Hello, welcome to another episode of Inside the recording studio. I am Jody Whitesides and with me as always is Mr. Chris Hellstrom. I am once again impressed by your intro here very, very topical. I'm doing all right, man. Yeah, I'm doing good. How are you doing? Yeah, you ready to? Well, today we're going to chat a little bit of trying to clean up a muddy mix, something that, you know, as opposed most of us are trying to avoid getting a muddy mix. How are you today, Chris? I try, I try.
Good. I'm doing all right as well. What are we talking about today? more or less successfully, I guess. Yes. Well, I would start that that starts with muddy tracks that you get from somebody else if it isn't you doing the recording and doing it right. Yeah, it can be. Yeah. Right. Or if you just had an off day and had tracks that were just not well done. Well, it all happens. Well, we're going to try to see what we can do with all of that.
But as always, I think we'll try to establish here first. is what to us what kind of constitutes a muddy mix. So What's first thing you think of? lack of clarity to me. It's like there's you know that kind of Yeah, kind of like that intro. Mm hmm. like yeah, exactly. So lack of definition between instruments, you know, and that can happen obviously with a lot of Mm hmm. instruments perhaps occupying the same frequency range. So no
top end, just a cluttered mess basically. Right? That's what I'm Yes. I'm in agreement with it. thinking. You agreement with that? Or do you have anything the yeah and yeah and I can well the first thing I like to do is let's say I would use maybe slightly different terminology on a couple of the subjects, but that you just mentioned, however, it's the same concept. So I don't need to jump in with that. How are we going to fix this kind of stuff? Well, you are involved in the production.
this is a track that I'm getting from somebody else to mix I'm not involved in the production. I first well put a bit well but let's say if I'm not the just weren't involved in the actual recording. Okay. producer I don't have that kind of clout in this situation that I'm just making up at the moment but the first thing I look at is the arrangement of the song right and see are there potential issues there and this is Say that 15 times fast.
something I know we've touched on before but should stuff be simplified not necessarily from a song structure type of point, but in the arrangement is there like 10 keyboards doing a very similar thing? You know, is there two bass synths going on at the same time? And there's no like... I can barely do it once. So all Well, here's a question for you in regards to that. of those things are what I'm kind of looking at and see if there's any thing
that we can do to rectify right there, right? Removing a couple of things if they're not strictly necessary for the sound, that's the first portacall that I I tend to go to. Yeah. Well, you need to have a communication How heavy-handed are you with arrangement type things and how delicate do you have to be in regards to the artist when you're doing this. Yes, you do. with that artist. But yeah, I wouldn't necessarily just Are you sure?
automatically remove stuff. You know, no, I'm not sure. I might (sniffing) Hmm. do that. I have done that in the past where I've done mixes for people and they send me each guitar tracks has been recorded with like three different microphones. And I don't have a Sure. DI, right? And I'm like, okay, yeah, this is too much. It's not suiting each other. I'm not going to fight that I'm going to
go with the 57. That's the track we're using. So I've done that (huffing sound) and it's not like, Oh, what happened to the one that was Okay so whereELer Airport going to my mic'd with the esoteric octava mic or whatever happened to be what the? right. So yeah, if they're not adding anything to that, I can (huffing sounds) There's a whole lot of fun, be pretty heavy handed, but I would be a little bit more I haven't done these for about a year.
communicative, I suppose, if there's one of those things It's how well we're going to Sure. where, well, you know what, we have a guitar line doing this thing and you got four different synths doing the same thing. Right? Which one do you want to take priority and then kind of go from there? Because if you don't do that, if you don't have that communication, they just go, well, what happened to my keyboard pad there? That was my original idea. That was my
creative input on the song, you know. So go for it. You know, that reminds me of a real quick story here. I did an audition for a band known as Evan and Jaron, Yeah. and they had a couple of big hits and a couple of guys. I was on my way out of town when I was given the tape by a buddy of mine at the record label. And so I was listening to the stuff as I was driving out of town, and I got back the day of the audition and learned everything that was on the tape.
When I went in to do the audition, I was playing the guitar parts that I was given. I got done with the audition, (silence) Yeah, I remember this. and I don't remember if it was Evan or if it was Jaren, it was one of the two guys who piped up and said, man, you are a really amazing guitar player, but where did you learn those guitar parts? And I was like, it was on the tape that was given to me. Oops. Yeah, well, that's not the stuff that we gave out and that's not on the record.
