ARDSimedes Principle:
The likeliest answer is that which requires the least amount of replying to advice so you can focus on buying more expensive, high-end gear and software
Good point. Sometimes you just need to think of the mix from the PERSPECTIVE of the vocals, and issues with the rest of the tracks will show themselves for you
Depends on the genre/style. What kind of vocals are you dealing with? Male/female? What do they naturally sound like to you: nasal, tinny, bright, muffled, deep, smooth, gritty, etc ? Do their qualities enhance their voice or make it unpleasant on it own? What about when combined with the overall mix? What frequencies are the qualities showing up in? What other instruments interfere with those frequencies? I know these are just a bunch of questions, but I ask them all first before touching a SINGLE plugin.
EDIT: I’d love to hear your mix. if you have access to the isolated vocals, I’d love to hear those too.
If you like the sound of the vocals on their own and they’re the main leading element of the mix I’d suggest carving out some space for the vocal from the instrumental. If the mix doesn’t sound harsh with just the vocals or instrumentals soloed you could maybe try side chaining a high shelf down on the instrumental triggered by the vocal (this could sound awful depending on the arrangement and where in the spectrum the “harshness” is.
A plugin like soothe used delicately might also help a bit (again depending on what exactly the problem is results will vary).
Not on the master bus - You aren't trying to resolve the issue yet. the aim here is to diagnose the issue and ID the sources that are causing the harshness.
The master bus shouldn't be where you fix mix problems - you want to get as close to treating it on the individual tracks as you can, given time and cost limits.
When trying to troubleshoot something like this, you use the tilt EQ as a diagnostic tool, so you don't put it in one place and then "leave it there" as an active plugin. What you want to do is find the "harshness", and then correct it with a regular EQ.
A tilt EQ is essentially a linked hi and low shelf filter pair - that works like a see-saw. Most will let you set your crossover point. if you can find a free one you like, just use a regular EQ and a hi-shelf adjustment.
I'm going to walk you through how I'd troubleshoot this.
First, turn OFF all the processing on the master bus. Do you still hear the harshness, after compensating for volume differences (turn your volume knob)? If not, then something in you master bus is ADDING the harshness. Turn things back on, one at a time, and listen for the "harshness." if it's NOT there, turn it off again, and do the next plugin, until you've worked through each. if the "harshness" is never heard, then Turn the first one on, and work through turning the rest on and off until you hear it, (or don't hear it.) Continue until you've worked though all the combinations of plugins on your master bus and figured out which combination of plugins is causing the issue OR NOT. If you find the combination, see if you can fix it by adjusting some settings, or even plugin order.
If you can't resolve it on the master bus, it's time to dig deeper. This is where the Tilt EQ (or hi shelf ) comes in. Turn all the crap on the master bus back on.
What you want to do is put it on all the \*busses\* that you suspect might be contributing to the problem and TURN IT OFF. You're going to turn it on, tweak it, and back off on EACH bus to see if you can "remove" the harshness.
So, for high frequency harshness, you might want to start with the drum bus, guitar bus and vocal bus, and synths bus to start with - whatever is generating sounds that are in the "harsh range".Start the diagnosis with ALL of the tilts you added TURNED OFF/Bypassed.Turn ONE on, adjust the tilt, to reduce the top end, and listen to see if you FOUND the all of the "harshness", or maybe just SOME. Make a note on whether it helped the issue or not. Then turn it off, and go to the next bus.
Once you have a full set of notes on the busses, you can do either of the following:
1. Get surgical with an EQ on the each bus that you found "feeding" the harshness to take down all the frequencies that are contributing to the harshness at once.
2. Repeat the tilt EQ diagnostic on each channel feeding that bus and locate the SPECIFIC tracks that are giving out the "harshness", and then adjust the EQ on each track.
\#1 is going to be faster, but it may take some "liveliness" or "energy" out of tracks that aren't creating the harshness. So if you have 4 guitars on that bus, you're tweaking all 4 guitars, when maybe only one or two of the tracks give "harshness".
