Hi,

I have the following problems while using my MOXF8 for music production (I guess, the same would apply to Motif or Montage due to the similarity of the sound engines).

What would be similar in all three cases would be a novice engineer. The novice engineer always blames the gear. One that knows what they are doing doesn’t have muffled or muddy sound. That is a hard fact that hopefully you will learn on your own. By saying what you are saying no one achieves a non-muffled, non-muddy sound; you’re saying, first, incorrectly, that the MOXF has the same audio engine as the Motif XF and that the Motif XF has the same audio engine as the MONTAGE, not only is that untrue, you just slammed thousands of user... and secondly, you’re saying you are guessing the same would apply across all Yamaha products... yikes. My first reaction is it is probably, user error. And that’s good news because YOU can fix it.

Well, with that, welcome to YamahaSynth!

Have others had simlar experiences? Any particular hints / rules of thumb how to achieve good mixings when using the Yamaha instruments? Since I as far as I know, the Motif family instruments have been used on many professional records, and AWM2 provides a lot of parameters to adjust, I guess it must be manageable somehow...

I spent many years as a full time recording engineer, so forgive my reality check if it comes across a bit preachy, it’s a subject I have some extensive knowledge about. The problems with first being a musician and recording engineer is only exasperated when you then think you can also be the mastering engineer. And get all three things right, the first time! The more you get away from the musician role, the less you know. And until you recognize that, you are guessing, and not just about what’s wrong with your mixes...

Hiring a Mastering engineer or at least respecting what they do for a living, might be a good place to start. A Mastering engineer can and does listen to more music than you. You pay for the experience of their ears. They get paid top dollar for their work. It is highly doubtful that you would be able to pull off the trifecta of playing/recording/mastering and get all three right, on your first try. That's a reality. If you did, then you would be a genius and would not be asking about muddy muffled mixes...

Probably the most positive thing I can tell you is this: there is no shortcut to experience. You get better as you learn what you’re doing. It’s a process.

Your first attempts should be looked at as gaining experience. The trick is to get better at what your doing. Muffled and muddy mixes can be overcome by knowing what to EQ where. Most first timers wind up EQ’ing way too much and leave nothing for the Mastering engineer because they don’t really know what can be fixed at that final mastering stage. Most first timers are more concerned with levels than they are with dynamics or the sound.

In general, if you record as MIDI first, then render audio, then create a stereo mixdown, then master the project... first thing to recognize that whoever your favorite commercial artist is, they likely went through a similar process except they had the help of experts... experts to record the data (very important that the original rendering of audio is done properly... a mistake here is difficult to undo later). They also probably took the project to an entirely different venue to mix it and another to finally master it, paying another engineer top dollar to master it. Hmm! When cost is no object why do all of that?

The process of mastering “is bringing the sound up to ear-level”. Ear-level is a term used by mastering engineers to refer to the general listening level of current music. Without getting into a big discussion about the Loudness Wars (another subject near and dear to my heart)...it’s important to know that you can blame the tools but in reality you need to know that while you have one of the entry level tools, (MOXF)... you need to check your own ears... and recognize that out of 100 MOXF owners doing their first project or their fiftieth project, yours may not even be the best, no less something you’d want to compare to projects that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

While hearing a difference between a MOXF and Motif XF can take a trained ear, just about everyone can hear the difference between the MOXF and the MONTAGE. And recognize that getting it right is a learning process, expect to get better. Simply having a MONTAGE does not mean you can’t create a muddy mix however, that can be caused by making the same mistakes (too much bass in the reverb)... but certainly the sharper focus will be noticed.

Now down to the nitty gritty...
At what sample rate and resolution did you record your project?
At what sample rate and resolution is your mastered two track?
At which transfer do you hear the biggest reduction in quality? If you play the project back as multiple track session in your DAW, compare that to your DAW stereo mix? What quality did you lose in this process? Playback your “mastered” version. Rate the loss of quality. Play your mp3. Rate the loss of quality.

Be honest with yourself. You don’t have to tell anyone, this is for your own personal evaluation. If it is in the very beginning steps, get better at constructing the basic tracks. If it is in the first mixdown or even in the transfer of MIDI to audio... get better at rendering MIDI to audio (an art in itself)... if your Mastering needs help (and since Mastering is the “finishing” step, you’ll want to understand what can and what cannot be fixed here), and finally squeezing it to mp3.

