Is it me or does REAPER (DAW) sound muddy/congested/crammed/flat?

[IT'z Roberto]

That's a lot of screenshots to try to parse - but the one thing that stands out immediately is that you have a bunch of tracks clipping.

I don't know how they are clipping my input signal is low, the volume is 0, I leave the presets as they are and just cut the lows/highs, pan guitars left and right, generally pretty simple

If I start lowering volume to reduce whatever is clipping, it's sounds extremely low. My luffs say -12db to -11db

Side note:
Anyone familiar with Naughty Seal Perfect Drums?

 

[TedEH]

You gatta be careful not to just rely on presets and assume they'll be "Fine". A preset can clip. An EQ can cause things to clip (even if you're cutting, some eqs are weird). I don't think panning should cause clipping - but if you have two tracks, pan them, then sum them, that can clip.

If it's not obvious - whenever you bus tracks together (which happens automatically when you make folders in Reaper) - those tracks are additive. Meaning if one peaks at 0, and another peaks at 0, their sum will clip.

Your track is supposed to be low before mastering. Headroom is your friend. Don't aim for a particular loudness target until you reach the mastering stage. With your mastering plugins disabled, nothing should clip, and everything should generally be more quiet than commercial recordings.

 

[IT'z Roberto]

You gatta be careful not to just rely on presets and assume they'll be "Fine". A preset can clip. An EQ can cause things to clip (even if you're cutting, some eqs are weird). I don't think panning should cause clipping - but if you have two tracks, pan them, then sum them, that can clip.

If it's not obvious - whenever you bus tracks together (which happens automatically when you make folders in Reaper) - those tracks are additive. Meaning if one peaks at 0, and another peaks at 0, their sum will clip.

Your track is supposed to be low before mastering. Headroom is your friend. Don't aim for a particular loudness target until you reach the mastering stage. With your mastering plugins disabled, nothing should clip, and everything should generally be more quiet than commercial recordings.

I appreciate the info, it's a lot to take in with mixing

 

[c7spheres]

Maybe try a quick experiment with the tone you want and get everything not clipping and for generic levels on the faders keep them at zero with peaks around -18 to -14 adjust from the start of the signal chain (physical guitar, drums etc) all the way to the stereo bus then add compressor and limiter stuff if needed later. You can keep them in the chain but bypassed too. I'd guess you gotta adjust from the plugin side. Use a VU meter so your kick is peaking around -5vu's or so etc and to see average levels etc. This is generic but usually a good ball bark and usually translates well to RMS and Lufs too, ime. Zero can still clip things you may have to go lower. There's so many variables we're almost swinging in the dark but generally levels start looking familiar and don't move much once set for a specific system or workflow.

 

[IT'z Roberto]

There is so much going on in mixing sooooo, I'll ask this. Does anyone have archetype Plini (or Petrucci, or Gojira) Umansky Bass? Perfect drums and reaper?

Does anyone think they can replicate the tones from Plini's Electric Sunrise at 1:19-1:42 of the song using the aforementioned plugins? That's the desired mix, stereo width, and tones

 

[IT'z Roberto]

Maybe a GGD plugin instead of Perfect drums?

Not trying to be too challenging, just curious if anyone thinks they could replicate the mix/master/tone etc

 

[Grindspine]

That's a lot of screenshots to try to parse - but the one thing that stands out immediately is that you have a bunch of tracks clipping.

So much this. I saw that Track 9 was red in more than one of your screenshots.

You gatta be careful not to just rely on presets and assume they'll be "Fine". A preset can clip. An EQ can cause things to clip (even if you're cutting, some eqs are weird). I don't think panning should cause clipping - but if you have two tracks, pan them, then sum them, that can clip.

If it's not obvious - whenever you bus tracks together (which happens automatically when you make folders in Reaper) - those tracks are additive. Meaning if one peaks at 0, and another peaks at 0, their sum will clip.

