Any advice on how to master this? If I put too many instruments in, they tend to blend together and take up the same space. I notice my recordings sound much better if I break it down to drums, bass, rhythm, and vocals.

--------------------
gentle robot - chapel hill rock band

Learn the art of not putting stuff in unless it really really is necessary.. ie it contributes to the melody or the atmosphere...

Sometimes that which sounds amazing in isolation needs to be taken to a certain extreme to fit into a mix, so experiment with *mangling* sounds then see if they sit in the mix.

Find a good reverb and set the main melodic parts into the reverb and learn how to lighten and shade a mix by the simple expedient of the depth of reverb you apply to each strand of the mix. Use as few reverbs as possible and that will conversely *tidy* up your overall sound.

Practice practice practice... you can't beat stretching yourself until the penny drops and you suddenly begin to understand, instinctively, how the various strands can be meshed together.

--------------------
nibbled to death by an Okapi http://www.soundclick.com/tubilahdog

Yeah, I've always found the same thing. Over the last couple of years, I've started to pay real close attention to where frequencies of different instruments cross-over, since I've discovered that that's where muddying occurs. This is especially the case where one instrument's (for want of a better phrase) less-important frequencies cross-over with another's important or (for want of another better phrase) defining frequencies. I'll give you an example. Take rhythmn guitar and bass. You can fairly easily guess that the guitar does not take up the same low frequency ranges as a bass. However, you'd be surprised at just how far bass frequencies can stray into guitar territory. What I've discovered is, that if you perform a very severe EQ cut on the rhythm guitar at around the 400 mark that the bass can sound clearer in the mix. Alternatively, if you cut the bass at this point, the guitar can sound fuller (although your lose some definition in the bass), but the mix can sound fulller. It always seems strange to me that you can make an instrument sound better by cutting out frequencies rather than boosting them (which is what I used to do in my less-informed days), but it's all simply to do with how the frequencies of the different instruments clash.

So, one way (and it's not the only way) to create "air" is simply to put each of your instruments within its own frequency space. This, of course, is a lot easier to do when you have only a few instruments to play with, which is why you're finding it easier to work with a smaller number of instruments. The more instruments you try to cram into your mix, the more fighting there is for space within the frequency range.

I'm no expert, but all of this suddenly seemed obvious to me when I found it all out. Get yourself an osciloscope plug-in (such as you'll find in Wavelab) and make a habit of looking at the frequency graphs for each instrument, and looking at where the "frequency spread" lies. You'll soon discover that certain instruments create very distinctive patterns, and take up different parts of the frequency range. It'll make you more aware of which sounds are fighting for breathing space in your mix, and will enable you to create the air to let each instrument breathe.

Les Lawrenson

------------------------

If it ain't broke, don't try to fix it.

What Stevedog says is true. Also, when you use reverb, remember that the reverb itself will take up a frequency range and that you might need to give it a good old EQing. One of the things that I do, is to put the dry mix and the wet mix on two separate tracks and to EQ each separately, and I might very well perform extreme EQing to one of the tracks. That can create "air." Eg I might have a dry rhythmn guitar on one track (trk1) and the same recording treated with reverb on another (trk2). I'll perform gentle EQing to trk1, say pulling out all the frequencies below 400 so that there's not clash with the bass (thereby giving the bass more room to breathe), and with trk2 I might perform even more severe EQing, say by ripping out everything below 600 and everything above 2000, leaving just a narrow band of frequencies left, and then blend the two tracks together. It can create some really good effects that sound crap when played on their own, but which really come alive in the mix.

Les Lawrenson

------------------------

It is ain't broke, don't try to fix it.

I often find it useful to mix a track without any reverb or delay effects and get a really good EQ balance between the tracks, and then move on to adding the effects. Gets the foundation right, otherwise going at it with effects on at the same time just makes it more difficult to work out where to start tweaking. Also, the order in which you add tracks into a mix is important, e.g. do you start with the rhythm section and then build up, or do you start with the vocal and the guitar hook as they're the stand-out parts of the song, and work backwards to the rhythm section? There's no straight answer to this, it's your call and dependent upon the individual song too. Funnily enough this is where your head and your ears are worth so much more than your gear.

You can also do this to some degree after you have mixed your track by using EQ and giving the track a fraction at 12-14KHz this give a little treble to the overall mix and opens up the instrumentation.

--------------------
www.sounds-and-images.co.uk
http://twitter.com/soundsandimages

Hey Moo

All you need is a bit of seasoning : salt & pepper : not the whole curry house spices.

Having Max only 5 elements, usually 4, going on at any one time,
and making each element extremely strong yet simple and sit just right using the suggestions above
is an effective solution ... for space, air, depth.

The kitchen sink, as I have discovered in my inevitable adavancing yet no wiser years,
yields progressively less satisfactory results.

I.e. less is more.