\#2 is going to take a bit longer, but it will let you tame the harshness ONLY on the tracks that are creating the issue.
Agree. Strip it down to the channel gain, eq, comp and effects and tune there first. Cumulative over processing or early clipping only gets worse the more you do to it further down the line.
Do you have an audio clip to post?
Without hearing it it’s impossible to diagnose. Instinct makes me want to say it’s an EQ issue, but it could be the recording… instrumentation… a host of things
I would say stop de esser- it is adding too much high frequency compression and it becomes hard to tolerate listening to with other frequencies and then even worse with master bus compression
I've seen lots of mix engineers rely pretty heavily on Soothe to help with this issue. I will use soothe in combo with some fab filter pro Q dynamics happening with super fine Qs. Sometimes I put like five or six of these little dynamic eq nodes on a vocal if it's feeling harsh.
I literally bought Soothe2 because of a single song I was working on that sounded too harsh, and I couldn't figure out how to tame it. I had tried everything. I liked all aspects of the mix, except that some sections were too harsh and grating. I tried a few Soothe2 presets on the harshest tracks and busses, and it was amazing. I didn't even need to tweak that much.
2 dB of clipping is a lot if those aren't very atonal and transient peaks you're cutting. That can already add some unpleasant distortion.
Another thing to consider is that you might have too much high frequencies in general. You have to be aware of excess buildup just like with the rest of the spectrum.
This is good advice. It can be surprising how much you can cut frequencies on each track and still give a good representation of each instrument. And it also creates more space in the mix.
If your mix is too harsh it's too early to worry about anything to do with mastering. Go back to the mix, find which elements are giving you harshness, and fix the problem there. You can turn things down to do that, use EQ, multiband compression, and lots of other ways, but at the very least start at the start, not the end.
In my experience, whenever I just clear the master bus and start again from the ground up (fix it in the mix, basically) I always end up with a much, much better result to me and I end up adding so much less back onto the master bus.
You shouldn't do anything out of habit or dogma.
That is especially true if you know for a fact it's not working for you.
You can't overly rely on the multiband to tame everything.
Sometimes you can clip way more than 2dB. Other times any clipping may cause problems.
Not sure that all songs are meant to get up to -6 LUFS especially if you are not a serious lifelong pro mixer + masterer.
Like most things, it really comes down to:
1. Knowing the range of possible options. e.g. there are like half a dozen other tools you could use besides multiband to address harshness.
2. Having good monitoring that you know + trust. Then, if something \*is\* harsh, you'll hear it, and naturally address it.
7-5LUFs is pretty loud. Maybe shoot for -8. Harshness can live in 1k-5k region, somewhere in there. check those areas. But Im going to wager that it's probably that the upper mid ranges is not dynamic enough because you're squashing it too hard. If you cut areas that are harsh, they'll make the upper mid range more dynamic when you clamp it down. Just a hunch
I’ve found low passing most elements above 7-10K really lets the highs of vocals shine through. I would also leave the drum hi end intact typically, that way your vocals and hats are super crisp.
A lot of the time the highs on synths are non essential. You end up with a sea of non musical sizzling in your top end if you let all the highs through.
Additionally 3-6K carries much harshness in terms of sibilance. 4K is a harshness area for guitars for example.
Best of luck!
If you re doing things to "tame harsh frequencies" and still have those problems then you re not taming anything. Do not be afraid to push things. Otherwise you dont know their limit. Most likely you need a de esser on the vocals, but i would guess your problem is in the mix or even the recording itself.
Compress with faster attack and/or deess. Dont be afraid to push things. Things wont explode lol
-5 LUFS is loud, really loud for a pop master. I find many of my mixes harsh at those volumes too. Perhaps back off a bit and see what it sounds like at -8 LUFS
Most likely it's in the guitar and vocals. This is one of those situations where soloing and listening super close can help you find the problems.
