Hey guys. To start, this is a fantastic thread with some of you asking really great, insightful questions, and some of you responding with really helpful and practical advice. Great stuff.
I've been doing the home thing for a while and have worked in a couple studios as well, and I just wanted to throw in a couple cents and try to cover some stuff that pertains to mixing that hasn't really been covered yet.
The first is this: you get out what you put in. If you're grabbing an MP3 for backing tracks and then recording everything else direct, it's going to sound like a backing track and a bunch of direct instruments.
Kewlpack: when you plug into your VOX and then A/B it against the Line Out, you're not hearing the "Valvetronics" being disengaged; you're hearing speakers moving air, which will ALWAYS sound better than going direct. And you'll notice if you just stick a 57 on the cone of one of those speakers, it will instantly sound better, show more clarity, and sit better in the mix without you having to perform any magic. It's how almost ALL of your favorite guitar tones have been recorded, I would bet. Same with acoustics, basses (although basses can sound WONDERFUL direct) and just about anything, really.
Also keep in mind that if you track something well, you simply CANNOT fuck it up. If you have a great player playing a great guitar throught a great amp, IT WILL ALWAYS SOUND GREAT. It doesn't matter if you have your pet rhesus monkey engineer it, it will sound great. Same with drummers: a drummer that hits his drums well and consistently will always get good drum tones. No EQ or even compression is neccessary sometimes to mix a great drummer's tracks. Just think about John Bonham recording with only two mics. A drummer that hits his drums like shit and makes poor decisions musically will (almost) always sound like shit. So there again: the more time and thought you put into tracking, the more the tune will practically mix itself.
Another thing is called "Depth of Field." When you listen to any Phil Spector recording, why does it sound so HUGE in MONO??? It's how it was tracked. Back in those days (before the advent of multitrack systems) you just put everyone in a room and then determined the mix by positioning those people in relation to the microphone. And it works.
Try this: record a lead vocal and a backing vocal using the same mic and compressor settings. Try to get the backing vocal to sit "behind" the lead vocal in the right way. Now try track the backing vocal again, having the singer stand at least twice as far away from the microphone as he/she was before. Hear that? You just made your mix that much easier, because that vocal will automaticall sit behind the lead. Or try this: Mic all of your rythm guitars from at least a foot away and then track your leads from directly on the cone of the speaker (or your favorite close-mic postion). There! You just helped yourself mix the tune by tracking it with the mix in mind. And you won't have to use any corrective EQ or any tricks that can make your mixes sonically confusing, if you're lucky.
Also, CloneBoy has had some absolutely invaluable things to say about EQ and frequencies clashing. Always keep that in mind when you're TRACKING, not just mixing. Where is the life of a guitar track? It's typically in the mids somewhere. I mean, a good tight bottom end and sparkly highs are crucial, but the range that separates mice from men (for me, at least) is in the midrange. The lead guitar in the track you posted has scooped mids and buzzy top end, and so it was destined to be slightly muddy and interfere with the hi-hat from the moment you tracked it. Do you know what I mean? I don't even know if I'm making any sense, but it's the same concept that CloneBoy was speaking of in reference to mixing, just applied to tracking. If you were to EQ the guitar ON THE AMP with the tune in mind, you could TRACK the guitar in a way that helped it sit where it needs to. Typically with guitars, I tend to get the amp where I like it in the room, and then add mids and decrease gain. For some reason that tends to improve clarity and it ends up sounding on tape how I liked it in the room.
And then also, sometimes doing things that seem stupid will actually work. Always experiment. I tend to agree with CloneBoy's compression post without fail, but sometimes a threshhold of -30, a ratio of 12:1, and a really quick release is just what a track needs to really accomplish what it's trying to in the mix. Some of my favorite producers and engineers have essentially used compression as an effect, and I think it sounds classic and wonderful.
Also panning: Sir George Martin (Beatles' producer and uber-genius engineer) once said (and I'm paraphrasing) that the only places anything should ever sit in a mix is either 100% right, dead center, or 100% left. Now, while that's a bit extreme, it certainly worked for him and I've used that philosophy on entire records to great effect. So experiment with that as well: see what kinds of sonic textures you can create with hard-panning. And if you have double-mic'd something - maybe a a guitar with a close and a room mic - try putting the close mic in one part of the stereo field and the room in another to create a texture.
Ok, sorry I'm being so goddamned long-winded, just one more little tidbit:
So Kewlpack, here's what I would reccommend: If you enjoy this recording thing and you're serious about it (sounds like you are, your enthusiasm is wonderful), get as many 57's as you can afford- the greatest mics ever invented - and a decent 2-channel mic pre and go nuts. Two mics, a pre, and a compressor can record just about any sound you can think of, and if you're careful about how you track it, your mixes will shoot straight through the roof before you even knew what hit you.
