Define clarity?
Something that sounds clear and pristine? In the music mixing world at least, clarity is when you hear all the parts of a mix clearly.
Now define muddiness?
A muddy mix is when the lower mids of your mix get cluttered up and all the bottom end seems to lack definition.
You can’t hear the differences between the bass drum and the bass guitar because they take up the same space, resulting in a cluttered and un-clear mix. Even the lower end of the vocal is trying to pull some weight down there, way out of it’s league.
So what can you do when your music mixing lacks clarity?
1. Start With Your Drums
Start by soloing your drums and see if you notice any abnormal boominess. The bass drum is a big contender for this so make sure it isn’t occupying too much low end space.
Also, there is a buildup of potential low mid energy when you have all of your drums soloed at once, so be sure to listen to them has a complete instrument.
3. Go Through Your Other Instruments, one by one
After soloing your drums, add in other instruments and see if they are the ones causing the boominess. Bass guitars, keyboards and other instruments that have their fundamental frequencies in the low end are all good options.
Maybe two different instruments are competing for the same spot in the frequency spectrum, which results in an even muddier sound.
3. Filter Where You Need
After finding the offending instruments, filter out what you don’t need. Vocals can be filtered out quite high, depending on the range and sex of the singer.
Guitars can be filtered up to 200Hz or more if they aren’t playing a major part in the song. Filter out the unnecessary low end in all the instruments and see if your mix sounds better.
4. If You Can’t Filter, EQ Correctly
Now if you have tried filtering and it doesn’t quite cut it, you have to resort to some corrective EQ. Low end thickness is often caused by a bump in the 120Hz range and a boomy mid-range character can be caused by too much 200-250Hz.
So by cutting a little bit in those frequency areas you can clean up an instrument quite nicely. Set your EQ to a narrow Q and see if you can’t sweep any of those annoying frequencies off the table.
5. An Analyzer Over the Stereo Bus
If you can’t hear where the low end is and you can’t seem to be able to pinpoint it with EQ, use a spectrum analyzer on the stereo bus to see where the frequency build-up is.
Frequency analyzers can come in handy when you want to see if you are representing each frequency range clearly. And by using it to see your boomy build-up, you can take corrective steps to better your music mixing.
Spectrum analyzer
6. Cut the Boominess From the Master Bus
If you have gone back to every instrument and tried EQ’ing and filtering without avail there is one more solution. You can slap a stereo EQ over the master bus and clean up the boominess of the whole mix.
But be careful, those boomy frequencies are also the ones that keep the mix thick. Cutting too much can result in a thin mix, so you have to be subtle in your master bus cutting.
Conclusion
So there you have it. Boomy and muddy music mixing is definitely a problem for many. You want all your tracks to sound full and thick but when you end up putting them all together, what you get is a pile of unclear muddiness.
So use these tips the next time your lower mids need some tweaking. You might end up with pristine clarity instead of unclear boominess.
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