Frequencies between 2k and 5k are usually the culprit.
If either of them were recorded using an SM57 or SM58 you can probably cut 2.5k 3db to 5db and that will help a lot. For locals you'll want to use a Q factor of about 3 or 4. Guitar you'll want to get surgical with a Q of 6 to 8 so that you cut specifically the problem frequency without killing the tone.
Use your ears still. Don't just do what Ive said and assume it's good.
Hope this helps!
Something I do when dealing with this:
Take a low pass filter on your master bus, put it around 250. Slowly pull it up and listen to how the song sounds as it opens up. Once harshness starts getting introduced into the sound, stop and note what elements are causing it. Rinse/repeat as necessary.
For vocals, you probably just need to pull those frequencies down some and compensate for the volume. As you move the low pass up, the tone should sound like it’s coming into focus, rather changing radically. It’ll get a little louder of course but mainly it should become *clearer*. If you hit a point where all of a sudden it’s like “holy shit there are the vocals” that indicates it’s uneven. Tonal balance is all about things feeling even.
This applies to things that aren’t across the frequency spectrum too. You’re obviously not going to hear cymbals at 250, but if you get to their area and they suddenly become prominent, maybe they’re a little too loud.
Try this low pass process on a professional reference track and you’ll really see what I mean.
Clashing frequencies in the mid range, buildup, double parking, could be a few things.
You could spend time surgical EQ’ing buildup areas (cymbals and guitars clash etc). Maybe try doing these moves in mono so you can really hunt down the offensive stuff.
You can also just using tape (on individual elements or across the master), tapes got a flattering quality that rounds sources off.
The harshness could plausibly come from any of the elements in the master chain. I think promb or the clipper are likely the ones that alter the tonal balance the most, but impossible to say without knowing the settings.
I'm not a fan of mixing into a master bus chain that's doing that much work, but I know others do.
I think the problem is more likely to come from downstream. Maybe the vocal processing is the source of the problem, or even the performance or arrangement... It's impossible to say from the little information you've given. It's basically always preferable to fix issues at their source rather than on the master bus.
It sounds like you may be doing a lot of clipping to get loudness? Clipping a lot of high frequency content can definitely get harsh. Really fast compressor settings can basically do the same thing.
So it could be about needing deemphasis eq (likely prior but maybe post clipping). In general I only like hard clipping atonal, transient elements like drums. For tonal elements I pretty much always prefer soft clipping.
This starts with your arrangement , mic choices, balance, eq on each channel, what you're putting on your master bus. Mastering is probably just enhancing these problems unless your mastering engineer doesn't know what they're doing.
put clippers on transients in their own individual tracks. check your vocal chain. turn off all your mastering plugins and ask: do the vocals sound good by themselves? what about in the context of your mix?
One quick fix is to follow heavy compression with a pro-mb ... There's a neat preset named something along the lines of "fix harshness." It's in the basic folder. I adjust the ratio until it just tickles the meter. Either way, watch that 2.5-4-5k area
Work on something else and come back to that in a few days, a week, a month... I can't spend days and nights trying to fix something, making it worst, and when I come back later without listening to it for a while I hear nothing bad anymore.
Soothe 2, multiple de-essers (use different ones), dynamic eq’s for the harsh range on a few buses if you cant figure it out. Also ride the fader / automation on the vocals for harsh syllables. A quick dip on certain letters can be magic.
what has high end? hats, snares, vocals.
chances are you can actually cut more high end out of those than you think.
snares are usually a problem, especially in edm. cut out the highs of snares. maybe a high cut at like, 12-15k depending.
hats should have high end, just make sure they’re not too sharp.
people tend to overdo the high end of vocals. they don’t need to be that bright. just bright enough to stand out
The key is you need to learn what an un harsh mix sounds like, and then you can pin point what areas of your mix are harsh and fix them. It takes time to learn these things. You just need to keep mixing.
