My stuff sounds muddy

[Bowlerhat]

Hey peeps,

I barely know anything about mixing, so this might be a bit of an easy question, but I truly do not know what to do about it, so I'll just drop it here anyway. I like to record different instruments and put them all together. But whenever there are more than 2 instruments everything gets mudded and it just sounds unclear. When I pull things away from each other by stereolizing it to the left or the right it sounds better, but I can't imagine that being the right solution. Does someone here know how such things work?

[Skrypnyk]

Muddy sounds are caused when too many instruments are taking up the same frequency.  Think of it like you have an empty cup, but you're overflowing it with too much liquids.  Panning the instruments are like having 2 empty cups and splitting the liquid between them, but again the cups can only hold so much.

Attenuating the frequencies on instruments that don't need them as prominent as the instruments that do will help clean the overall sounds of your projects.  In some cases a low shelf filter is good enough, in other a high pass filter does a better job.

[timaeus222]

Can you provide an example?

Essentially, muddy sounds generally arise from too much frequency clash in the low-midrange (100~500 Hz or so), so you should check the amount of low-mids each instrument has and consider which ones actually need those frequencies. Or, alternatively, check the octaves that each instrument is occupying.

When you "record", are you saying with a microphone, or through MIDI, or? Generally you could work towards fixing muddiness in multiple ways:

• Playing in different octaves
• Cutting the low end out of certain instruments that don't need bass frequencies (e.g. high pass or low shelf could work); sometimes you may have bassy ambient noise that you don't need.
• Raising the low cut frequency of any reverb you apply to the instruments until you start hearing a difference, and then find that borderline between where you stop hearing a difference and start hearing a difference.

[Slimy]

10 minutes ago, timaeus222 said:

Can you provide an example?

 

And another thing - do your chords need to be as thick as they are? Can you change some of the notes in the chords to different octaves, putting less sound in a particular frequency? Or perhaps you could lower the velocity of certain, less important notes in the chord.

10 minutes ago, timaeus222 said:

Raising the low cut frequency of any reverb you apply to the instruments until you start hearing a difference, and then find that borderline between where you stop hearing a difference and start hearing a difference.

Too much reverb in general can cause muddiness, it's not limited to the lower frequencies, (though that's what the word "muddy" is usually associated with.) For example the reverb of a particular chord could linger and clash with the next one.

[Nabeel Ansari]

This is really a compositional problem, not a mixing problem. You need to voice your ensemble in such a way that every instrument has a place that doesn't overlap with any other instrument. Don't cross voices, and don't write dense lines below C3 (C an octave below middle C).

[Bowlerhat]

Wow, thanks for the quick feedback.

To specify some things:

 

18 minutes ago, timaeus222 said:

When you "record", are you saying with a microphone, or through MIDI, or? Generally you could work towards fixing muddiness in multiple ways

I meant recording with a microphone.

15 minutes ago, Slimy said:

And another thing - do your chords need to be as thick as they are? Can you change some of the notes in the chords to different octaves, putting less sound in a particular frequency? Or perhaps you could lower the velocity of certain, less important notes in the chord.

When writing the arrangement I did think of frequencies and stuff like that, and I all the things I recorded are in different registers, with only bass notes at the lower frequencies, chord notes at the mid frequencies and melodies at the higher frequencies. 

 

18 minutes ago, Slimy said:

Too much reverb in general can cause muddiness, it's not limited to the lower frequencies, (though that's what the word "muddy" is usually associated with.) For example the reverb of a particular chord could linger and clash with the next one.

That is something I totally forgot, and could be happening, but I don't hear any clashing in my mix, so I think it's more of a mixing thing. 

 

14 minutes ago, Neblix said:

This is really a compositional problem, not a mixing problem. You need to voice your ensemble in such a way that every instrument has a place that doesn't overlap with any other instrument. Don't cross voices, and don't write dense lines below C3 (C an octave below middle C).

Hmm, I understand what you mean, but I'm not sure if I agree. I'm quite sure I took care of the things you're mentioning, but I obviously could be wrong. 

 

28 minutes ago, timaeus222 said:

Can you provide an example?

