View Single Post
Old 11-15-2017, 09:59 AM   #10
RDBOIS
Banned
 
Join Date: Feb 2016
Location: It changes
Posts: 1,425
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by karbomusic View Post
If we take a bunch of instruments and throw them on tracks and play them together, the low end mud can and often does, just naturally sum up without doing anything. Mostly because depending on instrument choice, that area of the spectrum almost always has a lot of information. That's what I was talking about - you don't really need to make any bad decisions for this to happen. Another point is instrument sounds are designed in isolation - in that scenario each needs it's own low end - however, if we suddenly mix them all together, each can survive with less low end usually because they all participate together.
Amen to that!

And this is why I've started to compose and arrange my songs differently, OUTSIDE of the DAW, even before recording anything.

Twenty years of playing guitar and signing by the campfire make for a great night for people, but can make for a boring muddy mix in the studio. Note, this does not apply if the goal is to record a guitar and vocal piece that aims to recreate the campfire dynamic.

But, it took me a while to figure out that slapping a bass on top of my guitar/vox compositions was not always the best strategy. Never mind adding drums and synth... I'm still learning how to re-arrange my songs so that the guitar, sometimes is played full, but other times I'm only playing the small strings. Heck, I'm even playing inverted chords or putting on the capo and playing them way up there on the guitar neck.

Same goes for the bass. Sometimes, if I know I'll have a synth driving the bottom end along with a full guitar, I might record up the bass riff an octave and have it play there for these bars.

What's more, I may change a strumming pattern to a picking pattern to make room for the vocals in the quiet sections of the song.

I'm clearing the mud way way before anything ever gets recorded. Not always, because I do like the endings of my songs to be very busy and finish that way. Sort of like classical Indian music - starts with slow Alap on the sitar and ends in a crazy fast frenzy of sounds fill the space, letting little room for you to interject, and lifting you up real high...

Anyway, that my little story on a possible way to fix the mud in a song.

Note: All this growth in song writing and arrangement is due to REAPER. This DAW is taking me to new places I never would of gone without. Glory to REAPER and the generosity of the makers and all who have crossed its path.
RDBOIS is offline   Reply With Quote