Chicken And Egg - Chicken And Egg, Best stage to choose effects? Options

[Bonzo3]

After messing around in Garageband, I've just put together the first song I'm pleased with and and in the process of mastering it. When laying down each track, I had set effects to give each instrument the right feel. Now I'm setting the master volume and have a choice of different effects and settings for the song as a whole. Some of these make the song sound great in places, but throw certain instruments out (particularly those I already set effects for).

I'm just wondering when is the most logical stage to employ effects – at the recording stage, or the mastering stage, or both? Something's telling me I was a bit too specific early on, and I should have waited till I had the broader picture. Any advice from more seasoned Garageband users?

Thanks...

[MFourie]

Hi,

I found that, in general, it is better to make "space" (i.e. reverb / eq) for each instrument/track rather than in a whole mix. I do, however, from time to time use a Ultramaximizer (for the lack of a multiband compressor) to smooth out my mix.

Remember that reverb, delay etc puts instruments in different "places" in your mix, for example: a guitar with a lot of verb can sound more to the back of the mix (ie. less audible) than a guitar with no reverb, even though the tracks could be equal in terms of volume / gain. I think this sits with what B3 was saying earlier: making tracks fit.

Eq across a mix is usually only used to fix mistakes that should have been picked up while tracking. Of course you do find odd occasions where you're looking for a specific sound and therefore eq across a mix, but that is really the exception, not te rule.

My 2p, hope it helps.

Cheers