quote:

Originally posted by Matt_Moor finding it tough to get my pads and lead to agree together. Is there anything which can aid the fight? I have a reverb on the pad and a seperate reverb on the lead to try and give them soom space along with EQ for each.

Post an audio example as well maybe?

I tend not to use too many separate reverbs within a project. I usually have one long, one short and maybe the odd spot FX reverb here and there. Having lots of reverbs is one of the quickest ways of muddying up the mids imo.

Make sure they're both high passed up to perhaps 100hz.

One thing worth trying is ducking the pad with the lead, not for a pumping effect but just to give the lead some space. I'd say go back and take a look at the reverbs first though.

Another way to look at it is have you chosen the right sounds that go together in the first place?

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TBH i rekkon too much reverb will mush the two together even more. Obviously they need a good dose of it to give them epicness but just saying too much makes it even more mushy. You'll want as little reverb as possible to get the desired epicness.

I always try and low pass my pads (or just design them on the synth with the filter closed a bit) to make em more mid-rangey/warm and make the lead a bit more high up, sharp and defined by cutting the bass and maybe even boosting the highs to give it more definition and sharpness which should seperate it from the mid rangey pads a bit more.

If both are highly dense unison/supersawish sounds then this can also loose the definition aswell.

What i would do is start with all effects like reverb off...and see if that does the trick...try to adjust the levels maybe...

There has been so many times when i thought it might be an EQ problem or something when it was really just to much reverb or something on one of the channels instead of the EQ that was messing things up.

As far as EQ, i usually cut everything on the low end for leads and pads, usually around the 500k range. When in doubt use you ears.

Sample would help out a bit.

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Im mixing this all in AKG K271 Studio headphones with no monitors so forgive me if it sounds rash

The lead sound has a Parametric EQ, then Reverb, then delay, then a compressor in that order.

The pad has parametric EQ, then reverb.

The master bus has everything below 400hz mono, then a 33hz & 18000Khz cuts, then a multiband compressor, then sonic maximiser.

Not enough stereo elements. Your lead and pads seem to be completely mono.

cool track, the lead/pad could both use some stereo width though

quote:

Originally posted by Morvan Not enough stereo elements. Your lead and pads seem to be completely mono.

I dont know how that happened i am using a plugin on the master to set everything under 400hz to mono but apart from that everything else in regards to that *looks* fine.

@asdfg what kinda of plugins can help with width? Or is stereo seperation the same thing?

Take out the bottom end of the pads, and the leads.

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I wouldn't be using anything on the master channel that's effecting anything below 400hz. If you want something in mono, then make it mono at individual channel level.

The pad sounds a bit complex and verby to really sit in a mix properly, it's moving around a bit too much.

I'd take all the reverb off both parts and send them both to a reverb send channel.

Then duck the pad sound (maybe try a different sound as well) with the lead a bit.

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yeah think im just gonna dump that pad. Lesson learned i guess thanks guys

quote:

Originally posted by Matt_Moor yeah think im just gonna dump that pad. Lesson learned i guess thanks guys

Forgive me for spamming your thread with this link, but I think it's appropriate in this case :-

http://soundcloud.com/bluffmunkey/go-solar-wip

This has both a huge verby lead and a pad going at the same time. The lead is ducked with the kick, but that shouldn't be apparent as the ducking is set to be fairly transparent. The pad is also ducked with the kick but more obviously. More importantly they both share the same reverb send which is...guess what.....ducked by the kick!

I don't think the track is overly 'sidechained' but ducking can be used to create a lot of space in a mix without being obviously pumping. The pad was chosen after I had the lead sound down specifically because it sounded good with it and didn't clash. They're both high passed up to about 200-500hz somewhere and the lead has a high shelf boost on it around 3-5khz from memory to give the top end a little boost.

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