Old 04-15-2011, 11:49 AM   #1
Guncho
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Default How Do You Get Rid of Mud?

One of my biggest problems when mixing is mud. Some of my mixes sound like a wet dog is sleeping on them. I've learned to slap a high pass filter on everything but bass and kick and that is a big improvement for me but other than that I'm a little lost. I look at an eq plug like Reaeq and I just don't see it yet.

What do you guys do to demudify your mixes?
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Old 04-15-2011, 12:25 PM   #2
junioreq
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High pass the bass at 60 high pass the kick at 45. Pull 200 - 300 out of the bass, pull some 100-400 out of kick... Hipass guitars at around 120 - 140 (obviously, those are just some things to try)... depending on where you want your bass..

You have to hipass your bass at 60 or 70 if you are gonna have your kick drum at 50......

Its a balance between the high and low end as well......

But first. Use drum samples that arent really too muddy. Can't expect some dead drum samples with no high end to sound like what you want.

Don't look at the analyzers, just boost a narrow peak and move it around until you find the mud, then cut it at that frequency... EARS.... You don't hear with your eyes...

Look out for boomyness. If something has too much WOOOF WOOOOF boom, find the frequency and cut it. YOU do not want your speakers to be pushing air like crazy...

Oh yeah. Don't touch any eq if your not listening to the whole mix.. dont even dare eqing a kick drum in solo... EQ NOTHING in solo.......... Get the levels right.. then find out why that kick drum sounds weird and is pushing too much woooooof..... then think..... in that area where you removed the woooooof... what other instrument possibly can fit in that gap..

I tell you right now..... the EZDrummer package you have is all about mud....(ez vintage).... because its replicating that...... so your not really starting with the correct sound........

Just start really cutting around 100-300 area... on different things..... and hear the results............. actually... crank it up and FEEEL the results... You will find you will need less compression etc....

As always.. A/B to your reference material...

~Rob.

Last edited by junioreq; 04-15-2011 at 12:34 PM.
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Old 04-15-2011, 01:07 PM   #3
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Pretty much everything you do can create/reduce mud.
Start with mic selection and mic placement. Get it a clear and crisp as possible there and it'll get you most of the way.
Then use your eq's to weed out anything that is stepping on something more important than its self.
Then work from there.
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Old 04-15-2011, 01:08 PM   #4
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Thanks Rob you've helped me tonnes.

Some things don't make sense to me though.

Why not do some basic eqing in solo. What I mean is if you listen to say a recording of an acoustic guitar with no eq, couldn't you adjust eq it til it sounds "normal"? Like no extreme fx eqing just so it sounds like an acoustic really sounds. Do that for every intstrument and then start looking at eqing in terms of how things things fit in the mix.

And in terms of the Vintage Kit in Ezdrummer isn't that sound "right" for some types of music? Bonham played a vintage Ludwig kit no?
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Old 04-15-2011, 01:48 PM   #5
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You dont want it to sound like an acoustic really sounds. Your mixing here. You have to make room. Its all about sacrifice. If you break down a real mix and solo stuff, the instruments don't really sound that great at all...

Its all a trick........ an illusion....

Its not about 5 instruments... Its about 1 mix... its all 1 sound..

Also, you don't process things to make them sound normal.... If it doesn't sound normal, you have mic issues etc..... That first raw track is the most normal its ever gonna get... So do it right.... Every time you touch any effect your degenerating it...smearing it, and losing definition...

Wet dog also to me doesn't mean mud.... that means no high end too mee.. wet blankets etc.... Which in the end is the high end on the overheads, snare and vocals.... 6k+ range... Get the snare drum to have the same amount of high end as your reference material..and build your high end around that.....

Also, I think your learning.... that this takes a long time.. you have to experiment for yourself... there's many things I do that are standard....but things that I've come up with and that I personally like.... You have to find what you like..........

~Rob.

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Old 04-15-2011, 02:00 PM   #6
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Rob makes a good point. You don't want it to sound like an acoustic in solo. You want it to sound like an acoustic when it's in your mix.
If you have a decent mic, and put it in the right place, then your raw track should be the way that guitar sounds, so to tweak it from there without hearing it in context will be a wast of your time, and may get rid of things you will want later.
A great example of this is bass. A bass that sits well in the mix will be very "slappy" and noise when soloed. If you eq it to just the rumble you want, and a little definition on the transients, then when you drop it in the mix you will be stuck in the situation of "If I set the bass so the low end is where I want it, then there's not definition, if I turn it up until I have clarity, the lowend gets overrpowering,"
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Old 04-15-2011, 02:07 PM   #7
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I know what you're saying and that is my ultimate goal, (great overall sounding mix regardless of how each track sounds on it's own), I was only suggesting the eqing everything soloed just to start with.

I don't find that anything recorded with a microphone sounds how it sounds my ears. To me mixing is just about doing all this stuff to make instruments sound like how they actually sound. Or maybe a slightly hyper version of how things should sound if that makes sense. It's like photography. The better the camera, the more your pictures look they actually look.

PS Do you really eq a kick drum with the whole mix going from step 1? Like you don't even boost the kick or anything?
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Old 04-15-2011, 03:08 PM   #8
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umm yeah... get the faders up going on.... add some compression to whatever style compression you like.... and listen... Its obviously gonna need a hp at 50.....

Then boost around 100, 200 hz or soo and listen to what happends to the mix.... listen to what instruments get masked... now pull it down a bit and sweep around till you can still hear the bass guitar or whatever.. no masking going on.... so.. you end up with a cut.... if it doesnt have enough low end, add a small 2db boost at 50 or something...

If it needs a little more attack, add some 3k and be done with it... Seriously takes like 1 minute...

Shouldn't need more than 3 bands of eq....

Also.. I know this might sound weird too you right now, but.. a lot of the low end of your kick, comes from your bass guitar

~Rob.

Last edited by junioreq; 04-15-2011 at 03:14 PM.
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Old 04-16-2011, 10:45 AM   #9
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In my experience (not a pro, but have been into recording and mixing for a few years) the mud is usually in the 200-400Hz area. And unfortunately, it does not help to just cut some of these freqs on the bass track, the mud gets accumulated from all the instruments.
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Old 04-16-2011, 11:30 AM   #10
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I think we need to differentiate between "corrective EQing" and "mixing EQing". Corrective EQing is where you remove stuff that are not really supposed to be there, and this can be done (must be done, I guess) solo. Then, when mixing you EQ a track while listening to the over all mix, for sure...

But these are two distinct purposes of EQing and should be treated as such. Typically you do the corrective EQing before the actual mixing begins, but it could happen that you during mixing discover "incorrect" stuff you want to remove, and then I think it's perfectly valid to EQ solo.
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Old 04-17-2011, 06:33 AM   #11
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Guncho View Post
One of my biggest problems when mixing is mud.
This can also come from your monitoring. If those muddy frequencies are resonating in your room or being accented by your monitors, trying to EQ them out is a losing battle.

Regards,

DB
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Old 04-17-2011, 07:40 AM   #12
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Quote:
Originally Posted by junioreq View Post
Its all a trick........ an illusion....

Its not about 5 instruments... Its about 1 mix... its all 1 sound..


+1

I remember hearing the Bohemian Rhapsody tracks that were circulating on the net a while back - played together, the 16 tracks sounded perfect - but one track at a time, each sounded like they needed a lot of work
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