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Problems with "clarity"

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Jimm
Registered User

Joined: 17 Dec 2005
Location: Inwood, Manitoba, Canada

Posted: Tue Sep 26 2006 08:26 Problems with "clarity"
I'm working on a little something right now, and it sounds fine and dandy, only trouble is it's got some kind of a "muddy" sound to it? Kind of foggy-ish, or something. Anyone know how I can get rid of that?

bigandymac
Registered User

Joined: 18 Nov 2004
Location: Leeds UK

Posted: Tue Sep 26 2006 10:25
a few things you could try: cutoff all freqs below 20hz, try using lfx, it has a pretty accurate filter. compress the kick and bass hard and set a low pass filter on that group at about 1khz. play with the volume envelope of the kick, make it shorter, see if that works. cutoff the top freqs (about 6khz) of everything but the percussion. try dropping some levels on some of the instruments to see how it sounds. reduce the amount of reverb you have. i love reverb and sometimes use too much, but it can be that less is more. (same goes for delay). these are all things i do to get more clarity, hope it helps.

Sunbuster
Registered User

Joined: 05 May 2003
Location: Finland

Posted: Tue Sep 26 2006 14:37
Another thing that might help is to see if there are some things you could move out in the stereofield more. Perhaps there are som strings that could play louder in the right channel and lead that could play more in the left etc. If you want to go really into details then you'll go through every instrument you have and listen to what their dominating frequencies are (what can't they live without) and cut or dampen everything else in that instrument. This would give more space to other instruments and could help also. On the same note if there are two instruments that both use a certain frequencyrange, then try lowering that frequencyrange on one of them only (the one that seems to suffer less from such a change).

G3ronimo
Hot & Sexeh

Joined: 27 Dec 2005
Location: The Netherlands, Wezep

Posted: Tue Sep 26 2006 15:11
Use some soundenhancer like MasterQ, it got a standard "clarity" option which is great put it on the master
www.soundsector.net

Frazze
Registered User

Joined: 12 Apr 2004
Location: Lund, Sweden

Posted: Tue Sep 26 2006 15:21
I usualy boost the high and middle fqs (a lot) in the mt mixer. Usualy does the trick.
http://www.last.fm/music/8ism

G3ronimo
Hot & Sexeh

Joined: 27 Dec 2005
Location: The Netherlands, Wezep

Posted: Tue Sep 26 2006 15:26

Frazze wrote:

I usualy boost the high and middle fqs (a lot) in the mt mixer. Usualy does the trick.

hmm yeah, also a way to do it I gues Smile

www.soundsector.net

Jimm
Registered User

Joined: 17 Dec 2005
Location: Inwood, Manitoba, Canada

Posted: Tue Sep 26 2006 18:09
Thanks guys!! Great tips, I'll execute them straightaway!!!

TNK / ATK project
Registered User

Joined: 13 May 2003
Location: Village-Neuf, France (Dont's search on the map, it's tiny...)

Posted: Fri Sep 29 2006 12:57

bigandymac wrote:

a few things you could try:

cutoff all freqs below 20hz, try using lfx, it has a pretty accurate filter.

Personally I noticed this works very well with good hi-fi equipment behind it, but leaves some basses that saturates on lower quality equipment (altough the original signal is NOT saturated). Does someone know what bass frequency to cut to avoid that effect on lower quality equipment, while keeping the bass as loud as possible of course (ex : Altough their Basses are strong, Benassi Bros music does allright on those equipments, while some other stuff like some tracks of the latest Madonna album don't always)

bigandymac wrote:

compress the kick and bass hard and set a low pass filter on that group at about 1khz.

If I'm not wrong, compressing hardly those elements will result in less "roundness" in them. How to keep the roundness and still have the power given by that compression ?

Some basses also have elements above 1khz (attacks, ...) assuming from what you tell here, this above 1khz stuff, while sounding good when listening with all the other tracks mixed, is in fact garbage when you consider the whole mix. Am I right here ?

bigandymac wrote:

play with the volume envelope of the kick, make it shorter, see if that works.
cutoff the top freqs (about 6khz) of everything but the percussion.

