How To Fix A Muddy Mix : Mid Side EQ Mixing Techniques

oh is it uh hot in here or is it just me you're smoking thanks buddy uh mixing mixing is a very complex puzzle where the final shape is the same for everybody but the solutions are radically different i mean what is mixing take a look at this fan here and this represents our 180 degree spectrum of sound we have everything from left to right center so we pan our instruments throughout this different spectrum we do these very fine volume adjustments at specific frequencies we call that eq well here's the thing just because you have an instrument pen dead center and you do a little boost to its frequencies doesn't mean there aren't lingering frequencies from that instrument sort of lingering here on the sides of your mix and as your project builds up over time those frequencies are ganging up and likely is what is causing that muddiness or lack of clarity that you keep getting in your mixes well there is a remedy to that problem and it's called mid-side eq and that's what i'm talking about today i'm the lonely rocker this is i don't have a band and welcome to my home studio [Music] all right so quickly off the top i'm going to treat this mid-side eq tutorial a little bit differently than other videos i've seen in other videos i've seen guys just rip their mixes apart and showing you what mid-side eq is doing to the different tracks but what i want to do in this tutorial is i want to show you what mid-side eq actually looks like and to do that i'm going to use a spectrum analyzer now if you missed my video on how to use a spectrum analyzer i highly recommend you check it out it works very well with the techniques that i'm going to demonstrate in this video and i'll tell you something you know i'm a home studio guy like many of you and i struggled you know finding clarity and getting rid of mud in my mixes well the day i discovered how to use a spectrum analyzer combined with mid-side eq was the day my mixes started sounding really really good closer and closer to professional mixes so stick with me on this one you check out the two videos and i'm certain that's going to be the eureka moment for you anyways that spectrum analyzer one of them voxengo span plus the cool thing about this meter is it allows you not only to see all of the frequencies in the stereo spectrum but you can split it into mid and sides so you can actually see them on a graph and there's a very specific way a mix is supposed to look on a meter like this that's what that other video is about so make sure to check it out so i'm not going to really tell you how to use it in this video other than to demonstrate some examples here but there's a very specific relationship between mid and side and that's what a spectrum analyzer will show you and it will tie nicely with this tutorial so what is mid-side eq we're all familiar with the concept of panning we can take an instrument use our pan knob and place it anywhere within the stereo spectrum that we want very easily we just turn that knob left to right when eq'ing we assume any frequencies we boost for example are limited to where this instrument is sitting in the stereo spectrum this is incorrect let's say this is 1k from one of our instruments sitting in the middle of our stereo spectrum using an eq in stereo mode any boost we make at 1k will actually bring up elements of this 1k frequency much wider than we realize while the bulk of the frequencies may be where we want them there are low-lying elements of this frequency that exist beyond that point if you do more 1k boosts on more instruments and throughout your mix these 1k frequencies start to build up now imagine this happening at many different frequencies throughout your mix this is why a mix can sound muddy and lack clarity all of these unnecessary frequencies keep piling up on top of each other a mid-side eq looks at the stereo spectrum much differently it allows you to be more precise with your eq boosts and cuts by focusing its attention in the middle or the sides of your mix let's take our same 1k frequency using an eq set to mid the boost is now more focused to the center of the mix or if set to side the boost will occur along the sides of the mix keeping the middle clearer that's it in fact we can boost and cut the same frequency at the same time here's another 1k boost set to mid and then we can cut the same 1k frequency but this time set to side this allows us to clean out those unwanted 1k frequencies on the outside while retaining our desired eq correction in the middle and of course you can boost the size and cut the mids as well this is just the basics of mid-side eq but if you can grasp this concept you will start to breathe fresh air into your mixes alright the next step in understanding mid-side eq is knowing where to find it now i'm sorry for those of you not on logic i am using logic here as an example but i'm going to show you a stock eq and then i've got a couple of third-party eqs here as an example to give you an idea where to find it it's really not that difficult and i'm sure whatever eq you're using in your daw there will be one there that'll give you the mid side option but using the stock eq this is the channel eq and logic if you look down here in the bottom it says processing and it's giving you a choice of stereo left only right only mid only and side only now we're talking about mid side but to using left or right technically is using one side but just for keep this simple we're going to deal with mid inside so we can switch it here to mid now this whole plugin is now mid mode so any any adjustments we make let's say we do a little boost here at 1k and tighten the queue a little bit this adjustment is going to happen only in the middle of our mix it's not going to have an effect on the sides of our mix so what we could do unfortunately with this channel eq we can't do mid and side adjustments within the same instance of the plugin but all we'd have to do here is just load a second instance of the channel eq after it and then we can switch that to side and then we could cut all the same frequency on the sides and that'll clean up any mud that's starting to build up on the side so that's how we would do it here with a channel eq inside logic but if we're using a third party eqs a more expensive option is the very popular pro q3 from fabfilter now the great thing about this one is that we can actually mix side and mid adjustments on the same eq curve so right here there's a little pull away menu here stereo placement i could set that for example to mid and let's say we'll do something in the highest here we'll do a little boost and i could change that to sides and that there's a little s there so we're now making adjustments uh