Acoustic Guitar EQ Help

I've been fighting this mix for days. The acoustic guitar sounds muddy. This mix is flat (http://soundcloud.com/e-christina-herr/headin-for-a-wreck-122611).

Any ideas on what to do. It needs to be prominent at the beginning and end.

Thanks in advance.

Depends on what you've already done to it. Did you roll off the low end (high-pass @ 80-110 Hz)? That's always my prime suspect. ... If that's not the culprit, maybe carve out a notch in the 160-300 Hz range, but not so much that you lose warmth.

I've done just about everything to it...the cut that's posted is flat, though.

I think Christina's voice is right where that first position acoustic guitar is. Always seems to be a problem with heavy guitar parts.

I always put a high pass at 80....I'll notch the mids and see what happens.

I've done just about everything to it...the cut that's posted is flat, though.

I think Christina's voice is right where that first position acoustic guitar is. Always seems to be a problem with heavy guitar parts.

I always put a high pass at 80....I'll notch the mids and see what happens.

Yeah, a notch in the 3K range might keep the acoustic out of Christina's way, but that wouldn't account for the mud ... maybe you can find it by sweeping that 160-300 band ... ???

[EDIT: I'm only talking about the acoustic, not the whole mix.]

I often find a bump right around 200 adding mud, it's a common resonance in acoustic guitars and also in small-ish rooms. One trick I've used is to pull down a narrow band in that area and another at twice that frequency, so if I knock 3 db down at 200 I'll also pull down 3 db at 400, both with fairly narrow Q. A lot of what we hear as bass in our acoustic guitars is really the first harmonic, not the fundamental.

Fran

A lot of what we hear as bass in our acoustic guitars is really the first harmonic, not the fundamental.


That's something I'd never known — great tip, Fran!

I'd have to say that since the acoustic is not the "lead" in the song, i would concentrate on her vocal...... give her a little air with a short tight delay with low feedback (it winds up sounding like a reverb that's cleaner) a little presence around 6-8k and run the delay back into a channel to trim the eq to fit her voice....

I am listening to this thru my brother in laws' Mac desktop computer speakers so that may be what just i am hearing....

When i tend to get the support instruments "too perfect" the rest seems to need shining up.... and then the mix just doesn't have it.....

*EDIT*
i re-read what you had actually posted about what you wanted..... and then took a look at the speakers, well only one is working so i am getting the left side only, but it seems to be a full mix.... so much for technology

How was the acoustic recorded?

I'm no pro but here's my 2 cents:

I've had the same problem recording acoustic guit. lately using a cheap condenser. I had positioned the mic at the 12th fret region. The mic had to be so close I think I was experiencing proximity effect. I couldn't get the mud out. My eq was all over the place trying to get a clean clear sound; wasn't happening.

In the end I re-recorded using the guit's built in pup under the bridge. The sound was much brighter, no mud and eq'd much easier. YMMV.

kc

Thank for listening and for the suggestions. I have a long weekend coming up and will take a stab at it again.

And just to complicate things, our pedal steel player came in and tracked his part on the song. I'll be working on that, too. But wait, there's more...if our bass player is available I'll add her harmony parts.

Geez, this is just the second "mostly done" song of twelve for the album. I hope I'll be done by baseball season.

Thank for listening and for the suggestions. I have a long weekend coming up and will take a stab at it again.

And just to complicate things, our pedal steel player came in and tracked his part on the song. I'll be working on that, too. But wait, there's more...if our bass player is available I'll add her harmony parts.

Geez, this is just the second "mostly done" song of twelve for the album. I hope I'll be done by baseball season.

Keep hammerin', baby! You've got a long ambitious trail ahead, but You Can Do This. When the dust settles, you'll know a lot more than you do now, even if it's football season. Keep us posted on your progress!

It's an interesting question but I feel requires some more detail.

A few of the questions I would ask..

What is your base recorder, DAW or standalone ?

How did you record, mic or direct ? Preamp in the line ?

Do you have fresh strings on your guitar ?

What EQ patch did you use already ? Build from scratch or one of the presets ?

What is the curve ?

How are you listening to the mix ?


I personally start with presets which are embedded in the recorder or DAW and start from there. Generally if you have a good recording, clean, fresh strings and a preamp that does not color the sound you will not be that far off.


By using the presets, different ones, you can view the curve and hear what the differences are. Some are brighter, some add lows, some roll off the lows etc...sometimes making notes helps as well. We can learn a lot from the various presets by trial and reviewing the curves. You may find that you can edit a preset and save it as your own EQ patch that you like which matches your instrument. Trail and error. The great thing about DAW patch edits is the ability to save them with a ton of info, session name , date etc...easy to recall.

I wish I had the golden response, I don't. I go through the same things when I record at home. But I do have a group of presets that I have edited which are fairly close that I use as starting points.

It does appear , as mentioned above, that the AC is fighting for the same space as the voice, the notches as discussed above should make a nice difference in tonality. It may not take much to make a difference. Also panning the AC away from the center will help create it's own identity. I couldn't tell if it was panned away from the center. Just a thought.

good luck

t

PS, nice little song !

1st listen tells my ears the vox and guitar both need to come down in volume a bit. If you want the vocal to be the prominent instrument, bring down the drums and bass so they sit under the guitar. The vocal should sit slightly higher than the guitar. Everything is fighting for the same space, loudness war. Also, the guitar sounds very compressed. Try to lower the ratio and threshold a bit. Good tones on the instruments though. He eq sounds pretty good to me.

