Professional Mixing Help

[DrunkenMimes22]

Hello there my jam session friends. :chug:

I am in need of your help and judgement on my recent musical projects. I have recorded my own music for a while, probably about 2-3 years. Everything I have learned is either from figuring it out myself, or from reading posts on this forum.

I am using using a behringer xm8500 mic, xlr>1/4 adapter into my mic input into Cakewalk Sonar 4.0.


I think my songs sound very well mixed. especially for what equipment I am using, but i would love to hear some professional critiques. I am going to music production school soon, and before i apply somewhere I want some good recordings I have done on my own, to show I have the ability. Since the school lets in 10 people a year, I want to have the best. :) So any help would be appreciated.

http://www.soundclick.com/kentmcdaniel
http://www.myspace.com/kentmcdaniel

Northern Lights - one of my best recordings I believe.

Floating Away - second newest, pretty good production I think.

Downtune - my newest and craziest song, lots of different effects and tracks. (ex. the beginning acoustic guitar has a cloned track and i put a pitch shifting effect to where it plays a fifth up) it makes it sound a lot more "full". and surround sound panning effects. and little things like that.

you can comment on others as well but those three, i think, are the best produced. Thanks in advance :D

[ares]

northern lights is pretty neat. production is ok. Try some delay/reverb on the backwards guitar thing as well as add a small bit of reverb to the main guitar.

another thing, maybe add in some ambient keyboard background to make it "lush" rather than thin like it is now.

[Moseph]

I think you've got a pretty good portfolio for yourself. Maybe more as a guitar player than as an engineer, but most schools aren't necessarily looking for applicants that have a ton of diverse experience.

One thing you might consider is putting together a "bigger" arrangement. Based on what I heard, you've mostly got 1-3 layers of guitar, maybe some keys, and then ambient textures. Maybe find some others who can play other instruments, figure something out to some programmed drums and try putting that together.

Also, I gotta say that your stuff is a good example of the gear not dictating the aesthetics. Though based on your YouTube videos it seems to be largely by accident, that's a good guitar sound, and you did it using a single Behringer XM8500.

[DrunkenMimes22]

northern lights is pretty neat. production is ok. Try some delay/reverb on the backwards guitar thing as well as add a small bit of reverb to the main guitar.

another thing, maybe add in some ambient keyboard background to make it "lush" rather than thin like it is now.

thanks for listening man, and thanks even more for the critiques :D
i just noticed you are in chapel hill, im up in boone :D not too far away! lol


I think you've got a pretty good portfolio for yourself. Maybe more as a guitar player than as an engineer, but most schools aren't necessarily looking for applicants that have a ton of diverse experience.

One thing you might consider is putting together a "bigger" arrangement. Based on what I heard, you've mostly got 1-3 layers of guitar, maybe some keys, and then ambient textures. Maybe find some others who can play other instruments, figure something out to some programmed drums and try putting that together.

Also, I gotta say that your stuff is a good example of the gear not dictating the aesthetics. Though based on your YouTube videos it seems to be largely by accident, that's a good guitar sound, and you did it using a single Behringer XM8500.

thank you very much for your kind words. after reading posts around the jam session i was hoping you would respond since you are so knowledgable about all of this :chug:

By a bigger arrangement, do you mean just adding more instruments?

And is the behringer mic I have any good at all? I dont really know what a good microphone sounds like. For northern lights, I think i even used a long skinny 5 dollar radio shack mic lol. Would it be a significant difference to change to a shure sm57? And im sorry im kinda confused, what did you mean when you are talking about by accident on my youtube videos lol

[Moseph]

By a bigger arrangement, do you mean just adding more instruments?

Yeah, basically. Something with 8-10 instruments would be a good experience, and if it turns out well would be a good addition to a portfolio. If that sounds like a lot, keep in mind that a drum kit is normally at least 4 pieces.

And is the behringer mic I have any good at all? I dont really know what a good microphone sounds like. For northern lights, I think i even used a long skinny 5 dollar radio shack mic lol. Would it be a significant difference to change to a shure sm57? And im sorry im kinda confused, what did you mean when you are talking about by accident on my youtube videos lol

The XM8500 is pretty much the low-end, even for starter mics. The SM57 has a much more pronounced high-end. It's also a sturdier/more reliable. It also has a higher tolerance for high volume and (counter-intuitively) higher sensitivity.