(laughs) Somebody was in trouble. Exactly, oops. So I didn't throw my, yeah, I didn't throw my friend under the bus (chuckles) that actually gave me the audition from the record label, Sure. But yeah, that was pretty funny. So people will know when you take things out of the arrangement if they are very involved in their song, Right. which they should be.
But as the mixing engineer, as you mentioned, Yeah, and I mean, there should be good communication to talk about how the arrangement should yeah, it's easy as an artist when you have these ideas work amongst the instruments. [LAUGHTER] [END PLAYBACK] where you like to layer things to create a certain sound. [END PLAYBACK] When you're creating the actual part, (silence) it's like, well, this sounds great. [LAUGHTER] It's thick and full and rich and all of those beautiful adjectives.
But when it comes to putting everything together, it just might not work. And to go off on a little bit of a tangent here, that's why I'm not usually a big fan of a bunch of presets that you get for, let's say synths and stuff and just virtual instruments as they are, because it sounds like Vegas casino when you hit down a chord, right? There's so much stuff going on and that's impressive.
Or if you want to use the Vegas casino that you're talking about, it needs to be pretty And it shows what the keyboard can do and, you know, how much modulation you can use and whatever. But it's very, very tricky in my opinion to get that to use in the mix. So you have to kind of scale back a little bit to have it be appropriate for what it is that you're attempting to do. Yeah, right. You have to use caution there. Like you said, if
much primarily the only thing in that situation. Well, maybe four, it'd be more like Zach wild there's a lot of stuff going on in the initial patch, then you know, maybe you don't need eight electric guitars on top of it as well. You know, so yeah, because you got to have four, right? or something. Yes. Be like Zach. Arrangement wise. Well, I will reiterate the concept of Yeah, yeah. So so that. So that's the first thing I go to,
what other stuff do you start looking at? No, just if there's other topics that maybe that you you would go to. I mean, if there's anything you want to add to the arrangement thing, just go for it. Yeah. your layers. If there's too many things doing the same or even they don't have to be doing the same thing. They could be doing different things, stepping all over each other. And
that can also be a mess. And it's like somebody trying to throw the kitchen sink at a part Oh, yeah, I mean, I know I've super guilty of that in the past when you're creating guitar and it's like, why are you doing that? Don't. parts and stuff. Right? So, oh, this is cool. Yes, that's the idea anyway for some things. I can fill this little hole here, but now there's 16th note gaps and you know, it's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, take it easy, buddy. It's like simplify it.
There's going to be vocals on this too, you know? So yeah. The next thing that I'd probably jump in on though is the volume levels between tracks Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So it's like the dynamics of the track, right? It's kind of like what and in conjunction with that could involve using compression or limiting to help with those levels as well. Yes.
I'm thinking of as well, where you can have it breathe. And again, if you have all those glorious ideas with all your layering, that you kind of want that to be heard all the the time. So it's just that nice thick sausage of noise going on through your track or where nothing is really prominent because everything is just up front. So yeah.
Well the other thing that becomes a problem when you have a lot of compression going on is that if you have a lot of layers as well, it can exacerbate the problem of things stepping Absolutely. all over each other. So you have to be careful about that. Yeah, there's no go ahead. I'm sorry. Yeah, go ahead. But well, I was going to say it goes in line with something you mentioned in a previous
Yep. Yeah. And again, when we're while we're mixing those tracks and making those decisions, episode where a mix is not a democracy. You have to be heavy handed in certain things. And when you've got stuff that is muddying up a mix, you have to suddenly start being king mix guy and saying off with this head or off with it, but or off with this low or off with this high to kind of give it a different analogy.
True that, but last night I was working again on my happy space, to keep in mind that the track itself now might sound really really odd in solo mode but that's not how anybody's going to hear it. It's going to hear it in conjunction with everything else, so it needs to fit in there. So sometimes we can be... yeah. Uh huh. as I mentioned a few weeks ago with creating guitar sounds.
