Trying to get consistency across songs

[Erik DuijsParticipant]

Hello all,

Not sure if this is the right forum for this, but here it goes:
So I'm trying to produce my first EP at home, together with the rapper and guitar player from my band. I've recorded 5 songs and made some rough mixes.
Now the problem is that these 5 tracks sound all over the place. One track sounds warm and fat, the next sounds dry and punchy, the vocals sound quite different from track to track, the loudness is all over the place and so on.
I'm not against variety of course, but there is just no consistency at all listening from track to track, even though I'm not unhappy with the sound of the tracks in isolation (considering my limited abilities at this point honestly).

Should this just be a matter of mastering? Should I approach such an 'EP' in a different way from the outset in order to get something more consistent? Maybe I shouldn't worry about this too much because who listens to a whole EP anyway?

I know it's probably difficult to have a general answer to this without knowing the tracks in question, but I'd love to hear your thoughts and how you approach such a thing.

Cheers,
Erik

[DaveParticipant]

Well Start by making copies of your project files as backup.Then start to remix. Mix all songs using the same reference track.
OR take one of the songs that you have mixed, that is your favorite and use that as your reference track. 🙂

• This reply was modified 5 years ago by Dave.

[Niki PichlerParticipant]

Heho Erik,

i know what you are talking about.

first it's really never a mastering thing that the album sounds consistent. try imagine an album as an mastering engineer with songs from celine dion, metallica and james blunt and try to get them consistent (that wouldn't work)!

so it's up to the arrangement/producing for most of the part and a bit to mixing.

my approach to get consistency is searching for getting some same elements into the songs like the same drum kit, same bass sound, same vocal sound, same reappearing effects, etc. (kick, bass and vocals is the support of every song for me so if they are sounding at least consistent you can do more crazy stuff around them)

next what i normally use to get consistency is just using a few different reverbs. i have one plate, one room and one hall that i use on everything i want to have reverb. plate is usally on snare and vocals, room is on everything i wanna get consistent aside the low elements (so it is normally not on kick or bass but normally on every other not lead part (be sure to cut out the low end on your reverb) as i try to get the spacing of lead parts with delays to don't put that parts further back in the mix), and hall i use to get things really far in the back to get the depth.

also be sure to use the same mics/preamps/amps/stompboxes/etc. on the same elements.

on the arrangement side, try to put some same elements, melodies or even lyrics that show that this is one piece, from other songs into oneanother.

but aside that i wouldn't worry too much about the consistency as the music share a common genre (you can mix pop/rock with funk/rock for example)!

hope that helps!

cheers, Niki

[Erik DuijsParticipant]

Hi Niki and Dave,

Thanks for your replies, that was very helpful 🙂
Very interesting ideas!

I guess one of the problems is that a few of the tracks use older takes of the main vocals recorded with completely different equipment, but we were already planning to re-record those.
I'm definitely going to try out the idea of re-mixing with one of the tracks as a reference.

Perhaps I also shouldn't attempt to go too far with trying to get complete consistency; the nature of the selection of songs is perhaps a bit ummm 'eclectic' to begin with (which sounds more pretentious than I want, but variety was a goal for this project I guess I'm trying to say).

Cheers,
Erik

[Niki PichlerParticipant]

Heho Dave,

yeah consistency is nice to have and i really like it but that doesn't mean everything should sound the same. variety is also a big factor if i like an album or not! so keep the variety in every song but get a consistent sound (like you said, older recordings in terms of performance equipment etc. are not good to be mixed with newer stuff for consistency).

when i'm listening to an album, i'm listening to it normally in one go and not apart a few months, so getting it to sound like the same band at the same time is crucial for consistency!

a really good example of a good variety is the new foo fighters album "concrete and gold" and every song for me is really good on their own but together, the whole album lacks some consistency and so it seems like a best of album over the last 40 years.

cheers, Niki

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