Can anyone give me some advice on getting my instruments to sound more clear?

When I add a bunch of instruments together, obviously, they start to intefere with each other and the sound starts to blur. If you notice in professional trance tracks, the instruments sound clear and crips, even in the presence of multiple instruments. How can I get mine to do the same?

I've tried compressing my instruments at different ratios (perhaps not well enough) and also panning them in different areas, but still it isn't working.

Can anyone give me some tips?

Thanks!

Lester

EQ, learn it

I'm reading some stuff on EQ now. One book is called the Mixing Engineers Handbook.

The EQing chapter basically tells you to EQ according to the prominent range of each instrument, but that still doesn't help that much....

EQ is a big one, but there is also panning and levels. Read about EQ notching.

Also, watch the effects on each instrument, especially if you are using presets drenched in reverb and delay. Try turning them off until you get the EQ, panning, and levels set. Then, turn them back on, but try starting with them turned down and bring them up to levels that aren't overbearing. Another tip is to turn off any reverbs on your synths, and send them all to a common reverb bus instead - this will put them in the same space and avoid mixing up a bunch of different reverbs, which can start sounding muddy quickly.

That's a great book, btw.

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Okay,

I spent all night playing with EQ and, damn, it's starting to sound good! I should have spent more time doing that.

I will try panning and adjusting my faders more this evening as well.

Thanks guys.

Lester

It could also mean that in your song, you've added way too many instruments than you should. Sometimes they occupy the same frequencies and you can't do a thing about it because if you cut you are cutting around the same area, and if you boost, you are boosting things that aren't there.

But it seems like your problem is solved, just adding thoughts here.

i would start with the arrangement. People can only keep track of 2 things at a time. So if you aren't doubling things, then keep in mind that having more than 2 attention seeking elements in your mix will just not work.

When i used to do EDM, the litmus test was really having a mix with no FX what so ever and sounding ok. No compression, no EQ . The only fx i would have were aesthetic ones to achieve a sound. So no mixing fx i guess i s what I mean.

if your mix sounds ok like that, your job is mostly done.

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quote:

Originally posted by Looney4Clooney i would start with the arrangement. People can only keep track of 2 things at a time. So if you aren't doubling things, then keep in mind that having more than 2 attention seeking elements in your mix will just not work. When i used to do EDM, the litmus test was really having a mix with no FX what so ever and sounding ok. No compression, no EQ . The only fx i would have were aesthetic ones to achieve a sound. So no mixing fx i guess i s what I mean. if your mix sounds ok like that, your job is mostly done.

Ah ok, so in other words make sure that the arrangement itself is as good as it can be before messing around with FX?

I think that is definitely somewhere where I can really fall flat and need improvement

Whenever I create another channel in a project and introduce another sound, I'll always make sure the new sound works in the mix before I do anything at all to it. EQ should be used to nudge or tweak a sound, not fix it.

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Yeh kinda what Tehlord said I agree. What usually happens with me is I get my bass so loud and bright by the time I get to my synth sounds and fxs the bass overrides everything. But there is really a lot more too this than just equal and panning.

Panning will help get the stereo field full and give instruments space. Equal can help clean out conflicting frequencies. But after that you will usually find its still not enough. What it ultimately comes down too imo is the timing of when specific instruments hit. Grooves should be made in a compensating way so when there is air in the bassline, your plucks or synths hit, or if you have a mid hat in mono hitting same as your clap, throw the timing off a few ms. Also adding pitch lfos to claps help them cut through better imo. And never forget that less sounds will overall have more sonic impact and sound louder and clearer in the end.

But really I think its all about the arrangment. You simply can not have every sound hitting at the same interval. The more of an interplay you can have, where sounds are sounding off when there is actual headroom for them to be heard, the better and clearer a mix will sound. Compression can also play a huge role too. Like compressing instruments into a compressed mix. And watch your attack times I never go under 20ms with almost any sound. Sometimes it can stablize things or help things squeeze out a little better. Fuck there is really so many different ways to tackle this but I think generally you are best of focusing on arrangment and groove. And obviously don't throw sounds in that automatically drift off to the background. Although layering is something that can sometimes fix that. Likely a hundred different ways to address this issue and takes a lot of practice to get it right imo.

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