And in rewatching a famous series of movies called Fast and the Furious, which is always fun, there was one particular movie in that series that had a very, very distinct guitar sound in it. I recreated that sound last night 'cause I wanted one just like it. Good for you, man. Yeah. Well, there you go. Yeah, so we don't And in solo, it sounds kinda assy. It's a good way of saying it. But in the context of what that was and where I can envision using it in the future, it sounds good. Yeah. Okay.
listen to it in solo, we just hear it in the track. And so sometimes we have to be aggressive with those things. Yeah, the first thing just levels in between, even if you have stuff like that is super stacked, right, going back to that democracy thing, right? One thing is going to be prominent and then if you end up using all Okay. three or whatever you have to decide well what takes charge. One thing is going to be and the
other ones might just be tucked in between or if they're used at all, right? Because sometimes the layers make up a certain sound. So let's go back to that keyboard analogy again, right? Where they might serve different functions. So it's not like there's necessarily something [silence] inherently wrong with layering things if they create a cohesive part. It's just that, you know, we have to know why we're layering stuff and not just in the same frequency range or you're just
creating this bloated thing. So yeah, that's something to definitely look out for, I think. This cacophony of, "Rrar!" Right? [silence] Sure, I think so too. Yep. And while we're about to move on to the next section, let's actually stop for a moment [no audio] and take a word from our sponsors. And we're back. We're gonna move on from the dynamics and the arrangement portion of things and start talking about what?
EQ, because this kind of goes hand in hand with the layering of frequencies and this and that. Yes. Frequencies, frequencies, frequencies, So that's essentially it with like a muddy mix. There's too much frequencies everywhere. So exactly, so again you have instruments are fighting for space. everywhere. I would actually call that something slightly different, But that's why you're the linguist and I'm not so yeah. even though that's a good phrase, I'd say that they are masking each other. Okay.
Yeah, no, that's true. You're masking frequency buildup. Yes. Again, what's the most important part of the song? And generally it's always the vocal, right? If it's a vocal song, right? But when it comes to masking, That's what has to create. Sure. and let's kind of stick to this point a little bit. And you have instruments, as we mentioned earlier, Yeah. stepping all over each other. The idea there is that they're occupying similar frequencies and that's where problems can arise.
Yeah. Yeah. And that's where what we call masking happens, where they both can work in conjunction with each other and they might actually blend well. And that might be a good form of masking. But then there's the other kind of masking where they're not blending well.
And one is literally hiding another or actually clearing out another in terms of the fight that you were mentioning, where they might have problems with their phasing, even though it's slightly different from masking, Well, the most popular, I guess, way of looking at this or the most easily to sort of grasp but masking can happen in positive and negative ways. What's the best way to kind of deal with that?
is again, if we take that relationship between bass, whether it's bass synth or kick drum, right? Okay. Yep. Very similar, you know, foundational frequencies there. So just deciding what is going to take, what's the most important part? And that depends on the track and the style of music that you're doing, obviously. But I would use EQ then to maybe carve out part of that frequency range on the lesser important track, for one of a better phrase. So you might, let's say, you're very possible.
And there's a good chance you might have to get actually kind of aggressive with it, like Mark Needham or something. (laughing) It's all just, as long as you get the desired result and you have to do what you have to [ Pause ] do. It's not like you're mixing by math. No, I can't do this of any, I can't go beyond 150. Well, maybe you can on whatever instrument it is.
But let's say that you're cutting out a little bit of the bass part just to give more room for the sub and the kick or something like that. So that's a common way of doing it. And this goes up to any other frequency range, but I'm just using this as an example, right? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Where you might also perhaps cut part of the kick Mm-hmm. Or space for the more important part in that frequency range. one you get up to maybe like a hundred to give more space for the bass.
So using EQ to sort of create space for the other instruments is for the more important, see again, this is why you're the linguist and I'm not. But yes, other [LAUGHTER] [MUSIC]
things to do when we're talking about register here of the low end. I read when started doing this I was trying to soak up all the information that I could get my hands on and one of the things was that oh you should always low cut up until 150 right and that was sort of like oh okay well then I have to do that but then I struggled with weight in my mixes and so on because there was nothing there really right so don't yeah so you don't want to be too aggressive with You took it all out.