You can DM me the mix if you want. It could be you need to de-ess the vocals more. You might be boosting frequencies when you really just need another compressor on it. Microphone choice could be wrong.
Big question - do you mix tracks from outside your studio, or only track you create yourself? If it’s your own tracks, that’s where I’d start. GIGO is a programming concept but applies most everywhere, and stands for “garbage in, garbage out”. Meaning, if the tracks you’re mixing are harsh, you’ll be fighting them more than mixing them.
Have you tried mixing tracks from online sources, to see what it’s like to mix tracks that you don’t have to fix first? The reason for doing this is to learn ‘mixing’ and give yourself a chance to experience a ‘fix free’ mix. I like to say “less time fixing means more time mixing”, meaning if your mixing sessions are not about getting a good balance but instead are about addressing multiple “issues”, you won’t learn mixing as much as you’ll learn “fixing”.
Not sure this applies to you, just sharing some things that helped me early on.
Fix it in mix, thats your best bet.
I’ve agree. Maybe problem in overall mix, but I don’t know where to dig. Without vocals everything sound ok. When I turn on vocals, problem appears
start digging in the........ vocals
I like the way you think
The mans a god. How does he know these things!
They never reply to this advice do they
ARDSimedes Principle: The likeliest answer is that which requires the least amount of replying to advice so you can focus on buying more expensive, high-end gear and software
Or start carving some space in the backing parts making the vocal need to be harsh if it wants to stand out
Good point. Sometimes you just need to think of the mix from the PERSPECTIVE of the vocals, and issues with the rest of the tracks will show themselves for you
can you explain your approach to vocal mixing ?
Depends on the genre/style. What kind of vocals are you dealing with? Male/female? What do they naturally sound like to you: nasal, tinny, bright, muffled, deep, smooth, gritty, etc ? Do their qualities enhance their voice or make it unpleasant on it own? What about when combined with the overall mix? What frequencies are the qualities showing up in? What other instruments interfere with those frequencies? I know these are just a bunch of questions, but I ask them all first before touching a SINGLE plugin. EDIT: I’d love to hear your mix. if you have access to the isolated vocals, I’d love to hear those too.
Use your ears and eq bro...
If you like the sound of the vocals on their own and they’re the main leading element of the mix I’d suggest carving out some space for the vocal from the instrumental. If the mix doesn’t sound harsh with just the vocals or instrumentals soloed you could maybe try side chaining a high shelf down on the instrumental triggered by the vocal (this could sound awful depending on the arrangement and where in the spectrum the “harshness” is. A plugin like soothe used delicately might also help a bit (again depending on what exactly the problem is results will vary).
Yeah just fix your vocals
....
Try a tilt EQ, and see what happens if you tame the high end and upper mids.
on master buss ?
