Musician vs Engineer

[mutilatedlip]

I generally think of myself as a musician with a slight grasp of recording and plug-ins.

However, I have little knowledge of mixing and post-production on recordings, and being as I'm about to start a major project for the next year or so, I'm deliberating over what direction to take once everything is tracked.

Are there any hints or tips you can provide with regards to EQ'ing, mixing, adding FX etc. etc. if only to get some rough mixes together at home?

Any help much appreciated.

[TrevCircleStudios]

This isn't going to be helpful... but you do what the mix needs. It isn't possible to tell you what to do out of context (newb engineers tend to think there are magic settings, there aren't).

This might be more helpful... given that you are in Brum once you get it tracked bring it along to me and I'll listen and make some suggestions. How does that sound?

[mutilatedlip]

Cheers, Trev.

I'll have to pop over at some stage to say hi and dribble over your equipment, anyway!

I understand there's no quick template for the perfect mix.

I think I'll probably track for demos at home and see what we can salvage. Above all, it's a hobbyist thing and I just love doing it. Depending on lineup etc. may even put some business your way if we believe the material is good enough.

A close mate of mine has signed to Sony/RCA in the past year or so and is just recording his album now. His myspace page has some basic demos he's done in his room in Cheltenham to take to London, and it just goes to prove that it doesn't matter where you record them... if the song/talent is good enough, it'll stand out.

MySpace.com - CONNELLY - UK - Acoustic / Pop / Alternative - www.myspace.com/connellyofficial

[Khazul]

Some random stuff that may help...

About the most basic things I can say about putting a mix together - concerns more about giving yourself room to tweak and not overdoing anything.

So - I tend to mix with master fader to its 0dB position, and channel faders set such that the loudest parts are peaking at around -12dB.

This should given you a useful amount of headroom on the master track.

Whatever you do - avoid getting into loudness wars between parts, for example, rasing the level of one part so you can hear it then realising something is quiet, so you raise that, then eventually you get back around to the start again...

It doesnt take many iterations of this before you the master level is in the red and you think about dropping it - DONT - instead go back and pull everything else down again.

While in the digital floating point world of a DAW you dont have to worry about clipping (except for output), running parts overly hot etc - individual plugins may still perform best when they are driven at normal levels, so dont run individual tracks hot.

Another general thing - I find when introducing an element into a mix at mixdown, I tend to bring up a part's level so it sounds right, then drop it agian by about 0.5-1dB. Same when EQing - i'll tend to tweak until I get what I am after, then back off a tiny little bit. The reason is often you can over compensate tweaks so that you can hear what you are doing, so backing off a little afterwards is a way to deal with that.

Pay attention to all your parts - think about where they should be in a mix - level, pan, frequency range they occupy etc and even what the purpose of it is - musical, rhythm, energy, polyfilla/dreamscape () etc.

Sometimes if you cant hear a part clearly that you want to hear clearly - then simply cranking it up is not the answer. Maybe parts should be panned differently. Often parts dont need anywhere near as much frequency range as they might appear to when checked with a spectrum analyser, so dont be afraid to apply high and low cut EQ around them in busy parts of a track. In general - tweak until you can hear the impact of the tweak, then back off a bit.

Another way to make an intermittent part (like a vocal) prominent without cranking it up is using the part to key a compressor though which a submix of other parts that occupy the same frequency space - for eg guitar backing, synth pads and arps etc.

Dont be afraid to cut something out completely if its all getting a bit messy - sometimes removing a part completely at a certain point can transform a mix from a complete mess to something really nice and open and and can be good to change the energy/feel at a point in a track.

Similar things can be said for reverb and delays - when setting the send levels - get it so you like the level, then back off a bit - actually with delays and reverbs, perhaps even back off quite a bit. Post mix liimiting and compression can tend to exagerate such effects.

For more conventional music (rather than the very electronic dance music I normally do these days) then I'll tend to use a couple of reverbs and a couple of delays as a starting point. The two reverbs are there to provide short ambience and longer tails. The shorter ambience can be greate when used allmost inaudiably to gel a track together. The longer reverb I might often use with a long subtle (say 1/2 bar) delay on vocals. The other delay I might have in as a short energy-adding delay - often at a 1/16th or 1/8th.

If the style of music calls for very heavy use of delays and reverb - then a way to keep it all under control can be to stick a keyable compressor after the effects and key the compressor from the dry signal, for eg when the next part of a vocal phrase comes in, it will duck the effect returns and not be drowned by them. Its also worth sticking low cut EQ in the send or return from reverbs and delays to keep uncontrolled mud out of the low end.

[modz1]

Great offer Trev, and excellent/detailed post Khazul.. Good work fellas!

[sureno]

Originally Posted by mutilatedlip

I generally think of myself as a musician with a slight grasp of recording and plug-ins.

However, I have little knowledge of mixing and post-production on recordings, and being as I'm about to start a major project for the next year or so, I'm deliberating over what direction to take once everything is tracked.

Are there any hints or tips you can provide with regards to EQ'ing, mixing, adding FX etc. etc. if only to get some rough mixes together at home?

Any help much appreciated.

Take it to a pro dude, with no disrespect intended here but untill your up and running comfortably with mixing and even sometimes then, a good pro who specializes in the field and has invested a fortune in the right set up that works for them will get the most of what you have done, by all means try and mix it but if you are planning on releasing your material to the public you can't go wrong with handing it over especially with some of the prices engineers seem to be charging now days you just cant say no

[FrankGIK]

Trev, right on as usual.

Khazul...really great post, man. Lots of detail...very cool.

I'll only add this: mix it in mono and when you can hear every part, *then* move to stereo. From that point on check the mix frequently in mono. I'm telling you, this is *the* way to make sure you're getting good separation and dealing with any phase issues, which are probably the #1 and #2 issues I run into when teaching guys how to mix.

Frank

[sureno]

Originally Posted by FrankGIK

Trev, right on as usual.

Khazul...really great post, man. Lots of detail...very cool.

I'll only add this: mix it in mono and when you can hear every part, *then* move to stereo. From that point on check the mix frequently in mono. I'm telling you, this is *the* way to make sure you're getting good separation and dealing with any phase issues, which are probably the #1 and #2 issues I run into when teaching guys how to mix.

Frank

wow ok, great tip there. is that what m/s mixing is?

[TrevCircleStudios]

Originally Posted by sureno

wow ok, great tip there. is that what m/s mixing is?

no. M/s is when you split the mid and the sides to seperate channels and process them differently. It's predominantly used in tracking or in mastering. This is just a common sense approach to mixing If you can mix your track in mono and achieve separation think of what you can then achieve when you pan.

[FrankGIK]

Just try it. You'll see exactly what we're talking about the first time you do it. If you can hear everything in mono, when you disengage the mono button everything will pop in stereo.

Frank

[sureno]

oh ok, nice1 Trev