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Post by forgotteng on Jul 7, 2021 7:04:11 GMT -6
Modern mixes are so bright. I found this to be interesting. I would get my mixes to what I thought sounded good and were 90% done then I would reference a track and it would rip my head off with the high end. It used to frustrate me then I came across the same mix tutorial that svart was referring to.(I think) The dude was grabbing the HF on the console for everything and it was a bit eye opening. I tend to add it channel by channel so the cumulative is better than taking the final and boosting it all in one stage. Then I leave it for my ME who I trust and is never heavy handed. He will generally ask me if I'm specifically going for a darker sound or tell me I got a little carried away. I do tend to like hardware eq boost over plug in and am still looking for that holy grail EQ that will give me what I want. |
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Post by jcoutu1 on Jul 7, 2021 7:11:24 GMT -6
Modern mixes are so bright. I found this to be interesting. I would get my mixes to what I thought sounded good and were 90% done then I would reference a track and it would rip my head off with the high end. It used to frustrate me then I came across the same mix tutorial that svart was referring to.(I think) The dude was grabbing the HF on the console for everything and it was a bit eye opening. I tend to add it channel by channel so the cumulative is better than taking the final and boosting it all in one stage. Then I leave it for my ME who I trust and is never heavy handed. He will generally ask me if I'm specifically going for a darker sound or tell me I got a little carried away. I do tend to like hardware eq boost over plug in and am still looking for that holy grail EQ that will give me what I want. The top end on my original Summit EQP200 was silky and gorgeous. USPS decided to smash it though. The top on the MÄAG gear is smooooooth too. |
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Post by forgotteng on Jul 7, 2021 7:14:07 GMT -6
Modern mixes are so bright. I found this to be interesting. I would get my mixes to what I thought sounded good and were 90% done then I would reference a track and it would rip my head off with the high end. It used to frustrate me then I came across the same mix tutorial that svart was referring to.(I think) The dude was grabbing the HF on the console for everything and it was a bit eye opening. I tend to add it channel by channel so the cumulative is better than taking the final and boosting it all in one stage. Then I leave it for my ME who I trust and is never heavy handed. He will generally ask me if I'm specifically going for a darker sound or tell me I got a little carried away. I do tend to like hardware eq boost over plug in and am still looking for that holy grail EQ that will give me what I want. The top end on my original Summit EQP200 was silky and gorgeous. USPS decided to smash it though. The top on the MÄAG gear is smooooooth too. Both of those EQ's were on my wish list. |
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Post by svart on Jul 7, 2021 8:00:41 GMT -6
For a lot of final top and bottom I'm using the noise ash Ruletec now. It's super smooth.
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Post by the other mark williams on Jul 7, 2021 8:08:27 GMT -6
For a lot of final top and bottom I'm using the noise ash Ruletec now. It's super smooth. One of the best ITB, IMO. |
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Post by svart on Jul 7, 2021 8:21:26 GMT -6
Modern mixes are so bright. I found this to be interesting. I would get my mixes to what I thought sounded good and were 90% done then I would reference a track and it would rip my head off with the high end. It used to frustrate me then I came across the same mix tutorial that svart was referring to.(I think) The dude was grabbing the HF on the console for everything and it was a bit eye opening. I tend to add it channel by channel so the cumulative is better than taking the final and boosting it all in one stage. Then I leave it for my ME who I trust and is never heavy handed. He will generally ask me if I'm specifically going for a darker sound or tell me I got a little carried away. I do tend to like hardware eq boost over plug in and am still looking for that holy grail EQ that will give me what I want. They're bright, unless you're used to them.. Then other/older stuff sounds dull. Many folks, even here, say that the older ways are better but every time I listen to an old recording it just sounds dead, lifeless and dull to me. No nuance, no power, no excitement.. Just a bunch of stuff gathered around the midrange. So I prefer modern recordings that use our whole range of hearing. For instance, I've never heard a Beatles recording that made me go "wow this sounds so good". In fact, I've cringed at how dull and muddy they sound and it's been a turnoff for me for a lot of older recordings. |