Or the low-mid. this but in certain tracks you don't really need a whole lot of the low end. Uh-huh. So yeah I wouldn't necessarily say go as high as like 150 because that's Okay. Okay. pretty aggressive but don't be afraid like if you have let's say distorted Okay. guitar part if you cut out up until maybe like 80 you might not really hear Okay. Yes. it depending on the tuning of the guitar and stuff like that of course but at standard tuning, you might not lose that much.
Yes. And that's gonna be filled out anyway with the bass and so forth. And also with other instruments, if you have like a percussive part, well, you can probably cut a little bit higher to make sure that there's no buildup of all those frequencies that you essentially don't want. And I know you do a fair bit of that, but on the opposite end as well, on the highs, right? So, yeah. I do both, both sides. Plus I also pay a lot of attention around 275,
Yeah. Right. No, I'm with you there. And in your ears. Yeah. 310 ish area, especially when it comes to bass and kick drums and things of that nature, as that can be a real rough range to get things sitting. So you want to choose which instrument's going to take over that little frequency range in my mind and in my ears. Yes. No, I'm with you there because in that range, that that sort of Mm hmm.
low to mid range, like between like two to 500 maybe. That's Yes, that's why you have to be careful with it. where a lot of the mud can live. However, that's also where sort of like the fundamental and the tone of a lot of instruments live, right? And that's why we get all that built. Yeah, sometimes just small notes can happen, or it can be enough, I should say small notes can be enough to get the result that [silence]
you want just to clear up a little bit of range there. But In that range, when I'm dealing with kick drums, especially if I'm doing more rock or kind of like a metal kind of a thing, I can take that knob and just scoop it all the way up Scoop it all the way out. [laughs] because there's gonna be so much information there anyway. Right.
If it needs it, be aggressive, [silence] but be careful in that range because that's where sort of, well, the weight of everything and the natural tone of the instrument lives. For most instruments, yes. Yeah, something to be really, really aware of. All right, I'm gonna concur with that Yeah. Yeah. and I'm gonna direct us now a little bit more towards, you've been given tracks. They're not recorded extremely well. They have issues.
Aside from just going with the idea of the arrangement and the dynamics and the EQ, you've got other issues now in terms of noise There are issues with the track is what you're saying. and the mic probably wasn't sitting in a good spot or the guy bounced out the tracks to you with weird EQ on it already and you have no idea why. Or somebody pointed the mic at the wall and got the reflection from the wall instead of the actual instrument, something abnormal. There are issues with the tracks.
Yeah. What do you reach for at that point? Well, I do have something I definitely reach for a lot, but before I do, if there's drastic Well, I'm saying this is what you've been handed. issues with the track, I will contact the client and say, "Hey, look, this is what's going on. Is there a possibility of getting it without the processing or could there be a re-record?" If that is not the case, then it's my job. Right. You now have to deal.
If it's one of those cases where nothing can be redone, because that's always the first Sure. port of call. Like if you get, if you have that, if that's not an option, no, the, uh, the drummer, he's Hire somebody else. on vacation in the Bahamas or whatever. Right. So there's no retracking, right? Yeah. But then there are sort of like special software for that. I mentioned it before I use RX for like isotope RX for a lot of things does an amazing job on like Yep.
Well, they got a very specific module just for that right there. You know 60 cycle hum on guitars and that type of stuff and and do all that Yeah, exactly but but the spectral repair is sort of like my first one that I tend to go to and Really if it's 60 cycle home, you're going to go to spectral repair.
No, not if it's not not if it's 60 cycle hum But but any kind of like thing if there's that rumble that you're describing, you know More often than if if it's say like just a specific frequency that is offending Right. It could be you know, you mentioned like there's an AC in the room when they did the vocal or whatever, right? - Yeah. - There's a few ways outside the software that and I agree with you RX is absolutely astounding.
Yeah, yeah Yeah. There's a few ways in terms of AC rumble as you mentioned Yeah. and this is an interesting tip that you can do is you can record a bunch of that or if you have it in the track already and you've got a blank section of track that has that sound. Take that, clip that out, invert the phase and run that concurrently with your other track that has the problem. And that should erase a whole lot of that actual noise.
