Live & Learn: Recording with the AxeFx II

aleclee

aleclee

Power User
Been doing some recording with my new Mac. Shared a rough track with a buddy today and listened to it in my car. Sad to say I was appalled. What was a little thumpy through headphones and a bit tubby through my Mackie near fields was positively boomy on my car stereo. :( Lesson 1: audition patches with something more than cans.

I tried all kinds of tricks with PEQ but to no avail. Then I remembered seeing something about using the multiband compressor to tighten up high gain patches. A bit of googling found a thread describing how and a few minutes later the boom was gone. Lesson 2: though I'd never really used the MBC before, when you need it, it's indispensable.

What's really cool is that very few players have a MBC at their disposal, let alone part of their live rig. I'll pass on "in the room" sounds when I can dial out "in the boom" sounds. :)
 
Usually people apply the mbc on the entire mix when it comes to recording. But it can definitely help out any single instrument too Just be careful your tone isn't too thin when you play live.
 
I know how you feel man. I've been recording a track and I've only been able to mix thru cans. My guitar sounded good since I already had it tweaked through my Atomics, but my overall mix is pretty whack. I need to get back to my HR-824's in my studio. Now I just have to clean it out...


I'm a high gain djent djent meedley meedely meedely type player...

Sent from my iPod.
 
Same thing here shotgunn. Love the HR-824's. Have not found a set of headphones worth trying to dial in tones with.

Right now I use the cans late at night in the bedroom to create tones and dial in effects. Later I go in the studio and dial in the EQ and (tone) on the HR-824's.
 
In my experience, mixing in headphones rarely works out very well, however for some it is the only option. If that is the case my recommendation is Beyer Dynamic DT 770's, but more importantly, like your monitors familiarity is key. I have heard some pretty great mixes come out of less than average rooms with less than average gear ,but the engineer knew exactly what a good mix sounded like on that particular gear. Also I have noticed that the only people that really can tell or care about the difference between a truly great mix/tone or just a decent one are some musicians and some audio engineers. Casual listeners seem to never notice. I have played mixes for so many people using either my AXE FX, my ENGL or my line 6, and while personally I think the AXE sounds far better than all, none of my non musician friends ever comment on the tone or the mix, it's always a comment on the song itself.
 
Always as a precaution in the engineering field is after you make a mix, you put it in your car stereo and ipod with normal Joe headphones. Make sure your stereo eq is flat (no bass or treble adjustments) and your ipod eq is on NONE and listen away.

Since flat is really a subjective thing and no monitors or headphones are flat, it is always better to switch to what average listeners listen music through and see if it sounds good there. It covers all the bases. There is a reason why yamaha ns 10s are so revered. Not because they're flat or sound good, but because if you can make it sound good on those, it'll translate better to consumer stuff than other monitors.

With that being said, it is better to know your monitors or cans in your listening environment than spending money on speakers unless you have a treated room or know exactly what's gonna happen. since I don't have a treated room and don't have a spot for speakers, I use my akg 240 studios and learn that it does certain things in which the listening through a car stereo and ipod can reveal.
 
cc2ss said:
In my experience, mixing in headphones rarely works out very well, however for some it is the only option. If that is the case my recommendation is Beyer Dynamic DT 770's, but more importantly, like your monitors familiarity is key. I have heard some pretty great mixes come out of less than average rooms with less than average gear ,but the engineer knew exactly what a good mix sounded like on that particular gear. Also I have noticed that the only people that really can tell or care about the difference between a truly great mix/tone or just a decent one are some musicians and some audio engineers. Casual listeners seem to never notice. I have played mixes for so many people using either my AXE FX, my ENGL or my line 6, and while personally I think the AXE sounds far better than all, none of my non musician friends ever comment on the tone or the mix, it's always a comment on the song itself.
Click to expand...

+1

Headphones are a good way to check a mix to maybe reveal something you missed with nearfields, but leave the bass end of the spectrum alone unless you REALLY know your headphones. I DO think it's important to check a mix on headphones because a lot of people are listening to their music with ipods etc and you want it to translate reasonably well to that listening enviornment too.