I tried doing that and now I accidentally erased some essential parts of the mix, so I can't give it now. I'll record those things again tomorrow, and then I'll try uploading it again. 

 

So, yeah, all in all it could be some careless writing, but I personally feel a lot more confident in my arranging than in my mixing, so it's likely a mix of both things.

 

[Nabeel Ansari]

I could be way off the mark, because you're in fact not sharing the music in question (you're asking an IT guy to troubleshoot your laptop without letting him see your laptop).

Would be better if we could actually see what you are doing to tell you what's wrong with it.

[jnWake]

On 23/2/2016 at 6:07 PM, Neblix said:

This is really a compositional problem, not a mixing problem. You need to voice your ensemble in such a way that every instrument has a place that doesn't overlap with any other instrument. Don't cross voices, and don't write dense lines below C3 (C an octave below middle C).

What exactly do you mean by dense? I mean, having chords with too many low notes can sound a bit strange, but I wouldn't say it's a rule to not write them! For example, there are piano pieces that are "dense" in those passages and they sound fine!

[avaris]

Agreed on voicing your ensembles correctly makes a big difference.  Here is a video that will show a super simple technique with just some panning and HP LP filters that are on any stock EQ:

 

[shadowpsyc]

15 minutes ago, jnWake said:

What exactly do you mean by dense? I mean, having chords with too many low notes can sound a bit strange, but I wouldn't say it's a rule to not write them! For example, there are piano pieces that are "dense" in those passages and they sound fine!

 

In the case of a piano piece, there's only one instrument to worry about and it's harmonic series isn't as dense as say a distorted guitar or a snare. Play the same low piano chords along with loud drums, a bass guitar, guitars playing distorted power chords, some sustained strings...it can get messy. EQ, compression, panning, mixing, these are all important but getting many instruments to play nice together begins with writing and instrumentation. And as far as umbrella advice where we haven't heard the piece in question, the start would be the place to start.

[jnWake]

1 hour ago, shadowpsyc said:

 

In the case of a piano piece, there's only one instrument to worry about and it's harmonic series isn't as dense as say a distorted guitar or a snare. Play the same low piano chords along with loud drums, a bass guitar, guitars playing distorted power chords, some sustained strings...it can get messy.

I know. I'm just saying that, while it often doesn't sound very good, it can work in some contexts!

EDIT: @below: I know chords sound bad more often than not at lower octaves (the lower the worse). I guess I simply don't like spelling it like a rule since it depends on the context and instruments used (and what we define as low).

[timaeus222]

15 hours ago, jnWake said:

What exactly do you mean by dense? I mean, having chords with too many low notes can sound a bit strange, but I wouldn't say it's a rule to not write them! For example, there are piano pieces that are "dense" in those passages and they sound fine!

Really, just any chord with really low notes (e.g. roughly bass/sub bass range) will sound bad---the frequencies will clash. For instance, you might expect a major third interval in the midrange (500~5000 Hz, let's say) to sound good, and it should. Start moving that diad down an octave and listen to how the harmonics play along. The respective harmonics for each note would overlap more and more at lower frequencies, so they clash more and more easily the lower you go, until it just sounds like mush. That's why I wouldn't suggest that you write chords on very low notes. On the other hand, fourths and fifths can still sound decent on very low notes, and octaves still play pretty well at low notes.

[Nabeel Ansari]

Quote

EDIT: @below: I know chords sound bad more often than not at lower octaves (the lower the worse). I guess I simply don't like spelling it like a rule since it depends on the context and instruments used (and what we define as low).

I don't give rules, I give advice.

[dannthr]

5 hours ago, avaris said:

Agreed on voicing your ensembles correctly makes a big difference.  Here is a video that will show a super simple technique with just some panning and HP LP filters that are on any stock EQ:

 

Ryan's videos are great!  Always great tips, whether you're a Reason user or not.

[Bowlerhat]

On 23 februari 2016 at 9:57 PM, timaeus222 said:

Can you provide an example?

 

On 23 februari 2016 at 0:40 AM, Neblix said:

Would be better if we could actually see what you are doing to tell you what's wrong with it.