Your track is supposed to be low before mastering. Headroom is your friend. Don't aim for a particular loudness target until you reach the mastering stage. With your mastering plugins disabled, nothing should clip, and everything should generally be more quiet than commercial recordings.

Everything said here is right on the money! Your mixes are always going to sound quiet before you hit mastering. If you have a great mix, mastering will give it the final volume and punch, but in mixing, the goal should be balancing everything so that it can be heard with some space in the mix. As TedEH said, headroom is a good thing in the mixing stage!

And no, I do not have the exact plugins you have, but these are more general rules of digital mixing.

 

[IT'z Roberto]

So much this. I saw that Track 9 was red in more than one of your screenshots.

Everything said here is right on the money! Your mixes are always going to sound quiet before you hit mastering. If you have a great mix, mastering will give it the final volume and punch, but in mixing, the goal should be balancing everything so that it can be heard with some space in the mix. As TedEH said, headroom is a good thing in the mixing stage!

And no, I do not have the exact plugins you have, but these are more general rules of digital mixing.

I think track 9 was red because it was a muted midi track, but I understand what you guys are getting at just a lot to take in

 

[TedEH]

just a lot to take in

I'm not an expert in mixing by any stretch. The big catch is that it takes time and practice - even if you "know" all there is to know. It's an art, like anything else, and art tends to be iterative.

The bad news is: The first few attempts are going to suck. The better news is: Each subsequent attempt will suck less. Unfortunately, there's no shortcuts to this one. There are lots of little "tricks" but you have to put in the hours to practice and understand why they work. If you're lucky or persistent, you'll get good results eventually.

TLDR: If you want pro sounding results NOW, get someone else to do it for you. If you're trying to learn, then keep at it but be patient.

 

[Drew]

That's a lot of screenshots to try to parse - but the one thing that stands out immediately is that you have a bunch of tracks clipping.

This jumped out at me too.

Drop every single track's slider down 8db or so - select them all and slide one down 8db, and the whole mix will follow. I'd be curious what happens.

Its funny, I started reading this thread a while ago, gave up because there were too many things going on at once to unpack, but one possible cause that immediately came to mind was you might be tracking too hot. It's tough to say looking at your DI tracks when they're shrunk down like that, but IMO if you're going into typical "prosumer" gear, you don't want to be anywhere NEAR the top of what your mic or instrument in preamp can handle, transient response starts to get a little nonlinear as you run more affordable recording gear hot. And, idf nothing else - even if you strongly disagree with me here - if you're tracking everything to like -3 to -6db to try to "use up all the bits" or some nonsense like that, you're just going to have to turn eveything down in your busses and master anyway, or you'll be clipping.

This is the first part of what people are talking about when they're talking about "gain staging" - figuring out what the ideal signal strength is for your input, and making sure that's what it's getting. The next step would be doing the same for any plugins or rack gear or whatever that you're using, etc etc etc.

 

[Drew]

So much this. I saw that Track 9 was red in more than one of your screenshots.

Everything said here is right on the money! Your mixes are always going to sound quiet before you hit mastering. If you have a great mix, mastering will give it the final volume and punch, but in mixing, the goal should be balancing everything so that it can be heard with some space in the mix. As TedEH said, headroom is a good thing in the mixing stage!

And no, I do not have the exact plugins you have, but these are more general rules of digital mixing.

Quoting for emphasis.

Even a pro mix, playiung back off the board or through a DAW and over the mains, is going to sound "low" compared to a finished recording. Don't wrry about that. IF you want to use a reference mix, just volume match them, drop the "finished" mix by like 10-12db or whatever it takes so it "sounds" the same as your mix, and compare that way.