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Post by Deleted on Jul 7, 2021 8:25:46 GMT -6
For a lot of final top and bottom I'm using the noise ash Ruletec now. It's super smooth. They’re great sounding but impossible to parallel without phase artifacts. You’re on windows so try the old school Variety of Sound Boot EQ II high shelf and boosts with the vintage tube on. Insane smoothness. The only time I’ve had cla type crazy boosts work for me. |
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Post by svart on Jul 7, 2021 8:32:04 GMT -6
For a lot of final top and bottom I'm using the noise ash Ruletec now. It's super smooth. They’re great sounding but impossible to parallel without phase artifacts. You’re on windows so try the old school Variety of Sound Boot EQ II high shelf and boosts with the vintage tube on. Insane smoothness. The only time I’ve had cla type crazy boosts work for me. I'm only using it on the master bus. On other channels I'm using Crave and/or the SSL channelstrip. Honestly, I just turn knobs until it sounds good. If phase artifacts are part of it sounding good, then so be it. I'm not going to lie.. I used to really care about that stuff (audio purity in all forms), but it's gotten me nowhere but a lot of time wasted caring about something that you can't ever get rid of and eventually lose the forest through the trees over. I'm so much happier just using the stuff and getting my skills up to snuff. I wasted so many years thinking that it was my tools that hindered me, but it was my mindset that hindered me. Agonizing over small phase shifts, making the smallest EQ moves, etc.. I used to take pride in thinking I would just "break through" on my own and I never did. I was adverse to looking up tutorials and doing the MWTM/URM types of educational video things.. And when I finally did, I was shocked to find that NONE of the guys I watched gave two shits about phase, minimum EQ moves, etc. Turning knobs, making huge moves, never caring about whether something sounded natural or perfect.. They pushed and pulled that audio taffy until it worked for them and the mix. Most of the solo'd tracks sound strange, or even bad, but in the mix they sound amazing and even sound more real than real.. And that's the magic of mixing, making something sound so natural by totally faking it. Our job isn't to take what's recorded and present it as-is. It's to take what's recorded and make it into fantasy. Make it bigger and better than the sum of the parts. That's where I was wrong for so long, thinking that the sum of the perfect parts would be a perfect result and no matter how hard I tried to make each piece perfect, the result was never competitive. |
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Post by jcoutu1 on Jul 7, 2021 8:43:35 GMT -6
svart, our views on modern mixes and mixing in general totally align.
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Post by trakworxmastering on Jul 7, 2021 8:54:02 GMT -6
Hi, Do most rely on the ME to open up the top end and reveal the details? I catch myself felling like a mix sounds right and then after mastering, realizing I was a little dark - not bad - and that mastering really opens things up. This last album, I tried the clariphonic and hammer plugs to try and improve there but my additions seem hard compared to what the ME can provide. So, is this you or what do you do to add the detail and top in a way that makes you happy? Yes this is very common. Not always of course, but more often than not I open up the top end and the track "blooms". Many of my regular clients rely on me for that. It's not a flaw in the mix, it's just how it often goes, even with my own mixes. I get a better top end from my mastering chain than I could by brightening every track in the box. And yes, as someone said, high end analog hardware is indispensable for this. And that's a reason why, when ITB mixes come to me already bright, they often sound harsh or brittle due to the pushing of digital EQ. It's cases where a mix sounds brittle and also needs opening up that are the most challenging. P.S. I do not find that my limiting process automatically makes tracks brighter. It's worth spending a lot of time experimenting with limiters to get balanced, smooth, punchy results. Once I finally stumbled on my current limiting scheme my job got a lot easier! |
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Post by Deleted on Jul 7, 2021 9:14:57 GMT -6