Okay, so I rerecorded all the passages I accidentally sent into oblivion two days ago, which took a bit of time because I needed access to a grand piano. But, while rerecording I implemented lots of the great advice all you guys gave me, and it already sounds a lot better. It isn't really perfect yet, but waaaay better than first. So, thanks for that!! 

Here's a link to a one minute example: https://soundcloud.com/jorik-bergman/example-of-aquarium-park

 

 

[Nabeel Ansari]

Well first of all, things sound very out of tune. What's the tuning status and reference frequency (A4) of that piano? Has it been maintained at all? If it's not possible, I recommend trying slight pitch shifting until things jive better.

Frequency clash from things being out of tune render things muddy as well, because things that usually just get absorbed into the same note/frequency are adjacent and dissonant (if I play A on a flute and C D A on a piano, the A's should vibrate at the same frequency and thus be perceived as basically one note, otherwise it's two separate microtones). Do that with ensemble harmonies, and you're bound for a mess.

 

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Very eye-opening, and a reminder that the best solutions to our problems can be the simplest ones.

[Garpocalypse]

I'm curious as to the mic setup you have.  Are you able to provide a picture?  The piano mics sound too far away and are capturing a lot of the room reflections which are probably a significant part of your problems outside of the playing itself.  Watch a few YT videos on mic'ing pianos and move the mics closer if you can.  If it's a grand as you stated above make sure it's open and stick one of your mics as close to the strings as you can. 

Are you using any external reverb plugins? If you are eventually going for a Soule-esque reverb layering (which would be cheaper than mic'ing the entire hall) you need to start with the closest mic setup possible then use your reverb plugins to simulate mid and far mics and mix all of them together. For now, try taking them off, if you are using them, and see if you can just use some light EQ'ing to get the sound you want from the mic's you have.  Just to echo Nebeblebix and the others there's a lot here that needs to be addressed and even flawless mixing won't fix it all.  

[Bowlerhat]

On 25 februari 2016 at 5:00 PM, Neblix said:

Well first of all, things sound very out of tune. What's the tuning status and reference frequency (A4) of that piano? Has it been maintained at all? If it's not possible, I recommend trying slight pitch shifting until things jive better.

Hmm, I didn't really pay attention to the tuning, so thanks for pointing that out. There's at least 10 grand piano's at our conservatory so I'm quite I can find one with a decent tuning, as I've never tuned a piano by myself before. And if I can't find it I'll try that pitch shifting.

 

On 25 februari 2016 at 7:32 PM, Garpocalypse said:

I'm curious as to the mic setup you have.  Are you able to provide a picture?  The piano mics sound too far away and are capturing a lot of the room reflections which are probably a significant part of your problems outside of the playing itself. 

Ah, yes. I forgot to mention that. I properly micced the piano on my first recording which mysteriously vanished, and because I didn't have much time at my second recording I just quickly placed the microphone next to the piano. So, yeah... Normally it sounds better. Do the rest of the instruments sound fine or do I need to find another way to record those? 

 

On 25 februari 2016 at 7:32 PM, Garpocalypse said:

Are you using any external reverb plugins? If you are eventually going for a Soule-esque reverb layering (which would be cheaper than mic'ing the entire hall) you need to start with the closest mic setup possible then use your reverb plugins to simulate mid and far mics and mix all of them together. For now, try taking them off, if you are using them, and see if you can just use some light EQ'ing to get the sound you want from the mic's you have. 

I just used the reverb thingies that's standard on Logic and with with what sounds the best. Not sure if that's the best way, though. 

On 25 februari 2016 at 7:32 PM, Garpocalypse said:

Just to echo Nebeblebix and the others there's a lot here that needs to be addressed and even flawless mixing won't fix it all.  

Hmm, yeah. So I'll improve the tuning and the recordings itself, do some EQ-ing, and see if it's better. Was there any problem with the voicings, choice of instruments, harmonies, or any other compositional related thing? Because if that's the case then I'll need to change that before all the before mentioned things. 

 

And thanks for all the help!! All of you people are awesome!! 

[Garpocalypse]

If you are currently at a conservatory that's great because you'll have access to the people you need for free (don't even offer to pay them, it sounds cruel but everyone should be jumping to have as many experiences as possible.  If they try to ask for money ditch them immediately and go with someone else)

First off, take your arrangement to your theory teacher, orchestra director, or a teacher with professional composing experience.  They were all trained in proper orchestration and will give you some ideas on how to fill out your arrangement with instruments that fit what you are trying to accomplish.  