Yeah, so here's one of those cases where we make phase work Now, will it erase other stuff? Yeah, it might. However, it will do a good job of getting rid of it because you're literally inverting the sound that is coming into the track that you don't need. And that's how we erase shit. Yes, we're phasing will work for you. for us, as opposed to to against us, right? Yeah. So But continuing on with the whole idea of cleaning up noise There's the guitar denoise or whatever with the string denoise.
using things out of isotopes, bag of RX, what else? Well, that's the one you just meant. Right, the 60 cycle. I was saying the module that you were talking about where it can take out the 60 cycle 50 cycle hum type thing. Yeah. Yeah. I have to pat myself on the shoulder. (laughs) Like a lot of times if I'm involved with it, that's not an issue because I'm making sure Very specific issues. that doesn't happen.
Yeah, all of those modules are sort of designed to Tackle different issues that they might have in your turn, right? Let's say that there is a co-host that tends to Smack his lips when he's talking Could have been that right there the things they can do that so those are things that can work on Or have a lot of click going on because there's maybe a little extra juice going on inside that mouth. You know vocal tracks in that kind of stuff as well
D click they call that. It depends on the track. That's very much track dependent or Right. So which ones do you tend to reach for most of the time? Sure. Or problem-dependent as it were. program dependent or problem dependent. Exactly. So for this particular podcast, as mentioned Yeah. in every single one of our liner notes for every episode, you can get the list of what's going on. But generally speaking, we have the mouth, the click, we have the spectral the noise we have.
Well, I think those are the two main ones that I'm using with this to clean up the Mm-hmm. audio a little bit outside of our normal recording of things. But when it comes to things like guitars, I remixed >> Yeah. recording that was done originally on eight ads with live amps, [ Pause ] not direct or anything of that nature. And there was a bit of 60 cycle ish hum. Now, it wasn't exactly 60 cycle hum and it wasn't exactly 50 cycle hum, but it was somewhere in that nature.
And the beauty of the guitar denoise module from RX is is that you can find hopefully a blank portion where you're just getting the noise that's coming in from the mic. And it takes a noise print of that somehow and it figures out this is where the hum cycling is happening >> Right. and it creates its own EQ curve. And I used that to clean up the guitar tracks [ Pause ] before I did the new remix of it. And it was magical. It was like, hey, wow, that's awesome.
So I've used that for guitar tracks. >> Yeah. [ Pause ] In terms of vocals, a lot of the time I'm using mouth declick. I'm sometimes using Depleosive, which takes out when somebody is too aggressive on the diaphragm of the mic and creates a big (blows) kind of sound. yeah It is very much program dependent this kind of goes hand in hand not necessarily with the muddy mix but when and they have like a good eight or 10 modules that are for very specific things.
Well, but something like the guitar denoise and taking out that hum, that is a bit of you're when you're creating a mix and like you said I'm oh yeah mud in the mix that isn't exactly like I'm slinging mud into my ear hole, but it is slinging noise that creates a problem. It's creating issues, right? Yeah, so no, but what I was going to get to there is that the first port of call, because And that's another definition to mud of mix, I think.
you asked me what do I do when I get tracks to mix, right? So we talked about the arrangement and all the things that we spent the better part of the last half hour talking about. But the first thing also is then to spot for any potential problems in the tracks. Yes. you're saying that whether string de-noise or the 60 cycle Well, it might not even hide them.
hum and trying to repair that before I tackle a mix. Because the problems are not necessarily going to be solved by throwing them up there, you're just hiding them right in there creating issues with with the low end. Especially Yeah, get a It might actually enhance the problem when you get things up to a line level, so to speak of a mix. guitar with 60 cycle of hum and then try to compress that a (laughs) a little bit and see what happens to that. This enhances the problem.
Yeah, so it handcuffs you to do that. Yeah, of course. So that's the first thing as well. But that's when I go to like dedicated software to kind of do that, to kind of take care of that And just to be fair, before you go in. So all, sure. Isotope is not the only company that makes this kind of stuff. Waves makes this kind of stuff. And then there's another company that does it, is like stupid expensive where it's like plug-ins or the software is like well over $10,000.
but that's when you're getting into like your forensic stuff for like government That was like forensic stuff, right? Yeah. This is just what we use and police type things. They do have some very, very specialized software to fix certain things. Isotope. Yeah. Been using it for a very long time. and we're both waving the flag here because obviously we're big fans of the products. Yeah. Yeah. How did you even hear that at NAMM?
