Managing guitars and keyboards in a rock mix?

[Graham English]

I'm mixing my band that has many keyboards and huge guitars. The arrangements are great but the mixing can be tough. Does anyone have any advice on making the guitars huge without sacrificing the keys? It's a rock band in the style of Led Zeppelin, Live, and Prince's earlier heavier stuff with huge anthem arena rock qualities. How about some panning, effects or eq secrets? Thanks a lot!

[KenElevenShadows]

Quite honestly, a lot of the "secret" to this is in the initial arrangement (such as what patches the keyboardist plays, where on the keyboard or guitar each player plays, their individual parts and how they mesh together, whether they are playing something that is complementary, etc. etc.).

 

If you have a really busy, messy sounding arrangement, you're just creating that much more difficulty for yourself. Assuming that you already have brilliant arrangements -- and really, who here doesn't? -- you would probably next try and reach for the EQ, but only if necessary, to try and carve out a niche for each of the midrange instruments. Reverb prolly ain't gonna help you a whole lot, and panning may help you nominally.

[Graham English]

As I said, the arrangements are great. Nobody's stepping on eachother. I'm just looking for tips to mix guitar and keys. Such as stereo vs. mono guitars or keys and maybe general eq comments. I do find it hard to believe that panning will only provide nominal help.

[not Cereal]

its simply different for every mix; but here are some self learned and passed on tips i have:

 

1. dont pan the keys and guitars the same. i like to pan the keys very narrow, or very wide depending. same with guitars. a small change in width will change the clarity dramatically.

 

2. a casual high shelf on guitars can inprove the 'balls' factor- but dont do too much. also guitars can really use 300hz area boosts (.5 to 1.5 db)since nothing is around there in the other insts (that sounds particularly good IMHO) the guitar can achieve a good niche there.

 

3. keys love filters. high and low pass. again, subtle is the key (pun?) here. keys also love compression after filtering. keys waste a lot of power in the low end (IMHO) that doesnt help in the mix. it just robs power.

 

4. so, panning and eq is my advice. and careful with those effects!

 

BTW i am a keyboard player, but not the kind that doesnt appreciate a bitchen guitar!

[KenElevenShadows]

Panning can help a lot more than nominally if the sound system/club are pretty happening, actually, so I shouldn't have said that they help nominally across the board. My apologies.

 

I'd also definitely try panning the keyboards wide initially, and if that doesn't work, then begin with L-R placement. Honestly, though, it seems like you know enough about what you are doing to be quite successful in your endeavors.

 

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[Graham English]

Thanks for your replies. The mixing is fun indeed http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/smile.gif

[dansouth]

If it's vocal music, be sure to leave room for the vocals by having the guitars and keys lay back a little during vocal phrases. The can get busy and fill the spaces between the phrases. You can use a compressor to duck these parts by running a feed from the vocal into the compressor's sidechain, or you can ride the faders for the same effect.

 

Most rock recordings put a lot of reverb on the guitars, but if that sounds too muddy, cut the lows from the reverb return. Tone is fundamental - not something you can add in the mix - but I'll assume that you have that under control already.