Ok, so i got home yesterday and took a fresh listen today.... the center of the mix is dense.... move the guitars out to the sides a bit and spread the drum kit out in the mix as well, or place it opposite the bass..... the bottom end is a little weak so the kick and bass can come up.....

Then take another listen to the song.... what do you hear then? I tend to create a mix that "looks" like the band on a stage.... so when you close your eyes, what do you see? if this were the live band, what would you want more of out front?
to me, the vocal needs a bit of shimmer.... but nothing too long or bright... a mid sized room type thing. but trimmed so that it's just the upper order effect being used

Just had listen and the guitars seem to be panned hard L & R, so that's gotta help with separation. Ths first thing that jumped out at me was the kick and bass seem right on top of each other creating mud. The bass is probably ok but the kick sounds a little flubby (is that a word?). Try eq'ing the kick by using a high pass (up to 40khz) and using a narrow q to sweep and find the frequency where the bass sits and then cut.

Sorting this bottom end out may help with the guitar.

Apologies if I'm teaching you to suck eggs but the bass kick thing is what jumped out at me.

Petey's comment spurred me to listen again, and I think he's right about sorting out the low-end muddle. Somewhere about 75-90 Hz is the point where I draw an imaginary line in the sand and try to keep the kick to the low side of the line and the bass to the high side of the line. Below that line, the bass offers nothing but mud. Above that line, the kick adds room boom and low-mid polluting din.

What I've started doing on almost all tracks is sweeping the hi-pass to where all low end is gone, then easing it back until the lows start to make a difference. (Does this make sense?) A lot of times, drums and guitars can load up on the 150-200 range, which should be bass turf.

Another tool you might think about is compression. I think it would focus the kick and smooth out the bass. Not to squash, but just to sweeten.

When you're settled on your EQ and comp settings, make sure to save them as presets, since the same sonic tendencies will likely arise from song to song ... you won't have to reinvent the wheel every time you open a new song file.

My opinion, and ymmv, after listening to it is:

The panning is distracting. The drums are too loud, & distracting. Something in the rhythm is off somewhere. The lead guitar, while sounding good and played well, is distracting. The little stops and starts are distracting, too. Don't hear much bass on my cheap speakers. The lack of dynamics are built into the actual song and the performance, and also may be too compressed. Hey, but what do I know? Just giving my 1st impression. Keep it simple because it is simple, but the song itself needs some work imho.

If it were me, I'd do one acoustic guitar track, pan it 10 & 2, put the vox in the middle and leave everything else out. It just doesn't sound like a song that wants all that other stuff to me.

Well thanks for all the comments and especially for taking the time to listen.

But this track is not mixed, eq'd or much of anything. I was having trouble with the acoustic competing with the vocal. It's nowhere near finished.

I'll have something better after New Year's...

Thanks again to all of you. This forum is really a fountain of information.

Recording & mixing is a sometimes thankless task. Been there. Everybody else is out having fun and meanwhile you're sitting there at the console gaining weight, being tortured by the same song again and again.

At one time I was the king of overdubs. I had so many assigments for pans my stereo spread was like a spider web. The recording didn't even sound like the artist live. You know what? I finally asked myself why it was so hard to mix and came up with the answer that, either there's too many elements trying to compete, the song itself isn't that great, or the performance isn't great.

So if I work backwards by a process of simplicity, I get to a great place which is: The artist plays it live, I record it, I mix it, it's done, and there's nothing that can go wrong or eat up my whole life as long as I stuck the mic in the right place. Otherwise, let Radiohead be Radiohead. It Ain't Me Babe! I do have a cassete recorder which will document the song if I need to. Freeeeeeedom!

As musicians we often make things so hard on ourselves. The best thing I ever did was to say "If I can't play it live, then it doesn't need to be on there!" All the sudden you remember that it's the song itself and the performance that counts. Not much else.

When you get to the point of trying to make sonic room for this and that, something's wrong. If the musicians played it well and at the right volume and you stuck the mic in the right place, there's no way you can't mix that. Too much mud, move the mic farther back, or turn down the bass guitar, etc.

Because I do have to take out the trash & stuff like that, and life is too short to stare at a machine all night long. I sympathize because I feel your pain. Don't give up. The best thing about a problem is that it can lead us to ask questions that can change our lives. For me asking that question changed me from sitting at the recording desk at two hundred and 15 pounds to being out on stage all the time instead. Different problem but I'm not the grumpy sob I used to be...

Now I'm a minimalist by neccessity because if I believed anything else, whether correct or not, I'd be right back where I was, with my ears hurting from wearing headphones for 12 hours straight.

I do need to take the trash out though.

:lol:

Here's the latest incarnation of Headin' For a Wreck (http://soundcloud.com/e-christina-herr/headin-for-a-wreck-010312). The acoustic is eq'd, there's a pedal steel track and backing vocals.

This is not the final mix, just a work in progress. Am I getting closer?

There still seems to be an (forgive the word) annoying frequency in the bass that distracts from everything else. I am not able to analylze this through an eq but I suspect it might be the dreaded 200hz. Try a narrrow q and boost and sweep to find the exact frequency and then cut to taste. The acoustic is certainly less muddy now but I wonder if there is not too much high pass now for the song?

The vocals seem to be recorded well, what mic did you use?

The vocals seem to be recorded well, what mic did you use?

I was given a pair of Joe Meek JM47's, (not the JM47a). It took a while, but I found that pulling the mic a foot or so away from the singer turned the ordinary sounding mic into magic.

...and the eq was mistakenly turned off on the bass and kick drum. I haven't posted that version but it's probably what you noticed.

Thanks for listening and for the comments.