Its rare for a finished mix of mine to be peaking much above -6-8db at the master bus, and I'd say -8-12 is probabl more common. It's extremely easy to make up that volume after the fact - normalize an exported mix in a DAW or audio editor and you're back to peaking at -0.1%, and at that point you can start working with compressors and limiters to get the "perceived" volume up another 3-6db to whatever the desired "finished" volume is, balancing how hot you want a mix to be (and I'd strongly recommend against over doing it here) vs how much volume maximization your mix can take before it begins to sound noticible (and better mixes with more headroom tend to stand up to this better, so it's a matter of respecting what you have to work with). This is ll part of the mastering process.... and lots of mix engineers just have someone else master it, if nothing else so it's getting a fresh set of ears on a different system.

 

[GunpointMetal]

So it seems most responses are on the same page. You can definitely get “loudness” out of your mix but you still want to have your peaks when the whole mix is playing around -6 to -12 on the master with the master fader at 0. If you want to hear things louder turn up your headphones/monitors. When I’m starting a mix, before I do any processing, I pull all the faders all the way down, then push up my kick/snare till I’m peaking around -18db on the master, leave them where they’re at, then balance everything else against that level, again before compressing or eq’ing. That way as frequencies build you’ll still have plenty of room to work with below clipping. When it comes to compressing/limiting/clipping individual tracks/folders, turn your thresholds DOWN to meet your tracks level then use the makeup gain to keep the peaks where they were before you started compressing/limiting/clipping. I also recommend keeping your master buss empty with the exception of a maybe a limiter with the threshold and ceiling at 0 in case you bump something you don’t blow anything. “Top down” mixing is something you CAN do, but that should come later after you’ve got a grasp on the basics. Most interfaces with guitar inputs are meant to be run with the input gain on the interface all the way down, don’t worry about what the wave looks like.

 

[DudeManBrother]

I think the other guys got a good handle on your main issue; but your pictures only illustrate exactly what I said needed to be avoided earlier in this thread. I could hear the distortion in your examples and figured you were clipping the plugins. You can select every track, right click, and lower the volume fader (left center of window) by 8-10dB and get some headroom. Then you wouldn’t necessarily have to touch faders etc. You can easily make all that level up after you get your stereo mix sounding right.

 

[IT'z Roberto]

Not to argue, but maybe I'm misunderstanding, so I'll express that my DI is exceptionally low volume, to the point my lead looks blank. My Focusrite is set at 2 on the gain dial. It barely even blinks when I palm mute hard. From what I understand it has 3 indications on the focusrite if you are close to clipping. Mine rarely triggers the first indication light. Any lower and it sounds like a clean channel on a high gain amp.

The drums kick and snare are somehow clipping in their individual tracks, yet they seem to be the lowest in volume (to my ears)

Not a lot going on in the mix, lead, left and right rythym, bass, and individual drum tracks (kick, snare, toms, overheads, etc)

Master volume, level, presence, and output are at 0 in the Neural DSP sims.

Umansky Bass is at 0 in the plugin.

All faders are set to 0.

Master fader is set to -3.58db (any lower and volume seems drastically low (compared to reference mixes)

Bass is side-chained to duck out when kick impact/transients hit.

Rythym Guitars are side-chained to duck when snare impact/transients hit.

Guitars are panned 100% left and right and are high/low passed 140hz-10khz

Lead high/low passed 200hz-10khz

Snare low cut around 80hz

Kick low cut around 39hz

Anyone have a walk through to follow?

I've watched numerous things, but every mix (not to be rude) using reaper sounds like hissy or muffled basement black metal with clicky kicks, flat/bland snares and hissy guitars.

The goal of mix and quality (may be unachievable) is that of Plini, Intervals, David Maxim Miccic, and alike.

80% of the reaper "metal" tutorials (or mixing metal) tutorials sound like basement metal and or sound like drum plugins and bass plugins (lacking almost any guitar tone) the rest seem to be pop, rap, or bland rock n' roll.

With all of that being said, If anyone has a tutorial that could help, I'm willing to check it out.

 

[tedtan]

Stop watching “Reaper metal tutorials” and look for metal tutorials instead. The DAW doesn’t matter; they all do the same thing.