They’re great sounding but impossible to parallel without phase artifacts. You’re on windows so try the old school Variety of Sound Boot EQ II high shelf and boosts with the vintage tube on. Insane smoothness. The only time I’ve had cla type crazy boosts work for me. I'm only using it on the master bus. On other channels I'm using Crave and/or the SSL channelstrip. Honestly, I just turn knobs until it sounds good. If phase artifacts are part of it sounding good, then so be it. I'm not going to lie.. I used to really care about that stuff (audio purity in all forms), but it's gotten me nowhere but a lot of time wasted caring about something that you can't ever get rid of and eventually lose the forest through the trees over. I'm so much happier just using the stuff and getting my skills up to snuff. I wasted so many years thinking that it was my tools that hindered me, but it was my mindset that hindered me. Agonizing over small phase shifts, making the smallest EQ moves, etc.. I used to take pride in thinking I would just "break through" on my own and I never did. I was adverse to looking up tutorials and doing the MWTM/URM types of educational video things.. And when I finally did, I was shocked to find that NONE of the guys I watched gave two shits about phase. Turning knobs, making huge moves, never caring about whether something sounded natural or perfect.. The pushed and pulled that audio taffy until it worked for them and the mix. Most of the solo'd tracks sound strange, or even bad, but in the mix they sound amazing and even sound more real than real.. And that's the magic of mixing, making something sound so natural by totally faking it. Our job isn't to take what's recorded and present it as-is. It's to take what's recorded and make it into fantasy. Make it bigger and better than the sum of the parts. That's where I was wrong for so long, thinking that the sum of the perfect parts would be a perfect result and no matter how hard I tried to make each piece perfect, the result was never competitive. I was the same way for a while but am back to -15 db cuts if it works. Deck the knobs. Also none of the analog tools they’re using have thousands of degrees of phase shift just passing through like a bad old converter. They would care about that if they paralleled it and other minimum phase oversampled plugs and can hear over 10k. There’s over a thousand degrees of phase shift in the high end of many plugs up sampling to 192khz that way. Cymbal wash and guitar fuzz will get fucked up. It’s why I can’t use the awesome Presswerk on real drums without the saturation pushed to just kill the highs and put them back in later. If the phase is being totally scrambled anyway like Valhalla and satin, it doesn’t matter that much if not paralleled but other processes that don’t, it matters. The noise ash is really colored and it’s just not going to matter that much on a bus unless you have a lot of stuff above 10khz but less colored/smoothed things like the recent Kit blackbird Neve, are beyond awful because you just hear the cymbal wash and guitar partials getting phase shifted to hell and most of the time it sounds bad. Anyway, now I have a lot of ridiculous shelves to mess with because I bought all the fuse plugs and it’s fun. |
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Post by forgotteng on Jul 7, 2021 9:21:22 GMT -6
Yes I agree that there are elements of modern mixes that I like and certainly the higher fidelity is part of that. Admittedly most of my album listening is done on vinyl so my internal clock so to speak, is set for that. I am not one of those people that think only vinyl sounds good. It reminds me that I need to invest more time listening to albums on my studio rig. You know how it gets when you get old and spend a lot of time already at your desk. Being faithful to the original post, I am glad I have a relationship with my ME that he can catch me if I'm falling into a rut.
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Post by bgrotto on Jul 7, 2021 10:29:46 GMT -6
For a lot of final top and bottom I'm using the noise ash Ruletec now. It's super smooth. They’re great sounding but impossible to parallel without phase artifacts. You’re on windows so try the old school Variety of Sound Boot EQ II high shelf and boosts with the vintage tube on. Insane smoothness. The only time I’ve had cla type crazy boosts work for me. If the phase artifacts are from oversampling, I tend to just load a 'dummy' instance of the same plugin -- set flat, or even bypassed (some plugs still oversample even when bypassed -- on the parallel channel. It can eat up resources quickly, but luckily my system is pretty robust and can usually handle it. I do this a LOT for parallel distortion ITB. |
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Post by jmoose on Jul 7, 2021 11:15:43 GMT -6