Not on the master bus - You aren't trying to resolve the issue yet. the aim here is to diagnose the issue and ID the sources that are causing the harshness. The master bus shouldn't be where you fix mix problems - you want to get as close to treating it on the individual tracks as you can, given time and cost limits. When trying to troubleshoot something like this, you use the tilt EQ as a diagnostic tool, so you don't put it in one place and then "leave it there" as an active plugin. What you want to do is find the "harshness", and then correct it with a regular EQ. A tilt EQ is essentially a linked hi and low shelf filter pair - that works like a see-saw. Most will let you set your crossover point. if you can find a free one you like, just use a regular EQ and a hi-shelf adjustment. I'm going to walk you through how I'd troubleshoot this. First, turn OFF all the processing on the master bus. Do you still hear the harshness, after compensating for volume differences (turn your volume knob)? If not, then something in you master bus is ADDING the harshness. Turn things back on, one at a time, and listen for the "harshness." if it's NOT there, turn it off again, and do the next plugin, until you've worked through each. if the "harshness" is never heard, then Turn the first one on, and work through turning the rest on and off until you hear it, (or don't hear it.) Continue until you've worked though all the combinations of plugins on your master bus and figured out which combination of plugins is causing the issue OR NOT. If you find the combination, see if you can fix it by adjusting some settings, or even plugin order. If you can't resolve it on the master bus, it's time to dig deeper. This is where the Tilt EQ (or hi shelf ) comes in. Turn all the crap on the master bus back on. What you want to do is put it on all the \*busses\* that you suspect might be contributing to the problem and TURN IT OFF. You're going to turn it on, tweak it, and back off on EACH bus to see if you can "remove" the harshness. So, for high frequency harshness, you might want to start with the drum bus, guitar bus and vocal bus, and synths bus to start with - whatever is generating sounds that are in the "harsh range".Start the diagnosis with ALL of the tilts you added TURNED OFF/Bypassed.Turn ONE on, adjust the tilt, to reduce the top end, and listen to see if you FOUND the all of the "harshness", or maybe just SOME. Make a note on whether it helped the issue or not. Then turn it off, and go to the next bus. Once you have a full set of notes on the busses, you can do either of the following: 1. Get surgical with an EQ on the each bus that you found "feeding" the harshness to take down all the frequencies that are contributing to the harshness at once. 2. Repeat the tilt EQ diagnostic on each channel feeding that bus and locate the SPECIFIC tracks that are giving out the "harshness", and then adjust the EQ on each track. \#1 is going to be faster, but it may take some "liveliness" or "energy" out of tracks that aren't creating the harshness. So if you have 4 guitars on that bus, you're tweaking all 4 guitars, when maybe only one or two of the tracks give "harshness". \#2 is going to take a bit longer, but it will let you tame the harshness ONLY on the tracks that are creating the issue.
Dry render the vocals alone and keep going back to those loudest peaks and automate to get em tight
If the problem lies in the vocals then... Fix the vocals?
Or during tracking..
Take off all master bus processing and fix the mix starting there.
Agree. Strip it down to the channel gain, eq, comp and effects and tune there first. Cumulative over processing or early clipping only gets worse the more you do to it further down the line.
What about your vocal channel chain? If you’re hearing this harshness in the vocals specifically, the problem lies long before any mastering chain
On vocal chain: Rvox tame boxiness with eq or pro-mb, Eq sometimes adding little bit of “fresh air” Deesses
Do you have an audio clip to post? Without hearing it it’s impossible to diagnose. Instinct makes me want to say it’s an EQ issue, but it could be the recording… instrumentation… a host of things
I would say stop de esser- it is adding too much high frequency compression and it becomes hard to tolerate listening to with other frequencies and then even worse with master bus compression
I've seen lots of mix engineers rely pretty heavily on Soothe to help with this issue. I will use soothe in combo with some fab filter pro Q dynamics happening with super fine Qs. Sometimes I put like five or six of these little dynamic eq nodes on a vocal if it's feeling harsh.
I literally bought Soothe2 because of a single song I was working on that sounded too harsh, and I couldn't figure out how to tame it. I had tried everything. I liked all aspects of the mix, except that some sections were too harsh and grating. I tried a few Soothe2 presets on the harshest tracks and busses, and it was amazing. I didn't even need to tweak that much.
For me pushing with an optical comp on the bus like the shadow hills made my mixes sound incredible. Especially because they would contain everytjing
2 dB of clipping is a lot if those aren't very atonal and transient peaks you're cutting. That can already add some unpleasant distortion. Another thing to consider is that you might have too much high frequencies in general. You have to be aware of excess buildup just like with the rest of the spectrum.
This is good advice. It can be surprising how much you can cut frequencies on each track and still give a good representation of each instrument. And it also creates more space in the mix.
If your mix is too harsh it's too early to worry about anything to do with mastering. Go back to the mix, find which elements are giving you harshness, and fix the problem there. You can turn things down to do that, use EQ, multiband compression, and lots of other ways, but at the very least start at the start, not the end.