on the same eq curve so we don't have to load the additional instances of the plug-in uh you pay quite a premium for that feature on this plug-in as it's not cheap so but you definitely can achieve the same thing with your stock plug-ins but certainly not a deal breaker if it doesn't just load to instances of the plug-in and a cheaper option here you've got the waves f6 simply you just choose the the node that you're working on here it defaults to stereo mode but down here on the side it says mid or sides and actually you can mix it in this one you know this one's already set to side uh let's say we want to change this one to mid so we actually have side and mid adjustments within the same plug-in so that's that's pretty helpful right there anyways a couple options there whether you're using third-party eqs or you're using the eq that comes stock with your dock all right this is the part of the show where i reveal the mid side frequencies to you so what i've done here is i've got a simple kick drum loop and the kick drum is pen dead center and i've got the span plus plug in here that's going to reveal some information for us and i'll explain so now if we listen to it just standard kick drum we've panned this thing dead center now if we look at the graph here everything that we're seeing in green is actually the mids this is your mid frequencies and the yellow here is actually information that's happening on the side so right here we can see that even though we've panned the kick drum dead center there's a little low end rumble here that's lingering on the sides of our mixes now you're probably not going to hear this and depending on the room you're in if you're in a home studio likely you know with not good bass response from your speakers or in the room you likely are not hearing this but right there is the source of the mud in your frequencies especially as that starts to build up now using a standard eq i'm going to use the pro q3 here but like i said you can use a stock eq as long as there's a mid side processing you can do the exact same thing so for example i'm in stereo mode as the plugins default to stereo and let's say we want to boost uh the frequencies around 70 75 hertz here and i'll just do a boost now watch what happens to here see these side frequencies they're also coming up and again we're trying to really boost that thump so we can really hear that kick drum but what's happening is we're bringing up a lot of mud on the sides of our mixes so let me bring that back down so now what i'll do using here i can change this to we'll change that to mid for example and let's do the same thing so as you can see we're boosting the mid frequencies of that kick drum at around 75 hertz and those side frequencies are pretty much staying where they were before we haven't affect them at all so now we haven't gotten rid of them but we've boosted the frequencies of that kick drum at our desired frequency without bringing up the sides which would i said cause a lot of mud in our in our projects now using the same plug-in i can create another node here i'm going to change this to side and i'm going to cut at the very same frequency and watch what happens we've just gotten rid of all of the mud so that's 70 75 hertz we've got the really thumping bass we've panned it to the center by looking at the span plus plug-in here we can see you've got lots of green here that's all happening in the middle of our mix and those yellows that were there before that was representing that low end rumble you know hiding in the sides of our mixes is now completely gone and right there is the basics of mid-side mixing and that's why using a meter like this can really really help you now here's an example where we're trying to get a snare drum to sit in the mix and there's a couple things that we want to do we want to make sure that meat of the snare is present but that initial whack we find ourselves usually doing a boost in the upper registers and we can see here on on the snare drum where we probably would be looking somewhere between you know five six seven k where we'd want to do that boost so as i demonstrated before let's do this in stereo mode and let's say we want to boost uh the meat of that snare well we're going to bring it up and what's going to happen this snare is panned dead center but look there's those side frequencies uh lurking in the weeds here starting to pile up there and again that's the an ingredient in our mud mixture so we don't want to do that same thing you know sometimes i know a snare drum trying to get a snare drum to sit in the mix we want to really feel the whack of that snare so what are we doing we're looking for those high end frequencies in this case let's say i'm around six and a half seven k here i'll even tighten that up a little bit and as i start to bring this up well again here's our mid frequencies but look there's that yellow there's those side frequencies starting to come up along the edges of our mixes again adding to that mud brew which is creating all the lack of clarity and mud in our mixes so what would we do in this case same thing as i did with the bass drum we can actually set another note here or use a different instance of the plugin like i said you can do this with two different instances we'll set this to side we'll do a cut here and let's just clean out all that mud take a look at our graph those side frequencies are now gone if you do that with every instrument in your mix you're really going to start to hear that clarity coming into your mix same thing with the bottom end here you know we'll do a little boost here we'll make sure that's in our mid mode and then same thing on the side i'm going to do a cut here let's change that to side and i'm going to pull that down now if you listen carefully in headphones you can actually hear that if you really boost the side frequencies you'll hear it ringing on the outside of your mix but this is why i really believe in using a spectrum analyzer because if you're not clearly hearing some of these frequencies you're not going to necessarily know that they're there now something really really really important that i need you to understand is that if we used a graph like this for our whole mixing session and just technically place instruments where they should be cleaned out the mid and side frequencies as we desired without really listening to the tracks well that's not going to be a solution either because i've said many times that the most important tool that you have is your ears and we want each instrument to sound good so yes we can go with the meter and make all of those corrections and technically our wave looks perfect and everything is where it should be but the mix still doesn't sound right it's