My focus while mixing is trying to make the best, most artistic & flattering choices possible for a cohesive release. Then let mastering focus on minor details and evening out from song to song. Exactly this ^^ yeah you could try to mix in a way that sounds “mastered” but that shouldn’t be your focus. Feel the song, worry about the elements working together and the emotional journey….let the ME sort out the rest. If the masters come back brighter you didn’t necessarily do anything “wrong”, it just wasn’t what you were concerned with I don't expect masters to automatically come back brighter. Nothing is automatic & automated, I'm not producing fast food burgers... Have been a few records including one last year where going into mastering the top end actually had to be knocked back to put things where we wanted. Artist loved the mixes but they were just a hair too bright so at mastering one goal was to make it a little more dusted. Really find the key is to have good communication with everyone including whoever's mastering. There are only a couple mastering cats I really trust, can count them on one hand and I really try to send everything to those people. Not always possible but absolutely worth the effort and 9 times outta 10 I'll defer to the judgement of those handful I trust. Mixing is a different process and more big picture for me... I am mixing to the point where it sounds they way we want, but I'm not trying to cut a master and/or get into competition with whoever might be doing that. Most of the heavy lifting in mixing is sorting out the album itself. Often get projects where there's either a pro band that's had a couple different tracking sessions and are looking to get things more cohesive instead of the "best of" vibe... or maybe someone's been working in their home studio for a couple years and the tracking is completely random from doing things in bits & pieces. At that point I can't be concerned with minutia of half to 1dB tweaks on the 2 mix. Its more like, is the vocal sitting in the same place from song to song? As for overall brightness and modern albums? Frankly an awful lot of stuff from the last decade or so sounds like complete shit to me. No space. No depth. Way too bright and overly articulated. Like its mixed and mastered to sound great on iPhone and $59 bluetooth speakers but then tears your skull open on a good full range system because its all upper mids and treble. That's not an analog thing or a digital thing. Its more of a listening & knowledge thing. And certainly a taste thing as well, or at least should be. |
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Post by plinker on Jul 7, 2021 11:26:53 GMT -6
They're bright, unless you're used to them.. Then other/older stuff sounds dull. Many folks, even here, say that the older ways are better but every time I listen to an old recording it just sounds dead, lifeless and dull to me. No nuance, no power, no excitement.. Just a bunch of stuff gathered around the midrange. So I prefer modern recordings that use our whole range of hearing. For instance, I've never heard a Beatles recording that made me go "wow this sounds so good". In fact, I've cringed at how dull and muddy they sound and it's been a turnoff for me for a lot of older recordings. "Just a bunch of stuff gathered around the midrange" -- this describes the way I hear it, to a T! It's like early stereophonic recordings where they just hard-panned a bunch of tracks to one speaker, and the rest to the other -- not knowing, or taking advantage, of the phantom center. |
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Post by svart on Jul 7, 2021 11:40:05 GMT -6
They're bright, unless you're used to them.. Then other/older stuff sounds dull. Many folks, even here, say that the older ways are better but every time I listen to an old recording it just sounds dead, lifeless and dull to me. No nuance, no power, no excitement.. Just a bunch of stuff gathered around the midrange. So I prefer modern recordings that use our whole range of hearing. For instance, I've never heard a Beatles recording that made me go "wow this sounds so good". In fact, I've cringed at how dull and muddy they sound and it's been a turnoff for me for a lot of older recordings. "Just a bunch of stuff gathered around the midrange" -- this describes the way I hear it, to a T! It's like early stereophonic recordings where they just hard-panned a bunch of tracks to one speaker, and the rest to the other -- not knowing, or taking advantage, or the phantom center. I mean it makes sense.. Old systems had small "full range" speakers that were anything but full-range. You needed everything to be gathered around the midrange so that people could hear it! |
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Post by bgrotto on Jul 7, 2021 11:46:52 GMT -6
Exactly this ^^ yeah you could try to mix in a way that sounds “mastered” but that shouldn’t be your focus. Feel the song, worry about the elements working together and the emotional journey….let the ME sort out the rest. If the masters come back brighter you didn’t necessarily do anything “wrong”, it just wasn’t what you were concerned with I ts more of a listening & knowledge thing. And certainly a taste thing as well, or at least should be. I don't think it's fair or (more importantly) accurate to call it a 'knowledge thing'. Bright mixes were being made in the 70s and 80s too, well before earpods and cell phone speakers. Hell...they were made deliberately to take advantage of the listening equipment of their day: the hifi obsession of the 70s (rip) and...well...maybe in the 80s it was just the coke. Ha. |
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Post by bgrotto on Jul 7, 2021 11:48:59 GMT -6