I agree that while a mix engineer etc may notice something like how well the snare pops etc, the average listener just thinks the song sounds great, ok or sucks etc. All those details we agonize over get summed up by the average listener with one broad stroke like, "sounds great man".
 
Recommend this book: "Mixing Secrets for the small studio" by Mike Senior. Rarely have I read a book that cuts to the chase like this one.
 
In general when this has happened to me it was because my monitors could not reproduce the sub frequencies contained in the recorded material, but my car stereo (or whatever boomy system) could. Start by setting up a high pass shelving eq at 60-80Hz and apply this to the recorded mix.
 
I'm thinking that when recording guitar with the Axe FX2, to record a second track completely clean in case it's necessary to tweak the Axe sound in the final mix - or even totally remodel it. The Axe becomes an outboard processor, cutting back on cpu use in the computer (a Mac Quad-Core Intel) which is also useful.
 
Hugomack said:
I'm thinking that when recording guitar with the Axe FX2, to record a second track completely clean in case it's necessary to tweak the Axe sound in the final mix - or even totally remodel it. The Axe becomes an outboard processor, cutting back on cpu use in the computer (a Mac Quad-Core Intel) which is also useful.
Click to expand...
I'll probably get into reamping when I upgrade to Logic. I don't know if it's possible to capture a second track in GarageBand.
 
mixing in cans is really tough.. I've had to do that for years and to be honest I was never 100% happy..
it does help if you have a real good pair of pretty flat cans like Sony MDR 7509..
but even then it's still hard..

volume [especially with cans] makes a massive difference... too much of it makes the mix sound bright..
and as a result you'll tend to create 'dark' mixes...

I imagine that the prob with the OP's mix was not too much bass, rather too little top.. remember it's all relative..

if you have no choice but to mix through cans [I know this feeling well] then you need to rely on a reference song..

lil' tip: imagine you are working on a song in for example Logic..
you are mixing down...
create an aux channel strip and send everything to there rather than the output..
then send this aux to the output..
then create an audio track and import a song from a CD [or iTunes etc] that is in a similar style to your own..
send this to the output..
this song becomes an eq reference...
you can now mute your song en-masse via the aux that everything is sent through
you can therefore easily switch between your song and the reference song...
NOTE: you'll need to turn down the level of your reference song to the level of your mix... this is because your reference song would have been pro mixed / mastered..
unless you have some serious mastering compressors / limiters / maximizers you'll not get close to a mix that hot without clipping...
so do not try to recreate that level.. you are simply using this as an eq reference...

I did a lot of really bad mixes through cans... and it took me a while to figure out how to improve on them..
a reference can help.. but I suspect that your mixes will still not be quite right - simply 'improved'...

I'm not exactly great at mixing [especially eq settings]...
I know a lot of the technicals behind it etc but my ears are just too busted [years of gigging etc]...
so for me a reference is vital for anything I'm trying to do seriously..
and when it comes down to it, there really is no substitute for a good pair of very flat monitors...

NS-10's???? generally you can hear a mix that's been done through them cos there will be too much low bass..
the reason these are used a lot is not cos they're particularly good, or 'get them to sound great and you'll have a great mix'
that's all a bit of a myth...
the reason is cos they are pretty reasonable monitors at a pretty reasonable cost... this means that they are very popular..
therefore... everyone knows what they sound like..
so the fact that they are so widespread [in terms of sales] and have such a distinctive voice they've become an odd sort of benchmark..
most pro studios will have a pair simply because a high percentage of their clients have a pair too..
this means that you can start mixing down on common ground before the pro's switch to the serious stuff...
 
When final mastering, I constantly refer to a reference recording through the same monitors. Any professional recording in a similar style that is known to sound good on a variety of systems will do.

Doesn't mean I'm great at it, but certainly a lot better than without the reference :D
 
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