a careful balance between shaping the tone of each of your instruments and being mindful of the mid inside so that everything is placed properly and know exactly what you need to do to clear out all that mud to really bring in that definition and clarity mixes that you've really been searching for all right so lastly i want to talk about something a tone that's a little more complex i'm going to look at some heavy guitars now i typically will double track my guitars and i'll pan them really hard left and right now the last couple examples i showed you how you can get rid of the side information completely now that's not really the game when you're using a meter like this you want to use it as a reference point and as i said before that you want to make sure that you're not just destroying the tone of that track i mean the goal is not really to get rid of all of those frequencies on the side i mean you may want to have some there but being able to monitor them in real time as you're mixing and seeing where some of your issues are building up is a really invaluable tool now i don't want to make the game be like well i got to pull all those extra frequencies on the side because you don't want to deaden your mix either but that's why using your ear in combination with using that meter can really help you find where those issues are and clean them up now a good example here is electric guitars now i've got these double tracked and they're panned hard left and right now what i've done i've done an extreme correction here where i've boosted the side frequencies and then i've done the opposite cut in the mid-range now let's take a look at our meter in this game now if you notice here there's a bit of red starting to surface here in our meter that's because our our side frequencies are peaking up above our mid frequencies now i don't want to go too deep into that because i do talk about that in the spectrum analyzer video but that's something that we actually don't want to see and these guitars are really big sounding that there's really no way i'm going to get rid of those mid frequencies that's not what i'm trying to do here so if i actually fix this correction [Music] just tighten the cues a little bit a little bit of a cut now we are working at solar here but in context of a whole mix if you were making an adjustment like this and let's say you were you had this meter on your master bus and you started to notice that around 3k 4k that there was some extra mid frequencies that were sort of causing a bit of issues here you could start to do some cutting here on your guitar and if you're doing this right from the beginning and you're doing mid-side eq in all of your tracks and you're monitoring your progress right from the beginning you're going to see those issues starting to pile up and in the case of the guitars here i'm not going to try and just completely get rid of all the mid frequencies that's not what i'm trying to do but if i sense by looking at the meter that there's some issues happening around 3k where i need to lose some of those mid frequencies and i can say well these guitars are really sucking up a lot of air in this mix well i could go into a mid-side eq and start making some cuts just to see if that starts to clean up some of the issues that i'm having and that's how you really need to start looking at it i mean don't put an eq on your master bus and think you're going to mid side eq your problems away no no you want to have a mid side eq handy on all your tracks as you need them and if you're using a meter like voxingo span plus you can sort of see this all happening in real time and make good tonal choices you know you've got to make your tracks each track sound good not to compensate for the meter but you need to find that balance but being technically accurate as well because that's where you're going to find the issues and that's how you're going to clean up all of that mud in your mixes and it's really going to go a long way to making your mix sounding a lot better well i hope these visual examples have really painted a picture for you and show you what mid-side eq looks like i mean if you've been sitting there practicing your mixes and just getting frustrated because you've got all this extra mud and lack of clarity well now hopefully you understand i mean those frequencies are there just because you can't hear them doesn't mean they're not causing problems with your mixes and really understanding the concept of mid-side eq can really be a game changer for you and especially combining that with utilizing a meter like voxengo span plus to really see where your issues are those two things and i've told you before and i'm going to tell you again that was really the two things that i can identify that really started to change the game with my mixes it's something that i practice for every project i've got mid-side eq as a rule for every single track and i'll also do it on the master bus for a final little tweak at the end and i've got my meters on all the time so make sure to check out the spectrum analyzer video as well and these two will work really well together and hopefully that's going to set you on your way to finally getting better mixes well if you're new to this channel and found this tutorial super hot i hope i've earned to subscribe i've got a ton of content on this channel a lot of it revolving around this home studio geared to the home studio enthusiast and the home recording musician with videos to hopefully help make your home studio life better and uh cooler so perhaps you'll click that subscribe button and come along for the ride if you really want to support this channel i am on patreon links to everything i've discussed and some things i haven't are in the description below and above all else i hope i'll see you again in another video as always if you have any questions let me know in the comments and please like subscribe and ring that bell to stay up to date remember you don't need a band to rock and roll there are a lot of great musical projects you can do by yourself right from your own home i hope to see you again next time

Channel: Lonely Rocker

Views: 81,198

Keywords: how to fix a muddy mix, how to fix a muddy kick, fix a muddy mix, muddy mix, how to use eq when mixing, muddy mix eq, muddy mix fix, muddy mix frequencies, muddy mix logic pro x, eq muddy mix, mid side eq in the mix, eq clarity, eq mixing techniques, eq mixing tutorial, mid side eq, mid side eq explained, mid side eq fabfilter, mid side eq logic pro x, mid side eq techniques, mid side eq tips, mid side eq tutorial, mid side eq waves, mid side explained, Mixing tutorial

Id: Rg--l9HRqBI

Length: 16min 51sec (1011 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 03 2021