They're bright, unless you're used to them.. Then other/older stuff sounds dull. Many folks, even here, say that the older ways are better but every time I listen to an old recording it just sounds dead, lifeless and dull to me. No nuance, no power, no excitement.. Just a bunch of stuff gathered around the midrange. So I prefer modern recordings that use our whole range of hearing. For instance, I've never heard a Beatles recording that made me go "wow this sounds so good". In fact, I've cringed at how dull and muddy they sound and it's been a turnoff for me for a lot of older recordings. "Just a bunch of stuff gathered around the midrange" -- this describes the way I hear it, to a T! It's like early stereophonic recordings where they just hard-panned a bunch of tracks to one speaker, and the rest to the other -- not knowing, or taking advantage, or the phantom center. Ha, well...to be fair, "a bunch of stuff gathered around the midrange" is a just another way of saying 'guitar-driven rock music' 🤷🏻♀️ |
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Post by Bat Lanyard on Jul 7, 2021 13:14:45 GMT -6
Have been a few records including one last year where going into mastering the top end actually had to be knocked back to put things where we wanted. Artist loved the mixes but they were just a hair too bright so at mastering one goal was to make it a little more dusted. Just went through that with a recent track. The mix collectively went brighter than I wanted but pulling back in any way made it worse. ME, problem solved. I knew I couldn't fix it and still get the vibe we had. |
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Post by RealNoob on Jul 7, 2021 18:00:44 GMT -6
Yes this is very common. Not always of course, but more often than not I open up the top end and the track "blooms". Many of my regular clients rely on me for that. It's not a flaw in the mix, it's just how it often goes, even with my own mixes. I get a better top end from my mastering chain than I could by brightening every track in the box. And yes, as someone said, high end analog hardware is indispensable for this. And that's a reason why, when ITB mixes come to me already bright, they often sound harsh or brittle due to the pushing of digital EQ. It's cases where a mix sounds brittle and also needs opening up that are the most challenging. P.S. I do not find that my limiting process automatically makes tracks brighter. It's worth spending a lot of time experimenting with limiters to get balanced, smooth, punchy results. Once I finally stumbled on my current limiting scheme my job got a lot easier! Thanks Justin. Great info. Lots of learning here. |
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Post by jmoose on Jul 7, 2021 19:06:57 GMT -6
I ts more of a listening & knowledge thing. And certainly a taste thing as well, or at least should be. I don't think it's fair or (more importantly) accurate to call it a 'knowledge thing'. Bright mixes were being made in the 70s and 80s too, well before earpods and cell phone speakers. Hell...they were made deliberately to take advantage of the listening equipment of their day: the hifi obsession of the 70s (rip) and...well...maybe in the 80s it was just the coke. Ha. You clipped most of what I said and took it completely out of context... Quality mastering is absolutely a knowledge thing. The tools are irrelevant. Analog or plugin processing? The best guys use both and I don't think that's much of a secret. Anyone can make things loud in 30 seconds. Slap a fake Pultec on and blast 10kHz through the roof. But that's an old trick and a shitty one too. The real trick is being able to get the competitive level and still have the record sound and feel good. That's a MUCH harder trick! Some knowledge of music, and the gear, and how to interpret cryptic notes from the artist... and even some knowledge of destination formats like vinyl vs streaming and so on. Quite a few chumps out there who don't have that knowledge and cut shit masters. Or worse maybe they do but go on autopilot... treat everything the same and cut shit masters. Oh the stories... Brad Blackwood said to me a long time ago, and its mostly true... if the mixes sound great just about anyone can cut a master and it's going to sound excellent. Problems arise when the mixes need some work to pull together and the ears in the chair have no knowledge. At that point digital vs analog EQ? Totally irrelevant. |
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Post by Guitar on Jul 8, 2021 14:06:15 GMT -6
My new favorite trick when Mastering (I'm an enthusiast, not a pro) is the De-Esser. Comes out a lot more than I would have guessed. Spitfish is good, and I have also used the T-Racks De-Esser on a few tracks, as well as Nova and Toneboosters EQ4 doing dynamic EQ in this frequency zone. When you don't overdo it, can polish up a track, quickly.
I'm wondering for the pros here, how often do you have to de-ess in mastering?
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