouse wheel rolls down.
- Token 4 should just be scooped down to about -9dB, really, and at about 800Hz, from my estimate (I'm not actually at home, I'm just trying to use your Bass picture to create an EQ in my head).
- Token 5 should be at about 3200Hz, +4dB, more or less, and about 1 mouse wheel roll down.
- Token 6 and 7 should be at about +7dB. Token 6 should be at about 5000Hz, and Token 7 should be at about 14000Hz.

I drew something up in Photoshop, so this might be easier on you:
http://i49.tinypic.com/25h1xet.png
Haha, kinda crappy, but you get the idea.

Until you fix these things, it's hard to hear what else is going on. This is roughly how the track should sound, in terms of EQ and balance. It's a recent version of a remix I made, but it'll do. It's decently realistic too. It's kind of like the type of sound you have now.
https://www.box.com/s/f624fec5d76eff707cee

Awesome in-depth analysis! Thanks! I will be taking SnappleMan's and your advice once I'm done with my exams and stuff to do this week. I'll upload the results of EQ editing for this same track.

Essential Information: I just noticed recently, while mixing, I leave my laptop's Dolby Advanced Audio v2 feature on. Its default setting is just a flat EQ, but Dolby enhances the sound by making it louder, I'm not sure if it's compression or not. If anybody's familiar with it, do you recommend leaving it be or turning it off completely when mixing, leaving only Windows 7's default audio settings on while making music in FL Studio?

[timaeus222]

Originally Posted by Etherealurtz

Awesome in-depth analysis! Thanks! I will be taking SnappleMan's and your advice once I'm done with my exams and stuff to do this week. I'll upload the results of EQ editing for this same track.

Essential Information: I just noticed recently, while mixing, I leave my laptop's Dolby Advanced Audio v2 feature on. Its default setting is just a flat EQ, but Dolby enhances the sound by making it louder, I'm not sure if it's compression or not. If anybody's familiar with it, do you recommend leaving it be or turning it off completely when mixing, leaving only Windows 7's default audio settings on while making music in FL Studio?

It's a good idea to make sure you're only hearing what's coming out of FL Studio, without anything else interfering with the output volume or anything like that.

[FaytxStay]

Originally Posted by Etherealurtz

Thanks for the tips so far, gonna work on mixing Addictive Drums properly.

Meanwhile, does anybody know how to make Shreddage more realistic? Shreddage, as far as I know, does not have keyswitches, so I can only rely on the modwheel and velocities as well as patches in achieving realism.

Shreddage works pretty good to me.