EQing and Mixing guide.
 

Since I end up doing this a lot, I might as well make it an open deal. If you tried to EQ and you're not happy with what you got, or you want to see if there's more that can be done to your vocals or your mixing procedure, shoot me a file of an acapella DRY ("dry" means it has no effects, no filters, nothing at all done to it) and I'll shoot them back to you wet and EQ'd for comparitive purposes and to see whos' really not getting them most out of their set-up. I'll also tell you what I did and how you can do it for your self.

Just know that I use terms that the average engineer would use such as:

Lows: aka Bass. These are frequencies that are about 300Hz and down. This will affect the body of your voice and manifests in your vowel sounds during your pronunciation of words, like "word". The "er" sound is directly controlled by the lows aka bass. Go too high on it and you'll start hearing sounds that you didn't want to, like line noise and your 'b's will be far too heavy on your vocals. Setting this will depend soley on voice type, and the set-up. Males are WAY differnet from females, and all male voices specifically need certain tuning that other male voices won't and similar applies for certain ranges of female voices.

Mids: These frequencies are about 500Hz to 5000Hz. The overall sound and tone of all your words. Could make the difference between a track sounding muffled, or sounding open and alive. Go too high and you can easily sound like you're screaming high-pitched sounds instead of rapping actual words.

Highs: aka Treble. Frequencies about 5000Hz and north. They affect sharp sounds and hard sounds like K's, S's, P's, B's, D's, etc. In a word like "word" the "d" in word is directly tunable with the highs. Going too soft on it will make the "d" sound dull, almost like "wor" where as going too high on em would make it sound like "wert".

Oh yeah, it'd help if you told me what make and model of mic you had too. But remember, dry, and no beat, just acapella. 1

PS, please don't IM me or PM me asking to mix your entire song for you!! not gonna happen!!

so basically you want to tease us...

Idea: Your recording habits are pretty good, you don't move around a lot while you record so it makes keeping the volume constant a real breeze and also meant I could employ some tactics that'll make your vocals sound even more alive and life-like than someone who moved around a lot.

Mic: Samson C01U. This mic was "ehhh ok" when I first heard it. Sounds more like a good dynamic than it does a condenser, but with some polish, this is what I got:

http://acapellauploads.dmusic.com - the difference starts at about 30 seconds in.

What I did:

I turned up the noise gate to 35% of max in order to cut out the extra soudns liek the instrumental formyour headphones, various fans, shit liek that. Still kepy your vocals clean and clear. The vocal compressor is also up about 35% of max which leveld off your volume on your lyrics so some words don't sound liek youre SHOUTING while others sounds like you're trying to keep a secret.. The reverb and echo respectively are both turned up extremely low - sub 10%, just neough to soften the sound with the echo and melt it toward a beat more via the reverb.


The EQing levels, I boosted the low frequencies (aka Bass) 30% to add more thickness to your vocals, cus the mic stripped or just flat out cut a lot of it, then opened up your vocals and added a shitload of clarity by boosting the midrange frequencies all 70%. The frequency of your mids was also turned up which opened up your sound a lot more as well, but to offset all the sizzzle and sharp sounds that was on it at the time, the high frequencies (aka Treble) were then turned down 48% of max.

Nope, I want to show you how to mix your own shit and become better at making good music as well as be more self sufficient instead of asking or relying on someone else to do it for you. Teaching you to fish instead of giving you the fish. How's that teasing?

oh ok...i thought we were just gonna send you are sample then you were gonna clean it up and send it back...(not telling us how you did it)

and damn you for editing your post...lol

Shut up doomsday

word dope shit Apexx. I'll make sure to holla soon. :cool:

Only thing I added or changed were the "terms" lol.




that's what's up. Now you won't have an excuse for wack quality : X

^lmao word....... my mic can produce much better quality then I get it to. Shit was $200+. lol my mixin' sucks :(

You don't gotta remind me. I get depressed just thinking about it.

lol word. I got bad headphones, and don't have any clue as to how to work my pre-amp, that mixed in with a noisy area to record, doesn't look good for the quality. =/

wackness.

Shoot me an acapella verse mofo. Betcha we can fix it :cracks knuckles:

J Gutta: You have good recording manners, but it sounds liek you're recording without a pop filter, which meant there was only so far I could go on this before the "booms" were just out of this world.

Mic: Sony F-V220. This is actually a pretty quiet mic as far as line noise goes, but its easy to tell it's not a condenser. Some EQing adressed a lot of that:

http://acapellauploads.dmusic.com - the difference starts at about 12 seconds in.

What I did:

I turned up the noise gate to 35% of max in order to cut out the extra soudns liek the instrumental from your headphones, various fans, shit liek that. Still kept your vocals clean and clear. The vocal compressor is also up about 35% of max but would have worked at about 20% all the same. Echo and Reverb are about 15% of max each.


The EQing levels, I boosted the low frequencies (aka Bass) 30% to add more thickness to your vocals, added gain to the mids about 60% and cut the treble 20% to take a lot of the sizzle off em from when I opened em up. If that persistant boom werent' on it, I could have turned the bass up some more which would have REALLY brought out your voice. Definitely not a bad job for a dynamic mic, but once you get that boom out of your vocals there's room for a lot more warmth still which is saying a lot. As a suggestion, when ever you're in the market for another mic, or want maximum warmth fomr your set-up, I'd suggesting going out and getting a tube mic with a tube amp. Tube mics (like my MXL 9000) are made for bassy voices and really let that attribute shine.

aiight, hopefully we can. lol I'm prolly gonna record somethin' today, but if not. I'll give you my latest accapella then. word