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How to make things more blended?

i_got_a_mohawk

i_got_a_mohawk

Feb 9, 2005
17,483
505
40
Edinburgh & Dundee, Scotland
#1
We recorded everything individually for the first time as a band, and, well, individually each instrument is sounding better.

But, everything sounds too seperated, if that makes any sense?

The drums were laid down on an E-Drum and we used EZDrummer, and it sounds great.

The guitar was recorded through GuitarRig 2 and currently we have the clean guitar, and can alter the guitar sounds completelly.

The bass was recorded DI, a clean and dirty (BDDI) mix.

But, there are real problems trying to get it to sound like its mixed well. Is this a mixing problem, or is there anything obvious that helps beef the overall sound and mix things more?

Cheers guys,

- Will
 
#4
i_got_a_mohawk said:
We recorded everything individually for the first time as a band, and, well, individually each instrument is sounding better.

But, everything sounds too seperated, if that makes any sense?

The drums were laid down on an E-Drum and we used EZDrummer, and it sounds great.

The guitar was recorded through GuitarRig 2 and currently we have the clean guitar, and can alter the guitar sounds completelly.

The bass was recorded DI, a clean and dirty (BDDI) mix.

But, there are real problems trying to get it to sound like its mixed well. Is this a mixing problem, or is there anything obvious that helps beef the overall sound and mix things more?

Cheers guys,

- Will
Click to expand...

Generally I find if things sound too seperated the pan on the instruments is set too far out to the sides. Rhythm guitars are generally at 10 and 2, bass and drums center.... with individual tracked drums slightly off center just as you would view the drum set.

If things are canceling each others sounds out when at appropriate levels, and pans that aren't on top of each other, use a subtractive eq on instruments to get everything in it's eq spot. That is take bass off guitars and the bass drum, and vocal so the bass guitar come out.

I've found subtractive eq of a mix can make it shine much quicker than just volume levels and pan alone. The less bass frequencies in all of the instruments the louder you will be able to boost it when you go to master it. Notice I said less bass frequencies and not less bass guitar.

Too much bass is usually not the fault of the bass guitar track strangely enough.

I had one acoustic guitar track that my guitard and set up in such a way that when she played it a certain way it was woofing in the mix. I had to solo every channel to find out which track was the culprit. Darn guitar players always concerned with the sound of only their guitar.

If you only have one guitar track double it for thickness and put one at ten and the other at two.

I also like to add two bass lines for depth. One di and one from my pod. and put the di at a lower volume level with both tracks centered. Gives the bass more depth.

Don't know if you knew all that already, but hope it helps.
 
#8
I would say to try throwing a little reverb on the master track to give everything the appearance of being played in the same room. Right now, I'm assuming that everything just sounds dry and not well blended.
 
#9
Mohawk, I'm currently using ezdrummer for demos. I'm really impressed with this software(even compared to Superior), so I've decided to go all-out with it and try to get "THE" sound. One thing (besides careful equalisation)that really improved the overall cohesiveness and punch was McDSP's Analog Channel. Put it on the mix bus (AC2, RC1 preset with input boosted to +3db) and it imparts a warm punch that just seems to glue the track together.

I also use Altiverb with a short plate 480L impulse response to tame the "ping" of the snare and further blend the kit together.
 
#10
Send all the instruments to an aux send and strap your favorite reverb to the aux-- maybe a small room or a plate.

Solo the aux channel and adjust the amount of each instrument you are sending to the verb. If you are trying to recreate a natural soundstage, pan the guitars accordingly in the "room"-- don't send so much bass to it unless you're also highpassing the verb, that's a recipe for mud.

Send a little more drums to the verb to simulate the fact that they are off at the back of the "stage".

Unsolo the aux channel and bring the level down to where you can just hear it, then back off until you can still feel it but it isn't necessarily audible.

Works for me.
 
#11
That issue is common when you combine a lot of DI stuff and sampled drums, etc. EQ and compression will get you far. As for sending stuff to auxes for reverb, it depends on what you're going for. If you're going for the "live gig" imitation, then you can use a common aux for everything. In my opinion, it's true that in good mixing technique you imitate stage positions, but don't go overboard with that. I would actually use several auxes, because you probably don't want the same reverb being applied to the kick drum as the snare, for instance. Also watch out for the high frequencies as well as the low frequencies in reverb. Too much reverb on the high frequencies can really ruin the punch and presence of the instruments, and too much reverb on the lows can muddy things.

Just an aside... I've heard good things about EZDrummer, but I bought the NS Kit7 (which is around $100 USD I think, but I remember I got a discount to boot at the time), which is an extraordinarily large drum library with an incredible amount of articulations.
 

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