cleaning up mud in 200hz area

domforr

I sent my mixes off to a mastering engineer to give his opinion on and one of the comments that came back is that there was quite a lot of mud around the 200hz area. 

I've used high pass filters to clear out most of the frequencies below 100hz on the vocals and stringed instruments (there are some odd folk instruments), but I'm not really sure how to clean up the lower mid area.

Any suggestions here? Do I need to be a bit more aggressive with my high pass filters, particularly on the low-mid stringed instruments? 

Or do you think this is best left to a mastering engineer to fix?

Winny_Pooh

Depends on the instruments being used. Post a link so we can listen. Conflicting frequencies are harder for the ear to distinguish at lower frequencies so you have less leeway for say Low mid vocals & muddy drums to be heard clearly and sound clean than say a ukulele, violin and cymbals. 

Generally you'd apply a single band narrow Q cut to the problem instruments. (rule of thumb is broad boost, narrow cut) Hearing the mud in the first place is totally dependent on your experience, monitors and room. 

domforr

Yes, one of the problems might be that I'm recording and mixing in an untreated room so what I'm hearing isn't really accurate. Perhaps one method would be to cut frequencies whilst having the other instruments playing as I generally cut when soloing. 

Cirrus

Sweep a parametric boost on the master bus around 200hz and see what it brings up. Do you suddenly have really boomy vocals, guitars and bass? Well, you've identified a problem there - you should thin out one or more of the tracks contributing to the mud. If you're not sure, while keeping that 200hz boost, start muting individual tracks and see what you have to mute to clean that region up. Once you've identified the problem tracks you can decide how to tackle the problem.

Leave it to the mastering engineer? No, if you can fix it you should. He's told you this specific issue because it's something that'll be much easier to fix at the individual track level than once it's all baked into a stereo .wav.

The thing about the 200hz region is that pretty much every single track will have stuff going on there. Bass guitar can get boomy there. Kick drums sound fat there. Snares punch or sound tubby there, depending on how high they're tuned - quite often on lower tuned snares a tubby, woofy first harmonic can be pulled back around that. Vocals have their body their, guitars have their fundamental frequencies and even some resonances from the cab, toms generally sound overblown with too much 200... basically, everything in the mix lives there.

One of my heroes, Daniel Lanois, says that the soul of the mix lives in those low mids. They're the hardest part to get right, since they're so busy, but if you just scoop them out like you're carving a pumpkin you loose a lot of the guts in the tone.

domforr

Thanks, that's very helpful. I am a bit nervous about approaching this as generally I'm happy with the levels etc in the mixes and don't want to mess up what I have. There's quite a bit of Boudran in the tracks and this may be contributing to the mud in that area. As you say though, there's so much going on in that area that it get's tricky to identify where the problem lies.

Would you say in general it would be safer to cut the less important areas of the mix - i.e. leave vocals and guitar type instruments and look mainly at percussion/keys/strings etc?

I would be very happy if I could get Daniel Lanois sound - amazing producer!

domforr

domforr

just an example to give you some idea of where I'm coming from. 
https://1drv.ms/u/s!AozLiXcK62nUsiUBWZTQl0mWEhdg

wave100

I enjoyed that track, good job. I would definitely look at the boudran and if there's any reverb on it, take it off. Have you tried high-passing the other tracks more aggressively?

domforr

Thanks, much appreciated. I don't think there's any reverb on the drums but I'll check that. I've cut the lows on most of the tracks, but I think you're right - I need to be a little less conservative and listen to the tracks as part of the mix, rather than how they sound in isolation. 

domforr

I should just say that there's actually more instruments still to be added - Hurdy Gurdy, violin, female vocals and oboe, so i think I really need to get rid of any excess clutter to make space for those parts!

Winny_Pooh

I don't think there is general buildup in the mud region. Just that the drum sound has far too much decay and resonance, needs to be damped and have the mids cut slightly and highs and perhaps 80-90hz boosted instead. 

One other niggle is that some of percussion is too close micd and tiring on the ears. Sometimes a dynamic on bright stuff works better than a condensor 

Everything else sounds good.

domforr

Very helpful, thank you. Any particular dynamic mic you'd recommend for future use?

shrinkwrap

Thanks for sharing the intersting problem and the solutions!

Have you changed the audio file domforr? - it sounds a bit different from when I listened at the weeked, but could be me imagining that.