I hope some of that helps, thanks guys.
I've been doing the home thing for a while and have worked in a couple studios as well, and I just wanted to throw in a couple cents and try to cover some stuff that pertains to mixing that hasn't really been covered yet.
The first is this: you get out what you put in. If you're grabbing an MP3 for backing tracks and then recording everything else direct, it's going to sound like a backing track and a bunch of direct instruments.
Kewlpack: when you plug into your VOX and then A/B it against the Line Out, you're not hearing the "Valvetronics" being disengaged; you're hearing speakers moving air, which will ALWAYS sound better than going direct. And you'll notice if you just stick a 57 on the cone of one of those speakers, it will instantly sound better, show more clarity, and sit better in the mix without you having to perform any magic. It's how almost ALL of your favorite guitar tones have been recorded, I would bet. Same with acoustics, basses (although basses can sound WONDERFUL direct) and just about anything, really.
Also keep in mind that if you track something well, you simply CANNOT fuck it up. If you have a great player playing a great guitar throught a great amp, IT WILL ALWAYS SOUND GREAT. It doesn't matter if you have your pet rhesus monkey engineer it, it will sound great. Same with drummers: a drummer that hits his drums well and consistently will always get good drum tones. No EQ or even compression is neccessary sometimes to mix a great drummer's tracks. Just think about John Bonham recording with only two mics. A drummer that hits his drums like shit and makes poor decisions musically will (almost) always sound like shit. So there again: the more time and thought you put into tracking, the more the tune will practically mix itself.
Another thing is called "Depth of Field." When you listen to any Phil Spector recording, why does it sound so HUGE in MONO??? It's how it was tracked. Back in those days (before the advent of multitrack systems) you just put everyone in a room and then determined the mix by positioning those people in relation to the microphone. And it works.
Try this: record a lead vocal and a backing vocal using the same mic and compressor settings. Try to get the backing vocal to sit "behind" the lead vocal in the right way. Now try track the backing vocal again, having the singer stand at least twice as far away from the microphone as he/she was before. Hear that? You just made your mix that much easier, because that vocal will automaticall sit behind the lead. Or try this: Mic all of your rythm guitars from at least a foot away and then track your leads from directly on the cone of the speaker (or your favorite close-mic postion). There! You just helped yourself mix the tune by tracking it with the mix in mind. And you won't have to use any corrective EQ or any tricks that can make your mixes sonically confusing, if you're lucky.
Also, CloneBoy has had some absolutely invaluable things to say about EQ and frequencies clashing. Always keep that in mind when you're TRACKING, not just mixing. Where is the life of a guitar track? It's typically in the mids somewhere. I mean, a good tight bottom end and sparkly highs are crucial, but the range that separates mice from men (for me, at least) is in the midrange. The lead guitar in the track you posted has scooped mids and buzzy top end, and so it was destined to be slightly muddy and interfere with the hi-hat from the moment you tracked it. Do you know what I mean? I don't even know if I'm making any sense, but it's the same concept that CloneBoy was speaking of in reference to mixing, just applied to tracking. If you were to EQ the guitar ON THE AMP with the tune in mind, you could TRACK the guitar in a way that helped it sit where it needs to. Typically with guitars, I tend to get the amp where I like it in the room, and then add mids and decrease gain. For some reason that tends to improve clarity and it ends up sounding on tape how I liked it in the room.
And then also, sometimes doing things that seem stupid will actually work. Always experiment. I tend to agree with CloneBoy's compression post without fail, but sometimes a threshhold of -30, a ratio of 12:1, and a really quick release is just what a track needs to really accomplish what it's trying to in the mix. Some of my favorite producers and engineers have essentially used compression as an effect, and I think it sounds classic and wonderful.
Also panning: Sir George Martin (Beatles' producer and uber-genius engineer) once said (and I'm paraphrasing) that the only places anything should ever sit in a mix is either 100% right, dead center, or 100% left. Now, while that's a bit extreme, it certainly worked for him and I've used that philosophy on entire records to great effect. So experiment with that as well: see what kinds of sonic textures you can create with hard-panning. And if you have double-mic'd something - maybe a a guitar with a close and a room mic - try putting the close mic in one part of the stereo field and the room in another to create a texture.
Ok, sorry I'm being so goddamned long-winded, just one more little tidbit:
So Kewlpack, here's what I would reccommend: If you enjoy this recording thing and you're serious about it (sounds like you are, your enthusiasm is wonderful), get as many 57's as you can afford- the greatest mics ever invented - and a decent 2-channel mic pre and go nuts. Two mics, a pre, and a compressor can record just about any sound you can think of, and if you're careful about how you track it, your mixes will shoot straight through the roof before you even knew what hit you.
I hope some of that helps, thanks guys.