Does that basically mean that :

20hz -> 1khz = Kick, Basses + some instruments
1khz -> 6khz = Other instruments, vocals, some parts of the percussion.
6khz -> 22khz = Percussion only

?

What about specific sounds in the voice like "S" that require up to 8khz on some voxes to be clearly audible (especially high pitched voices or some strong ones... listen to Myl�ne Farmer or the latest Madonna album)

Sunbuster wrote:

If you want to go really into details then you'll go through every instrument you have and listen to what their dominating frequencies are (what can't they live without) and cut or dampen everything else in that instrument.

How to precisely determine this frequency ?

Switzerland : #1 earthquake provider! (Bootyshakin' Willhelm Tell ?!?)

Sunbuster
Registered User

Joined: 05 May 2003
Location: Finland

Posted: Fri Sep 29 2006 17:28
Well, you could use a spectrum analyzer to find dominating frequencies, but I'd say your ears are your best tools here. Just by listening to the instrument you can, at least with some training, probably make a pretty educated guess on the instruments aprox. dominating frequencies. Then it's down to playing with high-pass, low-pass, bandpass filters. When you can clearly hear the sound degrading you're probably too far in. Like everything, it's about practise.

TNK / ATK project
Registered User

Joined: 13 May 2003
Location: Village-Neuf, France (Dont's search on the map, it's tiny...)

Posted: Fri Sep 29 2006 18:36

Sunbuster wrote:

Well, you could use a spectrum analyzer to find dominating frequencies, but I'd say your ears are your best tools here.

...Assuming your system is well calibrated I guess.

In fact, the "alarm bell" is ringing here since last week. We brought our singer's 1st single at a top radio station. We went there with the radio station boss and we had both her single & Madonna's latest album in the Car's CD player. When heard on this equipment, our MTpowered (r) single sounded lightyears *ahead* of Madonna's album : The bass was stronger and clearer, the highs awesome... when we turned back to Madonna's album, it sounded like it had been mixed and mastered by a very beginner. The same feeling is got when listening to both tracks on my PC hooked to my hi-fi set.

The radio station boss congratulated us for having done the "best sound he has ever heard" and immediately entered it into the playlist (a proof he didn't tell us this just to be polite...). I listened to the song using the radio's webcast (I have no radio in my room, only a PC) and suddenly, while the other hits sounded OK (including Madonna's), our single sounded like it came out of a 1920 gramophon. Dull basses, dull highs, and lotsa noise.

I immediately called the radio station boss and he told me that they always listen to what's broadcasted and that our song sounded awesome in their headphones, that nothing was wrong about it.

I asked him to listen it via the streaming and he noticed the same I did. This time, Madonna defeated us clearly !
What happened is still a wonder for them - including their sound engeneers - but I have the following opinion :

I mixed (and mastered) using my equipment that both allows deep basses and high treble, without any noticeable distortion, making my mix as broad as possible, to put as many layers of instruments I could without having them interfering into each others. And indeed, the trick works... on a good equipment, where it even beats top notch productions.

But on lower equipments (or on highly compressed stuff used by some webcasting progs... an exemple : Videos on youtube.com), the major productions beat me, because they use a frequency range that has a decent response on basically every equipment (or compression). This could also explain why Madonna's single sounds less good than our production on good system : They were indeed the best because they knew they had to restrain themselves... a knowledge I didn't have. In other words, in that case, less means more.

So :

- Is my hypothesis right or stupid ?

- Does anyone know the frequency range that does OK on a basic equipment ? (I'm playing with filters on Madonna's stuff to discover this right now)

- If I have to tighten the frequency range of my mix to get it more "all around" I guess that I'll have to remove some instruments that would otherwise interfere and make the mix muddy... f*cking low level equipments ... but am I right here ?

Switzerland : #1 earthquake provider! (Bootyshakin' Willhelm Tell ?!?)