However, your playing style masks this pretty well. If you were to play more legato or dulce pieces, you'd probably find things aren't as clear on playback as when you hear them live. A good mic with good placement can really make an acoustic guitar sort of "sparkle". I wouldn't rush out and buy a mic just yet. Wait until you aren't satisfied with something.

By "on accident" I mean that it looks like you just stuck the mic near the sound hole and went without listening to it first. What this basically means is that your good tone is more about luck than skill. I don't mean to offend, though.

[DrunkenMimes22]

cool thanks for the advice. I definately need to make a song with a lot of tracks, hopefully it goes well :D

and no offense taken :chug:
well, on the videos I did kinda do it randomly. on my recorded songs though, i seriously probably tested a million different ways lol. I like the sound of a mic'd acoustic guitar where you can slightly hear the pick strumming across the strings. You can hear where I did that on my song Floating Away.

Any more criticism or advice from yourself, or anyone else would be appreciated.

[DrunkenMimes22]

Moseph, I just finished a new song with about 8 tracks. Could you, or anyone else reading let me know how it sounds? I just figured out how to sort of use high and low filters and such, I think. Could someone tell me the difference between hi pass filters, and hi shelfing. and the difference between low pass filters and low shelfing?

http://www.soundclick.com/bands/pagemusic.cfm?bandID=541891

its the one at the top that says "I dont know yet" because it doesn't have a title

[fuzzyhair]

I really like the music man. You are an excellent musician. You should see if you could maybe do a town show where you just stand in the middle of a town square or something and multitrack stuff. People are usually impressed by that stuff and you can give out flyers to your myspace.

The quality is pretty good for what you are working with. I'm not that great at mixing yet, so take moseph's advice.

[Moseph]

Moseph, I just finished a new song with about 8 tracks. Could you, or anyone else reading let me know how it sounds?

Sounds good, but sort of sideways to where I was going with it. The variety is nice, but I was suggesting you have 8 or so tracks being mixed together when they play simultaneously, rather than consecutively.


Could someone tell me the difference between hi pass filters, and hi shelfing. and the difference between low pass filters and low shelfing?

High pass filters are fairly self-descriptive: the user selects a cut-off frequency, and the filter then attempts to remove any frequencies below that cut-off. How successful it is depends on the other settings (bandwidth, "steepness", any gain works).

The frequency plot would look something like this:

http://www.atis.org/tg2k/images/hpfiltec.gif

High Shelf filters attempt to maintain no change in any frequency until the critical frequency, at which point the filter attempts to apply the set gain to all frequencies above the critical frequency. Note that the shelf could be a boost or a cut.

I couldn't find an example of a hi-shelf boost image, but I did find a low-shelf boost image. It looks similar to what a hi-shelf cut would look like though:

http://www.head-fi.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=4737&stc=1

[DrunkenMimes22]

oooh ok I see what you mean. I will have to get creative and use my keyboard or something for that.

Thanks a lot for explaining those to me, if I wanted to keep my guitars at certain frequency above the rest of the mix, I would use a Hi pass filter and not shelfing correcT? And if that is correct, what would you use shelfing for?

[Moseph]

oooh ok I see what you mean. I will have to get creative and use my keyboard or something for that.

Thanks a lot for explaining those to me, if I wanted to keep my guitars at certain frequency above the rest of the mix, I would use a Hi pass filter and not shelfing correcT? And if that is correct, what would you use shelfing for?

You could use either filter type, depending on what works best with the mix.

Let's say that you have a kick drum that has some overtones you don't really like. The obvious course of action would be to low-pass filter it, since you don't want anything higher, and you're not losing much in the overall mix by doing so.

But if you have a guitar that has some low frequencies that are clashing with the bass, then you might consider some shelving filters.

The bottom line is that there are no hard and fast rules. Knowing what the tools can do, and then deciding what sounds best is pretty much the goal.