Surprising Fix for Muddy Mixes

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There’s no single cause for muddy mixes, but there is one that you might have never thought about. It has nothing to do with EQ, frequencies, microphones or recording techniques. It’s something easy to overlook, but impossible to fix with traditional mixing tools.
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[@HomeStudioCorner]

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[@rickmassimo6192]

Spot on. A few months ago I was listening back to one of my bass parts and thought "It's too far behind the beat, and it's muddy -- I'll fiddle with the EQ later, but let's get it tighter first." Lo and behold, the muddiness disappeared without EQ. I could even hear it while I was still playing.

[@TheRuben_music]

you scared the hell out of me! "I CANT HEAR ANY OTHER DIFFERENT THE THE TIMING!!!!" I thought i was completly noob for a second.....

[@nomoresaul]

Don’t worry man, I didn’t even notice the timing at first because I saw “muddy” and was trying to listen for the low sounds lol

[@TheRuben_music]

Good its just not me hehe! Been doing music for 15 years, and i though my ears had gone bye bye :P Timing is the key. I only struggel with timing all my vocal stems. Any tip how to fix it faster? I do record with metronom.... Its more that my recordings are lagging when recording so need to fix afterwards@@nomoresaul

[@seancostello7608]

Joe, mate - this is awesome. I’ve never thought of timing in the context of muddiness and I’ve never heard anyone else mention it. Thanks mate.

[@EZRockman]

Hey Joe. I haven't listened to you for a while. No reason, just been focusing on other things in my music production. I watched this one and remembered again why I subscribed to your channel a few years ago, bought one or two of your courses, and use hour cheat sheets. I always learn something from you, and you're still my go-to for always great content. Thanks Brother Joe.

[@ErixSamson]

You're absolutely right!

[@kevgresham8407]

Brilliant Joe ..I tried explaining this to someone yrs ago ..GRATS I am and always have been and will be an advocate of this. Better source tracks mean better mixes ..therefor a better Master.

[@meinekleinegartenwelt3110]

Thank you Joe

[@rtmuse]

Great video as usual, thanks. As someone who has had some timing issues, another trick I've used is to 'overclock' the metronome to play 1/8 or even 1/16 notes when overdubbing (even in 4/4). I've found this helps me anticipate the beats better. Great channel!

[@adimatis]

Indeed!

[@chadgrieser8021]

you tricked me. i was listening to the guitar tones of the 2 clips. i noticed the timing problem, but wasn't thinking of that as the title for the video is muddy mix. Good way to make me think outside the box!

[@cliveburgess4128]

Makes sense!

[@o_leksandr]

I guess it’s something similar to how reverb can create new frequencies or add muddiness when too much of it-? Very interesting, thanks!

[@JorgeEgrejasFrancisco]

What a great video with a fundamental advice 👏 Thanks for that, Joe. GIRATS 4ever 👌 Of course the missing factor (for the completeness of the subject) is “do quantization or adjusting the audio timings in the DAW solves the problem of a not so good performance?”. With the nowadays tech facilities I believe one can overcome less than good timing issues in the editing phase…

[@northernengland]

Brilliant. Found this out putting on acoustic strumming, sounded great until I recorded it, thought wtf !

[@nomoresaul]

I’ve been paying attention more to my timing lately after my sister pointed this out. I think my biggest problem even when aware of timing is I get bored. Stuff that sounds and feels really catchy when it’s done, can sound and feel really repetitive and even annoying while first figuring it out and playing it.

[@mkallend]

I kinda dig the gold one. Has a bit of a Charles Ives meets lo-fi sound.

[@peckinpah303]

Timing is everything 😂

[@camstanley]

Another reason why editing is so important... even tho I ******* HATE editing lol

[@HomeStudioCorner]

Editing OR just playing in time to begin with. 😊

[@nomoresaul]

GRASS. “Get it Right At the Start or Suffer.” lol I hate editing too. Especially vocals. Nothing is worse than editing vocals. I will never know how to edit them no matter how many songs I make or educational videos I watch.

[@richiejackson9321]

@@nomoresaulhere’s the next iteration of the GIRATS T-shirt. 😂

[@camstanley]

@@HomeStudioCorner if only I could tell my artists that 😂

[@fen3184]

Very interesting. The mud was immediately obvious to me, but I was so focused on listening to the nature of it, that the beat and timing almost didn't exist... I'd never have guessed the timing was the problem.