Conservatory pianos can vary a lot in tuning.   Where I went we only kept the grand on stage in any sort of performance or recording ready tuning, the class room grands were the next option which weren't tuned as quite as often, then we had the practice room pianos which were (ALLEGEDLY)tuned once a year (though that was debatable) and were usually way off since they received the most play. If you are going to do something like this with live players it would help a lot to get everyone to tune to the same piano you used before recording their parts, or see if you can get everyone together to use the stage and its grand when it's open.  The latter would be the preferred option if you can get everyone together at once for a large block of recording time. If everyone knows there parts well enough you could even ask the recording students to volunteer and help mic and record the hall and get it all done in one go.   Keep in mind that before you take this step your arrangement must be a complete idea and the players must know their parts otherwise you are just going to annoy the people who spent considerable amounts of time setting everything up for you.

Two things you could do to help the players would be to use your DAW and come up with a transcription of what you want that you could play for them.  you could also replace (temporarily) the hand percussion track with samples if you have access to them and give that to your players to record against.  Really, just about anything to get them to focus and play with each other(and have it sound that way on tape) at this point would be good because the wip is all over the place performance wise.  

Arrangement wise, outside of it being a minute long with an abrupt ending, there is no bass part.  sooo that would be the first issue to fix then go from there.

Hope this helps!

[Bowlerhat]

Hmmmm... I get your point, but I'm not sure if it's really what I'm looking for. I know how great the conservatory is for "borrowing" other musicians, and it is something that I've already done with a cool big band project covering the Angel Island zone song from Sonic 3, and its naturally a great way to handle things. But, at the moment I want to try some really new things and study some ways of making music that I've never done before. And it's quite obvious that I'm not really good at it yet, and that I still have to improve in so many ways. But I don't think that changing the whole instrumentation, getting some other musicians to play the parts and to just avoid this whole for me unexplored way of making music is really the right way to learn new things.

I am trained in proper instrumentation as well, and I know that right now the combination of instruments don't really make a lot of sense, but for now I just mostly want to improve my mixing and stuff. Which is why I posted this in the composition and music production thread, and not in the post your game remixes thread. 

 As a composer/arranger I always rely on other people to play the parts, but I'd also like to make some music by myself and record all those instruments that I've gathered over the years. Which may sound a bit stubborn, but I do think that it could work with more experience and a lot of effort. 

Also, I'm not really sure I want bass in my mix. But I'm keeping the possibility open. 

And for the tuning of the piano; there are some rooms with some nice electric piano's instead of grands, so I think that that could be a solution. 

[Nabeel Ansari]

I can tell you from experience, you are chasing a methodology that doesn't work.

If you can not employ good composition, the mix will not sound good. An unbalanced and/or empty composition is an unbalanced and/or empty production. Trying to mix a poor composition is an ineffective way to learn how to mix. You can not just put effects on things and expect them to fill the gaps the composition left open. If you omit bass, you are omitting the rhythmic harmonic foundation of the composition. You're also leaving an entire flank of the frequency spectrum empty.

Furthermore, an ideally recorded performance doesn't actually need any mixing, just some touching up and enhancements to taste. The recording quality of your parts is very, very messy. As others have noted, there are a lot of room reflections and there's no clarity. You don't have to have other people play your parts, but you do need to record the parts properly. Minimize reflections, and place the mics where the tone of the instrument is maximized. You can look up tips for each instrument online.

If you want to just improve your mixing without worrying about composition, you should use pre-existing recordings. You can download unmixed, multi-track sessions (zip with wave files) from here. There are many genres to choose from.

[Garpocalypse]

2 hours ago, Neblix said:

I can tell you from experience, you are chasing a methodology that doesn't work.

If you can not employ good composition, the mix will not sound good. An unbalanced and/or empty composition is an unbalanced and/or empty production. Trying to mix a poor composition is an ineffective way to learn how to mix. You can not just put effects on things and expect them to fill the gaps the composition left open. If you omit bass, you are omitting the rhythmic harmonic foundation of the composition. You're also leaving an entire flank of the frequency spectrum empty.