I’d say you should aim for average track level of -18dBFS (peaks at -12 to -6), including your DI. Get a DI box if you need one. The Little Labs Red Eye Phantom 3D is good, as is the Countryman type 85. There are probably other good DIs, too.

It’s been around for a while now, but The Systematic Mixing Guide is still good and relevant. So are Joe Barresi’s Tracking Rock and Mixing Rock videos, but they are less step by step than the Systematic Mixing Guide.

 

[kamello]

well, everyone already mentioned the Gain Staging issues, that's a vital point in mixing that needs to be adressed. If you are still unsure regarding how to aproach that, I would recommend you to get "The Systematic Mixing Guide" by Hermin Hamidovic, I read that like 8 years ago and still go back to it everytime im having doubts or forget something. Youtube, as usefull as it is, sometimes tends to be a bit problematic if you are picking all different kinds and bits of info from different sources that sometimes don't exactly work well together, also, without wanting to sound disrespectful, but I've noticed that during the last few years a lot of guys have appeared on Youtube giving tutorials on mixing/recording/whatever when their work isn't on par for the task, they are just better at playing the youtube game. Im in no way a fully fledged professional, mixing and recording has been my "side gig" for quite a few years now, but I wouldn't feel comfortably running a Youtube channel with recording tips at my current skill level.
If you want to check for youtube content to improve your mixes, you can't go wrong with stuff like Hardcore Music Studio, Nolly Getgood, Nail The Mix or Death Metal Culture, although you have to keep in mind that all of those guys are selling services/software so they won't tell ALL their secrets in short videos (except for Death Metal Culture, although he keeps some of his tools behind paywalls and his processing is a bit excesive-CPU Heavy)

INPUT LEVELS
regarding your interface gain knob; don't do what you are doing. Play a palmuted chord with all your strenght, and set the interface gain until it *just* clips, then, lower your gain a bit, then play an open chord with lots of streght and check again if the interface is clipping (it shouldn't) if it clips, lower it a tiny bit more.

your input signal must at an adequate level so that the plugins it feed into can work correctly, also, it gives you a better noise-to-signal ratio (you can check Wiki for that concept)

OUTPUT LEVELS
there are two ways to approach this. Some people prefer to leave all the faders at 0 (or near 0) and use the "output" knobs inside each plugin to get the level at the desired point, in my case, I try to leave all the output knobs inside at stock value and set the volume through the faders of the DAW, but I always keep an eye out for the output level of every plugin, they are at hot levels, but never clip (I always have to reduce the gain level on most Neural Plugins)

I first set my Reaper to monitor dB's this way, and aim at -19 to -16 dB's in the song, headroom is important so that you can leave enough space for mastering. In modern rock/prog/metal, I think that the mentality in which one has to face up the mix is that you are making a puzzle, making sure every piece fit within each other, so then you can pump the master compressors/limiters to get a loud "in your face" mix

DRUMS
First of all, always keep in mind that your mix quality is around 70% dictated by the quality of your drum and bass sounds, guitars are just the cherry on top. Don't believe me? go and look for Ola Englund's video playing a Marshall MG15, the guitar tone is quite dull, but the drum and bass sound so good that the guitar tone just *works*

Your mix overall is good, that's the complicated part, there are only a few general tips that we can give and then you will be on your own and will have to begin to split hairs regarding what your mix needs, but drums definitely are one of your weak points, improving this (and the input/output levels) and you should already notice a drastic improvement in quality.