[@paulcooper9981]

I never liked playing with click tracks with my band (or a metronome). But I have to. Trouble is I can lose “feel” as I’m focusing so much on being accurate. I’m getting better gradually. But I do use stretch markers (in Reaper) to manually tighten things up if I have to. And since a lot of my stuff is keyboard based, I can record the MIDI then edit as much as I want (bum notes as well 😊) before re-recording the edited track. When I was producing tracks for church during lockdown I had to do a *lot* of timing correction on tracks recorded remotely by others in the band, to make the tracks sound decent.

[@flmason]

LOL! Didn't even notice the timing... was focusing on the tone and thinking... "They sound the same to me"...

[@nomoimusic3096]

Metronome + practice = better musician and no need for editing 🥰

[@TresSeaver]

As a suggestion, maybe particularly for guitarists: try recording yourself playing some hand percussion (shaker, cowbell, tambourine, claves) to a click (or straight-ahead drum track):. The sharpness of the transient and immediate decay makes your timing problems immediately apparent: you don't need to look at the waveform, you just hear it. Once your recordings with hand percussion show you playing in time, switch back to the guitar, and see if you've made noticeable improvement. Worked for me, anyway! FWIW, I wouldn't advocate hand claps for this exercise: getting them recorded clearly enough to hear the difference is too much pain for not enough gain. There's a reason most people record claps as a "gang" track.

[@HomeStudioCorner]

Great suggestion.

[@RudalPL]

The B was played in time.

[@TheRuben_music]

It has to be on time. people are feeling the beat, and if the beat is off they turn the song off

[@b1j]

But we’re not perfect, even after rehearsal. Do you ever use bend markers? They saved me this week.

[@HomeStudioCorner]

Like I said in the video, the goal isn't perfection. The second take wasn't perfect, but I played it much better than the first one. And yeah, I use bend markers sometimes.

[@2Kings315]

And this is why Studio One has the bend tool and bend markers 🙂 I know. I know. GIRATS.

[@JoaquinGonzalez2014]

B timing is the difference

[@personalwatching9312]

Takes talent to play that far out of time joe. I couldn't do that

[@HomeStudioCorner]

It was HARD

[@CalixtoElDiablo]

Time. It’s not just a magazine

[@aceventura5398]

Everything in music is location location location.

[@michaeltablet8577]

B. Timing is better

[@DreamscapeMusicStars]

Timing 😅

[@ezekielnsengi2480]

B

[@davidnika446]

Timing sounded terrible. I listened to B, and it didn't sound any more or any less muddy. But B still sounded pretty bad, because I just listened to A.

[@ericpeterson9336]

Im 44 seconds into the video... same guitar track... timing is fixed ( oh please be right ,oh please be right !!!!) ok back to the video

[@ktbassman1239]

Duh

[@heinkrohn9189]

haha! jokes on you! I'm not wearing panties!

[@nomoresaul]

My aspergers has to point out, for no reason at all, that the “fwump” sound can in fact sound really good. If it’s what you’re going for, if it’s consistent, and if despite it you still remember timing is everything. My aspergers also has to point out that ocassionally, you may want to make a song sound bad on purpose, and let me tell you, bad timing is key for that. Bad timing and editing one random instrument to be one or two semitones off from everything else. It makes a chaotic and disorienting feel that you typically want to avoid, but that you can also use to your advantage if you want a song, or more likely a section of a song, to sound bad. Why would anyone WANT to make a song sound bad? I can think of four reasons off the top of my head: One, it’s a comedy song and you want to convey the feeling that you have no clue what you’re doing. Two, it’s a song about elephants or something and you want an interlude to feel like an actual stampede is happening. Three, you’re going for an anxiety-inducing spooky feeling. Or four, you’re just bored and felt like it and weren’t expecting the song you did it on to wind up being the most liked song on one of your albums. All four can be achieved instantly by literally just taking one or two tracks and moving them a hair over one way or the other, and changing the semitones of one random track. Instant chaos. But you have to first know the rules before you can break them.

[@rgwilliamson]

Stay in the pocket.

[@rgwilliamson]

Brilliant advice! I've been playing with a drum machine for over 30 years. Drummers love me lol.

[@kimseniorb]

who is this aimed at though. people who don’t know what timing is?

[@HomeStudioCorner]

People who don't realize their timing is bad. People whose mixes don't sound great, and they think it's a mixing problem when it's a performance/timing problem

[@titmusspaultpaul5]

Interesting, but not a lot of in-depth information. And showing a T-Rex and stating we lived with these animals is SO WRONG its laughable. Good try by needs some work. Keep trying though as the voice over and graphics were good.... cheers.