greg54

I appreciate everyone's response. All great advice. I'll keep trying to work through all the obstacles and find out what works best for me. Mike Morgon-Shaw: I will check out that book. Thanks, everyone!

I just started mixing my songs (never mixed before). My room is largely untreated. It's 12' x 12'. When I mix on monitors, the vocals have too much midrange and it's hard to get them to sound right. When I mix with the headphones, they sound fine. I have some reference tracks and listen to them on the monitors and through headphones. They sound good through the monitors, but sound just like my vocals through the headphones. Do I not trust my monitors and just mix with headphones? I'm new at this, so I have no idea.

Great, thanks for your help!

So Save As, and save it to a destination? If I open it to a track in another project, will it open as a complete track or just as a wave file?

I know how to get reference tracks into a track within my DAW. But once they're in there (and I know, this is stupid), how do you save them to use them for future projects? I don't want to save them as a project. I just want to save the reference track. When I insert a CD into my DVD player, I click on Audio CD, then it opens the songs. But from there it does not allow me to save it anywhere, but only open it within my track. When I click on the reference track itself within my DAW, there is no Save As. And I want to save it as a wave file. But how to do it escapes me. I want to save it onto my desk top. How do you do it?

Discovered the problem with recording vocals. I was using a track that I thought was clean, but it was routed to the Vox bus. When I recorded, it had eq and compression on it. Made a new track, recorded, and it's fine. So that was my stupidity of not paying attention.

I think the reverb issue is fixed. I deleted the old reverb bus and added a new one. So far it seems fine. But when I record vocals they record hotter than normal and are more harsh. I haven't touched anything regarding the vocals - not the interface, mic pre, mic, or anything within CbB that I would think affect the vocals like that.

Yeah, anything can be the issue. You never know. I use a Focusrite 18i20 interface. And I have the headphones going into a headphone preamp, and I use a Warm Audio mic pre. Dust is a big issue here, so I will look into that. Thanks!

I have gone over pretty much everything. But I will delete the reverb bus and create a new one, as you suggested. Thanks!

Yes, sorry if I did not make that clear.

After I thought the issue was fixed, I turned off the computer. Later when I turned it on again to do more work, the problem persists. It's within the reverb bus. For now I have a reverb plugin on my vocal track. Don't know what to do about the reverb bus issue at this point.

I've been playing with it for a while this morning and found the issue. For whatever reason, Breverb is the problem. No matter what setting I have it on, reverb is just way too much and causes the problem I described. I took it off and put Sonitus Reverb on the bus, and now everything works fine. Thanks for everyone's input! I always appreciate it.

That's weird, because today I installed a new plugin right before I noticed the problem. I'm going to uninstall the plugin and see if it resolves the issue. Did you do Save As under a new name for the whole project? Thanks!

That round orange button is on by default. It's lit up.

All of a sudden I'm having issues with reverb. I have it on a bus, and I use Sends on each track that I want to add reverb to. But today when I was recording vocals, reverb is on even when I turn it off on the track. I turned reverb off on my vocal track, and I still hear it through my headphones when I sing. I finally found that it was coming from the Reverb bus. I muted that, and there was no reverb. But that shouldn't happen. If I have reverb off on my vocal track, I shouldn't hear it. Added to that, when I record vocals, everything sounds very harsh. This is out of the blue. I have the reverb plugin maxed out in my Reverb bus. But when I turn the reverb knob up in my vocal track, I barely hear it, even when it's up 100%. And when I turn the reverb knob off on my vocal track, I still hear it through my headphones when recording vocals. Echo is not on in the vocal track (or anywhere else). So I don't know what's causing the reverb to be on all the time, even if the knob is off. And I don't know why vocals are all of a sudden harsh when I record them.

57Greg and Starship Krupa: Thanks for your input! That's what I have come to understand. A mix bus is NOT the Master bus but any bus that has effects that you route tracks into in order to share effects. A week ago I emailed the guy who made the video I posted, and he sent me this article. It says what you both said. https://www.musicianonamission.com/mix-bus/

It's interesting that all the videos I have watched about the mix bus do not say what it is or how to create it. And come to find out, as you said, it's just the Master bus. Thanks!

I think it was Mike Enjo who suggested converting a lot of stereo tracks into mono, which I have done. I approach horn, piano and other such instruments played on the keyboard as if the real thing was recorded, so I make them mono. But I've kept the pads stereo. Making instruments mono and then panning 100% L or R adds to the width, to me. But I too am beginning to see that LCR, for me, may not be the best way. I put some instruments that are meant to stick out a bit more around 50-60% here and there. These instruments are not playing all the time. When they do play, and I want them to stick out more, I do what you suggested bitflipper, and bring them out of LR just a little. But everything else, except for vocals, bass, kick, are LCR. That seems to be working for me. I will check out the Boz Digital Labs panner. Thanks, everyone!

Good to know. Thanks!

For me, having the reference track in CbB is probably the easiest. Right now all the info is kind of overloading my brain. I'm watching videos and trying to understand, but it's all new to me. I think I'll just take my time and watch and read and sift through it all. But I appreciate all the help everyone is giving. One question I have: I've been watching videos of mixing, and a lot of people say to mix Left Center Right, with nothing in between. Is that how everyone here mixes?

I want to compare my songs to reference tracks only to get an idea of how "professionals" are mixing the bass along with the drums, and to get an idea of the vocals. I want to get ideas from them, but not clone their sound. Thanks!

I'm new at mixing, so I began by asking how to get a reference track from a CD. I've watched videos and read opinions. I'm just trying to find what works. Thanks!

Thanks, John Nelson! John Vere: I want to use reference tracks only to compare mix balance. Others have commented that I can't use a reference track in mixing because a mix is being compared to a mastered song. But all I want it for is to check mixes. Thanks!

Thanks, Andres and OutrageProductions! I appreciate your help!

I understand now about a mix bus. But all the stuff you mentioned about a bus for audio 3+4 and another bus for headphones - that I don't understand. What would be the purpose of creating a bus for audio outputs on my interface (I have 8 outputs) or for my headphones? Also, if I put a reference track in my DAW, can I create a Reference bus to play it through? Thanks, Andres!