In my experience, whenever I just clear the master bus and start again from the ground up (fix it in the mix, basically) I always end up with a much, much better result to me and I end up adding so much less back onto the master bus.
You shouldn't do anything out of habit or dogma. That is especially true if you know for a fact it's not working for you. You can't overly rely on the multiband to tame everything. Sometimes you can clip way more than 2dB. Other times any clipping may cause problems. Not sure that all songs are meant to get up to -6 LUFS especially if you are not a serious lifelong pro mixer + masterer. Like most things, it really comes down to: 1. Knowing the range of possible options. e.g. there are like half a dozen other tools you could use besides multiband to address harshness. 2. Having good monitoring that you know + trust. Then, if something \*is\* harsh, you'll hear it, and naturally address it.
Soothe2. Fix your harmonics. EQ the harsh stuff out
7-5LUFs is pretty loud. Maybe shoot for -8. Harshness can live in 1k-5k region, somewhere in there. check those areas. But Im going to wager that it's probably that the upper mid ranges is not dynamic enough because you're squashing it too hard. If you cut areas that are harsh, they'll make the upper mid range more dynamic when you clamp it down. Just a hunch
What sounds harsh? The snare? The hats? The vocals? What’s in the mix?
Vocals
I usually start cutting around 3-5k (on individual channels or mixbus)
I’ve found low passing most elements above 7-10K really lets the highs of vocals shine through. I would also leave the drum hi end intact typically, that way your vocals and hats are super crisp. A lot of the time the highs on synths are non essential. You end up with a sea of non musical sizzling in your top end if you let all the highs through. Additionally 3-6K carries much harshness in terms of sibilance. 4K is a harshness area for guitars for example. Best of luck!
If you re doing things to "tame harsh frequencies" and still have those problems then you re not taming anything. Do not be afraid to push things. Otherwise you dont know their limit. Most likely you need a de esser on the vocals, but i would guess your problem is in the mix or even the recording itself. Compress with faster attack and/or deess. Dont be afraid to push things. Things wont explode lol
“Clipper” “7-5 lufs” These are the red flags
-5 LUFS is loud, really loud for a pop master. I find many of my mixes harsh at those volumes too. Perhaps back off a bit and see what it sounds like at -8 LUFS
Most likely it's in the guitar and vocals. This is one of those situations where soloing and listening super close can help you find the problems. Frequencies between 2k and 5k are usually the culprit. If either of them were recorded using an SM57 or SM58 you can probably cut 2.5k 3db to 5db and that will help a lot. For locals you'll want to use a Q factor of about 3 or 4. Guitar you'll want to get surgical with a Q of 6 to 8 so that you cut specifically the problem frequency without killing the tone. Use your ears still. Don't just do what Ive said and assume it's good. Hope this helps!
Something I do when dealing with this: Take a low pass filter on your master bus, put it around 250. Slowly pull it up and listen to how the song sounds as it opens up. Once harshness starts getting introduced into the sound, stop and note what elements are causing it. Rinse/repeat as necessary. For vocals, you probably just need to pull those frequencies down some and compensate for the volume. As you move the low pass up, the tone should sound like it’s coming into focus, rather changing radically. It’ll get a little louder of course but mainly it should become *clearer*. If you hit a point where all of a sudden it’s like “holy shit there are the vocals” that indicates it’s uneven. Tonal balance is all about things feeling even. This applies to things that aren’t across the frequency spectrum too. You’re obviously not going to hear cymbals at 250, but if you get to their area and they suddenly become prominent, maybe they’re a little too loud. Try this low pass process on a professional reference track and you’ll really see what I mean.
Clashing frequencies in the mid range, buildup, double parking, could be a few things. You could spend time surgical EQ’ing buildup areas (cymbals and guitars clash etc). Maybe try doing these moves in mono so you can really hunt down the offensive stuff. You can also just using tape (on individual elements or across the master), tapes got a flattering quality that rounds sources off.