Yeah. And the first time I heard something, I think it was at NAMM or something where they cleaned up some dialogue. It was like, what the hell is this kind of sorcery? What's going on? (laughs) Well, they had a relatively big booth Gotcha. when they had like a thing where they were talking to basically post guys, right? They were in that kind of industry and cleaning up.
Well, I would call what I'm doing So that's what it's prominent, but it does work wonders for obviously people like you and I were not necessarily doing post work at the moment, but cleaning up tracks. And for a little bit liberal with the definitions there, with this podcast post-work, damn it. (laughs) Yes, a little bit liberal with the definition. I suppose, yeah. But yeah, just to kind of recap there, (laughs) I look at the arrangement, we talked about dynamics, Huh?
you know, between tracks, EQ, the big one, obviously. Oh, that's awful, it makes things brittle. And I'd be remiss to say if I didn't bring this up because it's also very, very tempting to kind of just gain clarity by boosting the highs. And yeah, so again, right, it becomes that instead Always take breaks. and it becomes piercing. It's like, and it's one of those for me when I've noticed myself slipping into that territory, it's usually when ear fatigue starts setting in.
And then it's like, you know, right. (silence) Taking the same kind of care with the high end as you do with the low end, I think it behooves you as well, because again, my favorite example here but with electric guitars and stuff, once you get too high in the frequencies, it's just kind of noise there. So leave that, you know, that exactly that kind of stuff. (laughs) And it's just, oh, it's just kills you. But of course.
but leave that to perhaps percussion or reverb tails on vocals or whatever to kind of occupy that space. So I think all of that, we think about the low end first, but the high end is just as important for that kind of reason to get that clarity. So yeah, that's what I'm thinking. All right, well, with that, let's move on to our Yeah, that's what I'm thinking when it comes to muddy mixing. We're fixing them rather.
I will go first and this is one of the things where people are going to roll their eyes Righty finds Chris, you go first. I'm already doing it. at me. Yeah, but speaking of mixes in hopefully good mixes, I was reminded this week, what an awesome Okay. mix the music for the spheres album from Coldplay is now people Well, before I jump in, who mixed that? would go Oh, that band really but yeah, you listen to that
album and tell me that's not a great sounding album. That is my fine for this Friday music of the spheres by Coldplay and you sir what do you have? Yeah, it was one of those like a team of mixers. So there's a bunch of names that I don't have. memorized. I know they've done works with Brower in the past, but he was not involved in this one. Gotcha. He actually did another album that I really liked sonically from them, so Milo Salado, Yep.
which is just like when it comes to like pop mixing and the clarity and stuff. Man, There you go. if you can reach that, more power to you, you know, but that's why he's Michael Brower and I'm not. Yeah. What do you got? Yep. Well, my Friday find of this week is Roland just released the Juno 60 chorus so that you - Yep. - So you don't need to have the sense, yeah. you can go and get that retro Juno 60 chorus vibe. And it is a separated plugin from the Juno 60 synthesizer.
And essentially you don't need to have the synth, - I'm down. but you do need to have the plugin and it's the Juno 60 chorus. And all it is is an 80s style analog stereo chorus that Roland already has in their bag of tricks. Can you really have too many choruses? So no, I mean, Very cool. Nice. There's different ways to achieve chorus and some are very simplistic and simple. And then you have things like the Dimension D and then you have things like the Roland Juno 60.
Roland Juno 60 is my choice of this week. While we've got your attention, [ Pause ] we ask that you go to inside the recordingstudio.com and sign up for our mailing list. Doing so will get you a nice little present from Chris and I. You'll also get weekly reminders about the Tuesday tips when they come out and we'll make sure that you don't miss any future episodes of the podcast.
Send us an email at gold star G O L D S T A R at inside the recording studio.com with the word mud and you'll get something cool back in your inbox. Thanks for listening, everybody. I'll talk to you later, Jody. If you have a topic of suggestion for Chris and I to talk about in a future episode, contact us at the contact page and we'll put it into consideration for a future episode. With that, I'll say, "See you next week." ( Inaudible broken word ) [ Bombs whirring ]