EQ Issues on Recording

[stodgers]

Hey,

Thought I'd tap into the knowledge base of this group before digging too much on my own personally. My band just did a recording and during mixing, we did the "car stereo check" on the first song, but for the sake of expediency, did not on the other four. Huge mistake. All of the other tracks have a boomy, undefined bass quality that we can't figure out how it got there. It is so bad, that I have to roll back to -5db on my car stereo's bass setting before it even becomes listenable.

I've been playing with the EQ on media player and it seems most of this is occurirng at around 125hz. My question is, is there some way to run either the mastered or unmastered (but fully mixed) tracks through a program that would adjust the EQ to compensate for this. If so, can this be done in Pro Tools, or is there some freeware or cheapware that someone might recommend?

Thanks for your insight!!

[ddnidd1]

You can use a parametric EQ to minimize the boom, but in reality you can only do so much with a mixed recording that is apparently extremely unbalanced.

No miracles short of re-recording. And Protools is not a magic wand . It's just a high end DAW. Basically, whatever you could do in Protools, you could do in any decent DAW.

[Corey Y]

This is the kind of thing that should have been address during mastering at least, if not mixing. Did the guy who mixed it also do the mastering? If so, I would strongly recommend NOT doing that in the future. A fresh set of ears is a pretty vital component to avoiding things like this. As ddnidd1 suggested, it could be mitigated slightly with some EQ, but it could have an adverse effect on other things. It would be better to remix and remaster, if possible, or at the very least get it mastered again by a professional from the original stereo mix.

To be honest and direct with you, if it's as bad as you're portraying it to be, this is not a freak occurrence. It's a failure of basic fundamental mixing and mastering requirements (ineptitude at worst, negligence at best). If it's not that bad and just a matter of taste, it's a lesson learned to actually check EVERYTHING and make sure it's what you want before you give the final mix and/or master approval. There's nothing wrong with having it done, with the understanding that it's a work in progress, holding on to it for a while and listening to in a lot of different environments. Make notes, then send it back for a revised mix or master. I understand budget doesn't always allow for that, but maybe in the future set your budget a bit higher to make some sort of accommodation for more mixing time, so you can listen thoroughly and without pressure to approve everything before it's been properly considered.

If it's a DIY thing...more practice for whoever did it. Running filters on extreme high and low frequencies and proper gain staging usually avoids problems like this, but a well done mastering job should still be able to fix this sort of thing, if you communicate the problem. Although ideally it would be identified and remedied without needing to be mentioned, if it's as extreme as you're indicating.

[stodgers]

Thanks both for your input.

We did have the same guy mix and master, though he did the mastering more just because we had spare time in a block. We're definitely considering another mastering job, but didn't want to go that route until we were sure that was the issue. We have the source audio files from ProTools, so when I asked if we could do it there, I meant without it being mixed down to stereo.

I really take half the blame. We should have listened to all five tracks in the car as you said. Even had we listened to just one more, the problem would have been identified easily.

Thanks again. I'll take these suggestions and we'll work from them.

[ddnidd1]

If you're trying to salvage what you've already got, you need to work with the individual tracks in mixing not mastering to make whatever corrections are possible.

Mastering is tweaking the mix not making gross corrections.

If the overall sound is as screwed up as you describe, it definitely should have been caught in the mixing process. You shouldn't have to wait to hear it on a car stereo.

If your mixing /mastering guy let this kind of problem go through, he's not much of an engineer. And that's being very polite.

[stodgers]

That is what is weird. We were all in the room, we all heard the mix. It sounded fine. Even with repeated listens. And it actually sounds fine on home stereo and through headphones. It is really just in our cars (and each band member has reported the same) that the "boom" is there. I'm thinking that it is the default EQ of how car stereos are set up vs. home. But still, it shouldn't be *this* bad.

I also noticed that this is the first recording ever that has driven my powered subwoofer in my home stereo. I can feel the throb almost as if it were a 7.1 DTS mix.

[ddnidd1]

If it sounds OK during the mix, on home stereo and on headphones then it sounds like the 'problem' is the car stereos with the subs cranked.

Assuming the home stereos and headphones are capable of producing a reasonable amount of bass, then I wouldn't worry about the performance on your car stereos unless everyone who's going to be listening will be in your cars.

If you correct it to sound OK in your car, it may just sound very thin every place else.

You want it to sound acceptable on as many different systems as possible.

[stodgers]

Good point about wanting it to sound good in as many places, but that may not mean all. I guess we're forgetting this was a quick demo done on a budget, not a Mutt Lange special.

[DuraMorte]

My recommendation:
Download Reaper. Insert the mp3 (or rip the song straight into Reaper off the CD) into Reaper. Click the FX button on the track, add ReaEQ to the track, and cut 150 Hz around 3-6dB with a bandwidth of .5 - 1.0.

[stodgers]

Thanks DuraMorte. Had a similar rec from a friend who does a lot of home recording.

[DuraMorte]

The important thing to remember is, that is a bandaid for if you can't go back to the mix. Obviously, the best option is always to go back to the mix and make adjustments. However, isolating the problem frequency makes the adjustment to the mix much faster and easier to pinpoint.

[seamonkey]

I've gone the headphone route because I can't keep a good acoustically correct listening space.

For those who want to use monitors to mix, IK Multimedia ARC is an interesting tool.
It's not cheap.
It comes with a mic to measure your monitors and room.
It takes the monitors and room out of the equation.
Then you can tell it to go into "car" mode so you can hear how the mix will sound in a car. It has several common listening rooms/spaces.


Other than that as mentioned run the track through a parametric, best be is a linear phase EQ so there are no phase issues with any extreme EQ.

[stodgers]

Old thread, wanted to close it out, but here was the outcome:

Took a listen to the individual tracks, learned that the mic'ed bass amp was useless and the source of most (if not all) of the offending noise. Luckily, we had gone direct as well. But we had actually taken *additional* recording time to do the mic'ed bass (I had broken my finger at the time of liver recordings), so I wrote the engineer a note saying basically that we got charged a lot for what was not a usable product and he got defensive and made no offer to rectify things.

We remixed with Don Farwell at Earwig in Seattle. Couldn't have had a better experience.

[longfinger]

Originally Posted by stodgers

Old thread, wanted to close it out, but here was the outcome:

Took a listen to the individual tracks, learned that the mic'ed bass amp was useless and the source of most (if not all) of the offending noise. Luckily, we had gone direct as well. But we had actually taken *additional* recording time to do the mic'ed bass (I had broken my finger at the time of liver recordings), so I wrote the engineer a note saying basically that we got charged a lot for what was not a usable product and he got defensive and made no offer to rectify things.

We remixed with Don Farwell at Earwig in Seattle. Couldn't have had a better experience.

Oh well, so much for the "mic the bass amp, it will sound better than a direct feed" idea. Makes me sad in a way.

[stodgers]

Yeah, especially when we came back in to do *just that* and he made no comments about the sound when hearing it through the phones. But it was clear as day - muddy crap.