first. Your drums are very unbalanced, cymbals are loud and there are tons of annoying frequencies in the 4K-5K range. Open up an EQ* and look up for those frequencies, set up a big Q (so that the "curve" of the Q is kinda wide, move up the gain level in that EQ band, and move the "frequency" slider until you find the problematic area, when you find it, lower your "Q" so that you can really pinpoint which frequency it is, and when you find it, lower your Q a bit more and drop the gain of that EQ band until that annoying frequency dissapears (around -6 up to -12 dB's generally in my case) that should help in that area

the other thing is that your mix really lacks "space" or "air" or whatever hippie concept you want to use, you generate that with the room mics. Periphery mixes for example are highly dependant on those mics, that's where the "hugeness" of your drums awaits so you have to really squeeze the info that those mics carry. Im not familiar with the drum software that you are using but most libraries always include a close room and a far room. the process for them is kinda similar, removing tons of bass frequencies (using a high-pass filter) up to 150hz for both of them, since they carry lots of annoying sub-bass, and then notch a few problematic frequencies (4K and sometimes the 500-700hz area is a bit boxy sounding)

Snare and Kick are critical focal points of your mix but this guide would be 10.000 words long if I delve into that, refer to the systematic mixing guide for this


*Regarding EQ's, everyone has their favorites, when I really know what I must do with the EQ, I just use Reaper's stock EQ, it saves processing power and is easy to set-up, so when I know that I'll only be using high-pass and low-pass filters and notch one or two bands, I just use that. If I'll delve deep into a certain track that needs something more incisive, or im not sure about which frequency is causing problems, or there is a weird resonnance I can't find, I use Fab Filter due to the extremely clear UI it has)


Bass

on your Plini cover I literally cannot hear it, on your original song it sounds amazing, nothing to add here. As a general tip though, I always start working with drums and bass and when I get them right, I move on to guitars and layers.


GUITARS

in my case in this mix, I was using Neural Cali, set the output to -5 dB's because I noticed I was clipping a bit, and my guitar track fader is at -17 dB's, one hard panned left, the other hard panned right, when I "bus" them together using Reaper folders I get around these levels

always remember that the most important aspect of your guitar tone is the IR (or cab simulation) that you are using, that dictates the overall character of your tone, the "head" emulation that you are using will change the feel a bit, but at first stick with the one you like and experiment with IR's, if you want a that Plini/Micic sound, Archetype Plini will definitely get you there. To save some processing power. I only use one instance of Neural for every rhythm track (G1 and G2) and then group them in the "Rhythm bus" folder and do my processing there. The approach here varies from person to person, some use stereo expanders, virtual tape machines, multi band compression, substractive EQ, additive EQ, etc. At first I would recommend that you only experiment with substractive EQ, high pass around 100hz, low-pass varies on mix, interaction with cymbals and vibe (generally im between 8K or 9K) I tend to always remove some low-mids (between 350 to 600hz, from 2 to 5db's in more "metal" songs) with a wide-ish EQ, since that area is always boxy sounding in my guitars

Keep in mind that guitars is the best aspect of your mix, so don't sweat it too much or you will begin to loose focus on the bigger picture


GENERAL EQ

as a general rule, one must mix with their ears, not with their eyes, but at a certain point, ear-fatigue kicks in and we should take some visual aid, specially if you want to get similar to another mix, in that regard, always keep in mind that you won't be able to trace everything up to a full match, but a similar vibe is attainable

When I want to check the overall balance of a song, I use SPAN, it's a wonderfull free tool. Set it up to "AVG+MAX" mode and it will show the average frequency balance of whatever section of a song you play into it, here is a comparison with your cover

some important aspects
the red line: that's the bass difference in both of your mixes, yours is way lower compared to all the info that Plini has down there
purple section: sub-bass, same as before, Plini has a bit more rumble down there
blue section: woops, those definitely are your cymbals, Plini mixes overall have a very tame high-end. Ignore the full-on roll of in Plini's song, since I downloaded the song from youtube, the extremely high frequencies where chopped, but im sure it would follow a similar trend to the content from before (a straight slightly angled downwards).

your overall balance is pretty good though, but there are finer details that you must work on to get pro level mixes


I insist, don't blame Reaper, DAW's are transparent and if you are already familiar with it, I would stick to it, but if you wish, go and give another one a try.
Regarding

​

Maybe a GGD plugin instead of Perfect drums?

