Cleaning up the mix

[Hirosashii]

So, I made a song (astonishing!). This guy gave me some feedback and said that I was getting better, but that my next step should be "cleaning up the mix". As much as I appreciate the criticism, 'twas kind of vague. Could someone explain to me what he means? What parts of the song need to be cleaned up? I agree with him that there's a little bit of clarity missing, but I don't know how to begin cleaning. Here's the song that he was talking about:



Thank you :3

[the4thImpulse]

From what I'm hearing hes talking about giving all your sounds their own rpot in the frequecny spectrum, you do this by getting a equalizer and cutting away the frequenies that dont stand out in a particular sound. If its a bass sound you may cut away everything above 500Hz and a lead you may cut everything under 200Hz (these are very rough numbers). Put said eq on every singal sound in the track; each synth, vocal part, and drum sample then while listening to the track as a whole cut away frequencies until the change becomes really noticable and leave the cut there.

[Navron]

^^^What he said.

What I like to do is loop sections of the finished mix. So let's say I have a typical song that starts off with some drums, a couple instruments, later adding some leads and basses.

First thing I'll equalize is my bass kick, so I'll start off soloing my drums and cutting my EQ all the way down. From there I'll find the punchiest bass freq, and raise it to 0dB. Naturally, your punchy freq is going to be a range of frequencies close to eachother, so I'll typically raise the 2 sliders next to my punchy bass drum to half of the main freq.

Next thing I'll do is the snare, then the hi-hats, etc.

Once done with the drums, I equalize the other instruments by letting them occupy a specific frequency range in the song, and I usually do one instrument at a time, sometimes letting already EQ'd instruments loop as well, to see how well I can bring out the instrument without interfering with other freqs.

Naturally, some of your instruments are going to not sound so nice with a lot of freqs getting cut, so when you have 2 instruments that need to share EQ space, make sure the shared freqs are cut slightly for both instruments. That way you can add a bit more depth to each instrument, without overloading any one frequency, which makes things sound muddy.

[That_One_Dood]

I'll throw my two cents in.

While equalizing is important, specifically if two sounds are fighting for the same frequency, it's good to remember that there are other techniques that will help. Adjusting the volume of your instruments independently and slight panning are two big ones that I can remember off hand. Also, unless it's absolutely impossible(or if your going for a specific sound) always cut frequencies out before boosting the desired ones. For EQing, listen to these guys, they are spot on.