How to make these 2 tracks sound fuller/clearer/less muddy?

Gravitas

@annahahn said:
@Gravitas thank you for the example track! everyone is sleeping around me now but I will listen first thing in the morning thank you very much!

No worries.

I am guilty of mixing only on headphones- do you have any tips on how to avoid this/correct it given that I do not have a way of working on speakers or monitors at the moment? I have great headphones but I'm sure mixing this way comes with obvious biases

If your only mixing on headphones then test your
mixes in a car or use a Bluetooth speaker.
Basically you need to be able to hear it on something else.

Bluetooth speakers are handy especially if they are mono.
I have one specifically for this purpose.

Whatever I use for mixing be it monitors, speakers, headphones
I listen to tracks that I already know the sound of so that
I can hear how the headphones or speakers project the sound of space.

By day we tend to listen to sounds much louder and by night much quieter.

So if you're mixing all day?
Switch off or listen to something else.

If you're mixing at night time?

Turn everything down.

Find your quietest instrument or sound and
set that to about mid way on a level meter.

Then shape the mix around that sound.

Another way would be to set your
headphone volume using an oscillator at about 1k.

Turn down the volume of your headphones,
not the main mix of whatever DAW you're using.

Set an oscillator or sound generator to 1kHz at a volume of about -17dB.

Turn up the volume slowly until you find the
volume your comfortable with at the moment.

Here's a screenshot of Oscillator which I use that you can download for free.

You can see my iPad headphone output is about midway.
That's the volume I regularly use to mix with at night time.
It gives me plenty of what is called headroom.
I can safely turn up the volume from there without getting ear fatigue.
I tend to find that it doesn't go above 3/4's.
This way I can mix for hours.

I know what you mean, the sense of space is very strange even though certain elements like the bass are mixed in mono.

The reverb that you're using is smearing everything.

I would suggest turning down the reverb
or even switch it off entirely and get a good balanced mix
and then bring up the volume of the reverb.
Check the reverb that your using to see the dry/wet ratio.
If you're using an Aux then it should be set to 100%wet.

If you're using it as an insert then adjust to taste.

I had listened to your track on my monitors
then I listened to it on headphones.
It sounds much better on headphones.

It's a classic headphone mix.

joniqwest

It has been a very helpful thread for me !

@McD said:

@McD said:
It's at this point in an @annahahn thread that it typically dies slowly without closure. No improved mixes
are ever shared to show the effort applied was applied to the problem stated up front.

I'll put some crow in the microwave and see if I need to eat up. If not the cats will get a snack.

The upside of course, is that there a lot of useful advice here for everyone to sample for their own education.

hisdudeness

@annahahn said:
Hi @Gravitas

Thank you very much for this!- just to make sure I understand you correctly...when you say centre sounds, do you mean midrange?

I feel like it’s lacking mid body in a strange way also...maybe I need to go back and rework the instrumentation to address this zone more, I’ve tried a combination of saturation and stacking lower notes to address this but perhaps I’m not there quite yet

There is No instrument which is The lead or centre of focus

I would recommend, do this number with two or 3 tracks with one lead and two Main supporting Tracks . Once you can get that sounding good in stereo/mono.. then try adding all the other tracks you have one at time , everytime asking yourself , is this is enhancing your track or not

I found the below really helpful to understand some concepts (that is how to think while creating a track). It’s a simple one

No I don’t use neutron, This is just something for conceptual purpose only. For me that is important , how do producers think , what were they thinking while making that descision

I’m am currently, holding a subscription with pure mix ,listening to some of them blows my mind
, highly recommend if you can afford

.. of course that has not made me a grammy mixer, but just new ideas and perspectives, sometimes that’s all you need , like the gift of this forum

king_picadillo

@Tim6502 Thanks for the link to the Kush guy. I’ve watched a lot of mixing tutorials and read a couple of books and this guy has some great takes on classic methods and also some techniques that are new to me and really made sense. Strange I hadn’t run across this channel before.

Tim6502

@king_picadillo said:
@Tim6502 Thanks for the link to the Kush guy. I’ve watched a lot of mixing tutorials and read a couple of books and this guy has some great takes on classic methods and also some techniques that are new to me and really made sense. Strange I hadn’t run across this channel before.

This came from @noob in this AB thread: https://forum.audiob.us/discussion/40678/hit-that-mono-button-for-a-tighter-mix-house-of-kush
I love how passionately he talks about his craft. Focussing on less can help you achieve more.

king_picadillo

Thanks @noob as well for the original illumination.

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