That doesn’t necessarily have to be awful ... think of your project as a picture. The higher the resolution of the original picture, the better it will look when reproduced in various media. On high gloss paper you can see every detail, and on the paper they print newspapers, yes the picture will lose something but the more high resolution you start with the more that translates even under the worst conditions. If mp3 is your ultimate goal for finished distributions, then do a series of remixes of this same project. Paying strict attention to the transfer points... you are transferring formats along the way.

These are critical points in your project. I’ve asked you to go back over your project, look for these transfer points, look specifically for quality difference pre and post the transfer point.

Just because you get an electric piano sound that is just right when played alone, doesn’t mean it can join every ensemble of instruments with no consequences. Mixed in with strings it does one thing, mixed in with guitars it may do another. You need to adjust instruments so that they work together in the ensemble assembled for ‘this’ Song. Knowing to make the adjustments is a key.

Muffled and muddy are a problem with mid-range focus. It could be simply a phase issue (bad stereo imaging) it could simply be too much low frequency content in the reverb chamber... or a score of other causes. You need to learn to use the SOLO button... while previewing a mix, it is often a good idea to isolate an instrument “in-place”... solo’ing it, then releasing the solo so it sits back in with the other instruments.

This A/B’ing can be revealing about what gets lost and what may be causing a problem for some other component within the ensemble. Roger Nichols used to say that changing one instrument 1dB should be detectable within a well balanced mix. When you appreciate what he’s saying you start to realize how important placement in a mix is, not just volume but left-to-right placement. Can you hear everything you focus your attention on, is it in the right location within the mix? Can you follow it throughout each section without it getting ‘lost’.

At any rate, don’t blame the gear. The gear is capable of high quality results. I think you know this already. One more question: how many mixes of this project do you currently have?

Hi Bad Mister,

thanks for jumping in (on a Sunday! appreciated...). In fact, I was hoping to to gain a little from your knowledge regarding this subject.

To give you a bit on my background: yes, I am (as you rightly guessed) an amateur regarding music production, but nevertheless, with some experience, I do it for 20 years or so (although more or less all autodidactic). So there are some things I know, but I might be unaware of others which come to you as natural. But in principle, I guess I know (& have used) the basic concepts & tools. Hiring a "pro" master engineer is probably out of scope for me.

Sorry if it came across as if I was blaming the gear- no, I am aware that its probably my fault. But I was just surprised to run into the described problems to this extend using my MOXF because as I said, when using some older gear, it wasn't as pronounced, although I did not take much care of EQing single instruments. So part of my question was whether this is normal / expected without using the EQs. For example, it could be that the default Yamaha presets are more "dark" or conservative with respect to their EQ settings for some reason. No blaming the gear, the EQs are provided and its possible to adjust, just getting better understanding. Maybe it was only my particular instrument selection for this song. Do you have any hint for a good reading regarding mixing / EQ adjustments ? And also the amount of insertion effects (and which ones) one should use in an entire mixing? I already did some reading by now, but this was not focused on the Yamaha instruments, so if there is anything....

Regarding your other questions (sample rate etc): I don't think it boils down to any hard technical problem, because the mixed down audio file still sounds OK on my HS7 speakers, and I don't hear noticeable difference from the MIDI playback. I record it through the audio interface of MOXF btw, using standard settings. For exporting from the DAW I tried different settings (16bit, 24bit, 32 bit, I guess all 44.1 kHz), but did not hear a significant difference - still sounds good.The problems arise after mastering (Limiter mostly), and in particular on other speakers / headphones. But I am already aware that the limiters tend to increase problems with mud and bass, and as said, I am already improving. Your hint with the A/B comparison (SOLO button) sounds good, and with the different mixing versions. Although I tend to work for months on a project, and hence I produced a lot of different mixings (to answer your final question), I did not do so systematically. So I will do now.

Last comment regarding MOTIF / MOXF / Montage. What I meant is the following: the tone gereration of MOXF and Motif XF are (as far as I know) identical, and Montage includes the MOXF tone generation & sounds as a subset, losely speaking. Yes, the "pro" instruemnts have better DACs. But when I am using the built-in audio interface of MOXF to record the instrument, I would assume, different DACs should play no role since all is kept digital, and I should get exactly the same result as if I would have recorded with MOTIF or Montage (using the same instruments, of course), at least when I playback the result on other devices. Correct? Of course I know that in particular Montage offers a lot more (more & better instruments, better DACs, etc. etc.)

Thanks again