Furthermore, an ideally recorded performance doesn't actually need any mixing, just some touching up and enhancements to taste. The recording quality of your parts is very, very messy. As others have noted, there are a lot of room reflections and there's no clarity. You don't have to have other people play your parts, but you do need to record the parts properly. Minimize reflections, and place the mics where the tone of the instrument is maximized. You can look up tips for each instrument online.

If you want to just improve your mixing without worrying about composition, you should use pre-existing recordings. You can download unmixed, multi-track sessions (zip with wave files) from here. There are many genres to choose from.

echoing for truth.

I support the way you think as long as you keep in mind that music's digital revolution dramatically upped the standards that people expect from the art.  You can either make an effort to do it right and learn from it or ignore the warnings and end up wasting your time. 

On the other hand if you make an effort to demonstrate your interest in composition and use it to get to know your teachers better it WILL most likely benefit you academically and socially as well as give you access to experience you would have to painfully learn yourself.  Not saying that you can't learn it all yourself but if you choose to go that route it will take more time to learn the same things.  

Mixing comes last after correct calls have been made earlier in the chain.  It's called post-production for a reason. It doesn't fix anything but it does make an arrangement more of what it already is.  To "practice" mixing with incomplete poorly recorded music that's missing parts of the spectrum is not really going to benefit you in any way.  

Just to talk about your bass concerns, we're not talking about changing the instrumentation you have.  Just adding what is obviously missing. A bass part doesn't have to be an independent part. It can be used to give depth to the instruments that you designate to dominate the lower mid range such as a piano or guitar. The way you are going you are neglecting a solid 1/5th of the audible sound spectrum(and the glue between rhythm and harmony) which is not a great call arrangement wise. Also note that 80hz-280hz is the BASS range.  It's called the Bass range and not the CELLO range for a reason.  Bass frequencies are filled by bass lines. Bass lines are played by basses, not cellos.  Cellos play lines but they are called cello lines. Don't make the same mistake that many do.

have fun while being a music major and use the time well!

 

 

[AngelCityOutlaw]

Ditto the Neblix & Garpocalypse posts.

I think that the digital and information age, with regards to music, is both a blessing and a curse. A wealth of information and tutorials are readily available to us, but so too is bad information and if you're not very experienced with something, bad advice with artistic word-choice can sound like really good advice. I can honestly say, this is what held me back with mixing for so long until recently. I think my more recent mixes are turning out way better than before and exactly as I imagine them. The key really was not thinking about EQs and all of that stuff so much, it was in making the best arrangement and composition decisions I can. 

The reason for this is because when you see "mixing tutorials" or read in a magazine some sort of interview or tips, they never talk about this kind of thing. It's assumed for them and it doesn't make a good article or video. They're always talking about cutting/boosting frequencies, compressing this or that and that one, super-duper secret plugin that just adds "something" (nothing) to the mix! If they just told you "make sure your arrangement and composition are really good and you won't have to do too much else", they wouldn't have a whole lot to talk about. It makes it sound like any collection of sounds, arranged any way you want, will sound good if you just use the right settings. Sadly, it just doesn't work like that as I've come to learn the hard way.

To the starry-eyed beginner or a listener, great music seems to happen as if by magic and the keys beneath your fingers or the software on your computer are the tomes that cast the spell. It'd be terribly boring and break the illusion if they told you about all the theory they know, ear-training they've done, studying music by long-dead guys with funny white wigs and made that mix sound better by just changing the voicing of that Cm7 chord. 

[Nabeel Ansari]

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studying music by long-dead guys with funny white-wigs and made that mix sound better by just changing the voicing of that Cm7 chord. 

That's a quote I'm stealing for generations to come.

[Bowlerhat]

Hey, thanks for all the input. I've been thinking about it a lot, and I was obviously wrong in some of my assumptions. At the moment I'm rewriting my arrangement, while taking regard of all the things that have been said. So, yeah... It does include a bass, it does not include an out of tune Macedonian Recorder and it will generally make a lot more sense. The whole concept was just quite poor... So, yeah. Thanks for that!!!