QBical
Registered User

Joined: 04 May 2003
Location: Utrecht , The Netherlands

Posted: Fri Sep 29 2006 19:31
muddy bass?? Then make a little dip at 200Hz... Oh and TNK... You must realize that all the limiting and stuff that takes place at a radio station needs some special treatment to your tracks. I suggest you contact an mastering studio to master your tracks properly, don't do it yourself because when you create a track yourself your ears aren't objective anymore. You can even ask someone else to mix the tracks from madtracker in protools or something like that, someone that mixes alot of radio top 40 productions. Help him with the mix and you should pick up some hints and tips and stuff... I changed my whole workflow since a few months now since I put my record out. I make all the music in madtracker and cubase and do a little bit of mixing here, just compensate for some crappy samples or for effect purposes. then I take all the tracks into protools and mix them in there using some fancy waves plugins and stuff. That way you can concentrate purely on the mix and not on the composition. Mind you there is usaly 3 or 5 days between the composing and the mixing stage. When I'm finished mixing I send it to the label, and when they agree with the mix they send it to the masterig studio. Now, when I first got back my master-copy the sound was indeed dull and lacked high freq my mix had, but in the club, on the radio and in the car it has much more power than my mixes or my own atempts of mastering those mixes. You may pay a few more euro's this way, or maby the label pays them for you, but you get a far better sound because 2 pairs of ears hear more than just one, and the guy that masters the tracks usualy has years and years of experience that we don't have...
PC: P4 HT 3ghz, 1gb ram, 500GB+ Storage, plextor DVD-rw, M-audo Audiophile 2496 Laptop: Apple Powerbook G4 15inch Other Stuff: Phonic MU802 mixer, Alesis M1 Active Mk2 Monitors, Ipod 2nd gen. 20GB, maxtor firewire HD 80GB

TNK / ATK project
Registered User

Joined: 13 May 2003
Location: Village-Neuf, France (Dont's search on the map, it's tiny...)

Posted: Fri Sep 29 2006 20:26

QBical wrote:

muddy bass??

Then make a little dip at 200Hz...

Oh and TNK...

You must realize that all the limiting and stuff that takes place at a radio station needs some special treatment to your tracks. I suggest you contact an mastering studio to master your tracks properly, don't do it yourself because when you create a track yourself your ears aren't objective anymore.

It's clear that one needs some time between the composing & the mastering stages. I contacted a professionnal mastering studio I have a friend in... but the mastering he did had the same problem - even worse in fact - than the original mastering I did.

Therefore I think it's more a question of mixing and in fact general conception of the whole mix (too few central frequencies I think).

But I'm working it over again, and the new mixes will be ready soon and the 1st tests I made sound promising, anyway, everytip is welcome.

I'll try that 200hz thing. Thanks.

Switzerland : #1 earthquake provider! (Bootyshakin' Willhelm Tell ?!?)

bigandymac
Registered User

Joined: 18 Nov 2004
Location: Leeds UK

Posted: Fri Sep 29 2006 21:28
the tips i gave were very rough guidelines. if you lengthen the attack on the compressor on the bass part this will allow the punchy part of the kick and bass to come through. bass parts usually do have higher freqs than 1khz. it was a rough idea. i usually use 2 or 3 bass parts, sub, low and mid, i separate each one using a band pass filter on each. the guildeline frequencies i gave are exactly that, guidelines. using those ones would probably give a very airy mix, i actually use the mid frequencies much more, and use a lot of distortion which takes up mid and high freqs. vocals should be given priority in the mix, so yeah, if they are in the 9khz range then dont filter that out. as for mastering for radio, i dont really know much about that, a quick look (and very interesting read) on google, i found this: http://www.sweetwater.com/forums/showthread.php?t=6744 which has some really good tips on it (check post no 10 by michael hoddy).

bigandymac
Registered User

Joined: 18 Nov 2004
Location: Leeds UK

Posted: Fri Sep 29 2006 21:33
i remember reading ages ago that if your track has very distinct stereo parts this doesnt come across very well on the radio, so maybe making the track mono, or the 2 stereo tracks the same would fix this (just an idea).

G3ronimo
Hot & Sexeh

Joined: 27 Dec 2005
Location: The Netherlands, Wezep

Posted: Fri Sep 29 2006 22:11
I must say... its very very very intresting to read this all, seriously, I think there should be written a tutorial with a few basics, and more advanced mastering thingy's irt TNK.. yeah ur hypothesis is corect, read this dozens of times on the net, seriously editL I must say that the 200 thingy works definately good.. hmm any more of this small tips and tricks that are easy to follow up, but still have a good impact on ones sound?
www.soundsector.net

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