I'm wary of making a suggestion, so pinch of salt needed.. (listening on decent AKG cans). The mandolin and guitar coupled with the tambourine sound a bit toppy and conversely the main vocal falls back a bit, lacking some top presence. Could a cut in the tops on the former be paired with a presence boost on the vocal?

Then again if you have a female vocal to add and the rest, it's all going to change a lot.

Be great to hear the final piece or other stages as you go.

domforr

No, I haven't changed anything - must be your ears playing tricks:)

You could be right about the vocals needing a bit more presence as they can sometimes get a little lost in the mix.

Here are the comments from the mastering engineer which may provide a bit more clarity on what he was saying:

I had a listen. I like the tracks. The mix is not bad.

It is really down to what you want. To me the tracks sound muddy. They need some cleaning around 200Hz. That's the main thing that I noticed. Yes they could also benefit from a bit more presence (high-mids and highs), but I wouldn't touch that until you clean the low mids. After that everything else could just fall into place without the need of any eq boosting.
Now, the thing is that the mixes have a nice balance. The 200 area is quite tricky and delicate especially in acoustic music. If you cut too much or on the wrong instruments the mix will sound terribly thin.

If you like the balance of your mix and you don't feel confident cutting out low mids, leave that too me, I'll take care of it.
If you want to try it, make copies of what you've done, it is very easy to overdo it and end up with a mix that is actually far worse than the one you have one.

If you want you could try with one song and send it to me. Have a listen to the reference tracks, you'll see what I mean when I say "muddy". Again, the mixes are not bad at all, if you prefer to leave that to me in mastering is fine.

Winny_Pooh

I think speaking to a mastering guy this early in the process is second guessing yourself. Record all the tracks, get feedback along the way and then go back and fix/re-record later. You'd be better off getting advice from a mix engineer perhaps. 

domforr

True. I suppose I just wanted some clear idea in my head of any areas to look at prior to mastering, especially as more instruments are going to be added. I do have a very good mix engineer that I know that could offer some advice I think, so that may be a good option.

octatonic

I am not a mastering engineer, but I do mix and I do work with mastering engineers on a regular basis.

I soloed the 200hz frequency area with one of my surgical EQ plugins (Brainworx BX_Digital V3 in case you were curious) and there is a bit of a buildup there but it is not so bad that you would call it 'crowded' or 'muddy'.
I'm actually hearing more around 100-150hz than at 200hz.

Who is the mastering engineer?
Is he an experienced & reputable guy or one of the many guys with a computer and Waves plugins who call themselves mastering engineers (for some reason there doesn't seem to be much in between those two types)?
What sort of gear does he have, what sort of room?
If he is a pro and you like his aesthetic then I'd take his advice over anything you get here.

As to how do you clean up 200hz- I wouldn't use filters, but just some gentle EQ- cut 1-2db of that area of a few of the instruments using it and compare.
Decide on what you want to occupy that space and cut a bit out of everything else that isn't that.

200hz is a crucial snare frequency but given you don't have a snare in the track it should be fairly easy to do.

domforr

It's this guy here: http://www.londonmasteringstudio.co.uk I've never used him before but the set-up looks good and he seems to know what he's talking about. 

octatonic

I've not heard of him before, but that doesn't necessarily mean anything.
He is a lot cheaper than the guys I usually use (Metropolis) but again that doesn't necessarily mean anything.
A 10 track album would be £350 from him, where Metropolois would be £1300 including VAT.

Are you prepared to take a change for one track and if you don't like it you've only lost £40?

I will say that I am somewhat skeptical of this whole iMastering thing.
Mastering is part art and part science- it isn't a foolproof formula of a thing- the main thing is having a rapport with someone.
I believe the best way to master an album is to do it in person- it is as much about the conversation you have with them about song order, things you might have done differently etc as it is the final product.

And it is nice to hear the album in a decent room, or at least a different room to where you tracked/mixed it.
Plus they have cool toys.

domforr

I've only ever mastered in person before, so this is a new experience but funds are scarce so it will have to be the way. I suppose the one safety valve is that you have the chance to send them back for changes if you're not happy. The last album I had mastered was at Abbey Rd and although it sounded great when we were in the room it needed changes afterwards after we'd had a chance to listen in our own environment. So being there in person can also be a bit misleading. 

Stuckfast

On the basis of a quick listen it doesn't sound to me as though the timbre of the whole mix is completely out of whack, more that when the busier drum part comes it, it lacks definition and comes across as almost a drone in the low-mids rather than a series of individual hits. If you've got a lot of compression on the drums it'd be worth backing that off, and maybe adding some upper mids to them.