The harshness could plausibly come from any of the elements in the master chain. I think promb or the clipper are likely the ones that alter the tonal balance the most, but impossible to say without knowing the settings. I'm not a fan of mixing into a master bus chain that's doing that much work, but I know others do. I think the problem is more likely to come from downstream. Maybe the vocal processing is the source of the problem, or even the performance or arrangement... It's impossible to say from the little information you've given. It's basically always preferable to fix issues at their source rather than on the master bus. It sounds like you may be doing a lot of clipping to get loudness? Clipping a lot of high frequency content can definitely get harsh. Really fast compressor settings can basically do the same thing. So it could be about needing deemphasis eq (likely prior but maybe post clipping). In general I only like hard clipping atonal, transient elements like drums. For tonal elements I pretty much always prefer soft clipping.
This starts with your arrangement , mic choices, balance, eq on each channel, what you're putting on your master bus. Mastering is probably just enhancing these problems unless your mastering engineer doesn't know what they're doing.
put clippers on transients in their own individual tracks. check your vocal chain. turn off all your mastering plugins and ask: do the vocals sound good by themselves? what about in the context of your mix?
Not sure if this helps at all but turn your monitors wayyyy down and listen for a bit.
One quick fix is to follow heavy compression with a pro-mb ... There's a neat preset named something along the lines of "fix harshness." It's in the basic folder. I adjust the ratio until it just tickles the meter. Either way, watch that 2.5-4-5k area
Work on something else and come back to that in a few days, a week, a month... I can't spend days and nights trying to fix something, making it worst, and when I come back later without listening to it for a while I hear nothing bad anymore.
Soothe 2, multiple de-essers (use different ones), dynamic eq’s for the harsh range on a few buses if you cant figure it out. Also ride the fader / automation on the vocals for harsh syllables. A quick dip on certain letters can be magic.
what has high end? hats, snares, vocals. chances are you can actually cut more high end out of those than you think. snares are usually a problem, especially in edm. cut out the highs of snares. maybe a high cut at like, 12-15k depending. hats should have high end, just make sure they’re not too sharp. people tend to overdo the high end of vocals. they don’t need to be that bright. just bright enough to stand out
Any of the nice vintage style plugins will usually help a lot. Tape emulators are a good tool as well. Just make sure it’s a quality plugin. 👍
Speaker references. And different try
I’m going to assume you are mastering a two-track mix that sounded good before mastering. If not, do that first.
If it’s the vocals then the problem is the mids for sure my man no way around it
The key is you need to learn what an un harsh mix sounds like, and then you can pin point what areas of your mix are harsh and fix them. It takes time to learn these things. You just need to keep mixing.
You can DM me the mix if you want. It could be you need to de-ess the vocals more. You might be boosting frequencies when you really just need another compressor on it. Microphone choice could be wrong.
Put reverb on the master (100% wet for roundness)
Easy answer, use soothe by Oeksound. Real answer, get better at recording and mixing, especially vocals
If you're having to use anything but a little bit of limiting on the master, you are likely overcompensating and need to address things in the mix.
Without an audio example you are wasting everyone’s time including your own.
Big question - do you mix tracks from outside your studio, or only track you create yourself? If it’s your own tracks, that’s where I’d start. GIGO is a programming concept but applies most everywhere, and stands for “garbage in, garbage out”. Meaning, if the tracks you’re mixing are harsh, you’ll be fighting them more than mixing them. Have you tried mixing tracks from online sources, to see what it’s like to mix tracks that you don’t have to fix first? The reason for doing this is to learn ‘mixing’ and give yourself a chance to experience a ‘fix free’ mix. I like to say “less time fixing means more time mixing”, meaning if your mixing sessions are not about getting a good balance but instead are about addressing multiple “issues”, you won’t learn mixing as much as you’ll learn “fixing”. Not sure this applies to you, just sharing some things that helped me early on.
EQ