Not trying to be too challenging, just curious if anyone thinks they could replicate the mix/master/tone etc​

Regarding this, I think it would be a fun challenge, but post your DI tracks, I don't have the time to learn and record the song​

 

[IT'z Roberto]

Lots of good information here, I'll see what I can do about getting my DI up when I get the chance. I think people will be surprised at how low volume the lead DI is (almost inaudible) which I why I'm confused to why there is any clipping at all.

 

[Winspear]

You need to learn about gain staging, as discussed in the post above
Yes a correctly gained DI waveforms is visually tiny, but that's just one stage in the chain. Adjust the input of each and every stage to read ~-18dB on the faders (with the faders set to 0) and you should find things add up pretty nicely to be just about clipping on the drum bus, master bus etc for some peak reductive compression and mastering. You want to carry on this with fx plugins too to make sure a compressor plugin or EQ isn't increasing the volume on a fader.
This will often result in having to turn down the master input on drum, synth plugins etc, turn down the master output (not the simulated master volume knob) on amp VSTs etc. But having a nice mix with no clipping and the faders all floating around zero ready to begin mixing (rather than already having huge corrective offsets on them to stop clipping) is very helpful

Great video (note, a guitar DI will never look this fat and full). If you want to see the DI waveform better for editing by zooming it without making it louder, look here

 

[Drew]

Not to argue, but maybe I'm misunderstanding, so I'll express that my DI is exceptionally low volume, to the point my lead looks blank. My Focusrite is set at 2 on the gain dial. It barely even blinks when I palm mute hard. From what I understand it has 3 indications on the focusrite if you are close to clipping. Mine rarely triggers the first indication light. Any lower and it sounds like a clean channel on a high gain amp.

There are two parts to this.

First, is how hot your tracks are coming INTO your interfce. I can't really see clearly what your DIs look like, with them half-minimized, but if the individual tracks with all FX (including amp sims) bypassed aren't peaking above maybe -8-12db, then your tracking levels are probably ok.

But, that's only the first part. The second part is how hot the signal coming OUT of the FX chain on the track, and into busses and eventually to the master bus, is. Here, you're visibly clipping. The issue here is, to continue to walk through guitars as an example, your DI tracks may be peaking at, oh, let's say -10db... but the amp VST is applying a lot of output gain on top of that. Looking at your guitar bus, the two individual tracks don't seem to be clipping themselves, but the combination of the two tracks, even panned hard L and R, is additive enough that the guitar bus itself is clipping. Turning down the guitar tracks feeding into the master bus will fix this.

You know how you're being careful not to overload the preamp so none of the indicator lights go off? That's great, and is the arguably most critical part of making a good recording (since nothing can be done downstream to fix a clipped wave file)... but you're then taking all that hard work, and overloading the shit out of it inside the DAW, by running all of your track faders too hot so you're overdriving all of your busses (and, probably, overdriving a lot of the FX you have applied as well). Turning down your tracks will go a long way towards helping your mix remain clear and have plenty of impact.

If your mix sounds too quiet to you after you do this, turn up the volume on your speakers. If it's too quiet compared to a reference mix, turn the reference mix down. Playing back a mix will, and should, never be as loud as a mastered finished recording.

 

[IT'z Roberto]

So much good stuff in this thread, I'll try to take in the advice when I have a chance to sit down and mix again.

Neural DSP took a look at my DI tracks and mentioned that the levels are on the low side. That I might get a better response if I leave less headroom on the way in. It must be something I'm doing when I put them in a bus together that is causing them to clip.

So, back to the drawing board, next time I sit down to mix I'll try to take into to consideration all of the tips and techniques you guys have provided, I truly appreciate the advice, help, and effort you all have put in.

If you all have any other bits of information/advice, feel free to let me know