Mixing like a pro

[seansigep]

Ok, when i listen to good, professional mixes, it sounds to me like the song is pushed back (sonically) like 1 foot away from the speakers. I don't know if that makes any sense to any of you, but when i listen to the stuff I mixed, it sounds like its right on top of the speakers. Does anyone know what I'm talking about? Anyway, i was wondering if you guys knew how to "push back" the sounds on a mix so they don't sound so prominent/on top of the speakers. I don't have good equipment, and i dont use good software, and i dont have a separate mastering program. I'm just wondering if there are any "best practices" to use when mixing/mastering. (It's for me to learn).

Thanks,
Sean

[NL5]

Volume and amount of reverb are one way to push things back......

[SonicAlbert]

Maybe what you mean is that there is depth to the commercial mix? So your mixes sound 2D and the commercial mixes sound 3D?

So maybe you need to think about placing the elements of your songs in space more, both left and right and forward and back. If you push everything back, you'll just have another 2D mix, but one that is further back. Some elements need to be up front, and others further back.

As NL5 said, volume and reverb can help this. Combined with panning, this can give each element its own space better.

[Cloneboy Studio]

How to mix like a pro:

1.) Best monitoring environment possible.
2.) Lots of time to get it right.
3.) Best plugins money can buy.
4.) 10-15 years experience in audio.
5.) Kick the artist/band out of the studio.
6.) Most importantly: spend 2 minutes LISTENING for every 1 minute TWIDDLING KNOBS

[jonnyc]

Look up Charles Dyes DVD i think its call "mix it like a record". I think the thread is over at gearslutz but people are raving about Charles' DVD which takes you step by step thru the mixing process and from what everyone is saying its wonderful. I know a lot of people will give you the "well a mix is different on every song", very true, however there are general things you do to a mix and from what people are saying Charles shows you everything you need to get going. I'm personally going to order the DVD in hopes of climbing off this mixing plateau that I'm on.

[tkingen]

A great book that helped me is called Mixing With Your Mind.

http://mixingwithyourmind.com/

Stav honed his skills under Sir George Martin at AIR Studios. He truely teaches you how to make decisions for yourself, depending on what the situation is. His technique for using compression is alone worth the cost of the book.

There's also Bobby Owsinski's "The Mixing Engineer's Handbook". A different approach, but very useful.

[chessrock]

This is going to sound extremely radical, I know.

But if you close-mic everything, then things will tend to sound pretty up-front. The microphones are kind of like your ears, and if you press something right up against a mic, then it will tend to have a sililar effect, in the sound-scape, as having something pressed right up against the speakers or against your ears when you listen back.

Try using some combination of close mic and distant mic, and use more room mics while tracking. While mixing, blend in more of the distant mic track to push something back, or blend in more of the close mic to bring it forward. You can also push something back a bit by using some reverb. Good luck.

[seansigep]

Thanks guys, I really appreciate it. I have been experimenting all afternoon, with some results. I just need to realize i wont be getting that great of a sound until i get equipment that is better. I guess I'll start applying to some recording studios to fill my time (and tinker with their gear).

[faderjockey]

Learning distants with mics...As said before..Learning to get depth in the tracking and not trying to create it later. Good mic pres that give depth and aren't boring. Using tools only when needed...Don't compress just because you have them..Don't eq unless you need to...

but until you get better mics and pres you will have to eq I'm sure to get to the sound you want... Use F/X lightly...Use them for placement...Don't think of pushing things left and right only...Think about pushing them front and back as well...and up and down.

Think of being at home plate...and you want say...a gtr in the left field..
Don't solo allot and make each thing big...Some things need to be smaller in order to notice something bigger next to it...

Keep making bad mixes...you will learn more as you go...Also! You notice the 3D sound...That's a start plenty of people don't even hear that...Keep mixing and listening...It will start to work out.. Plus having cheap gear is fine...Because I know guys with dough that buy great stuff and they suck...They then call me because they like my work and ask me stupid crap...When some of them have way better stuff then me...I think you'll learn more when you are limited with your tools. Because as you buy cool pieces...you'll really understand were they work best and how to use them.

[bigwillz24]

A 50 dollar investment made a believer out of me...

I recently bought a behringer (thats right I bought a behringer) ECM8000 reference microphone. Then I used a spectrum analyzer and pink noise to to tune my room.
Granted this isn't the best way to do it and you probably should look into some room treament. BUT DAMN I AMAZED AT WHAT A DIFFERANCE IT MADE IN MY MIXES.

I can hear everything so much clearer and the translation from room to every other system I played the mix on was FLAWLESS IMO.

My mixes that I alway wasn't happy with sound like commercial cds now. I was seriously about to invest into some serious equipment but now I think I'm going spend more money on room treatment.

[LeeRosario]

Originally Posted by seansigep

Ok, when i listen to good, professional mixes, it sounds to me like the song is pushed back (sonically) like 1 foot away from the speakers. I don't know if that makes any sense to any of you, but when i listen to the stuff I mixed, it sounds like its right on top of the speakers. Does anyone know what I'm talking about? Anyway, i was wondering if you guys knew how to "push back" the sounds on a mix so they don't sound so prominent/on top of the speakers. I don't have good equipment, and i dont use good software, and i dont have a separate mastering program. I'm just wondering if there are any "best practices" to use when mixing/mastering. (It's for me to learn).

Thanks,
Sean

Im going to tell you the secrets of professional audio engineering,this will blow your mind:

1) Read any audio book you can find
2) Read any audio book you can find
3) Read any audio book you can find
4) Read any audio book you can find
5) Read any audio book you can find
6) Read any audio book you can find
7) Read any audio book you can find
8) Read any audio book you can find
9) Read any audio book you can find
10) Go out into the world and apply



Once you start to go crazy (from reading too much), you can achieve mixes in the 4th dimension.

3 dimensions just isn't good enough anymore.

[tkingen]

I like Chessrock and Faderjockey's responses. The real world doesn't have everything in your environment right up and in your face. Worth thinking about when choosing mic placement.

[noisewreck]

Originally Posted by faderjockey

and up and down.

I've been wondering about this for quite sometime now. This kind of placement is specially apparent in a lot of movies, specially with foley and FX, even when listening to them on headphones. How does one achieve this? Can someone point out some practical reading stuff on this type of psychoacoustics that doesn't require a doctor's degree in physics to figure out?

[COOLCAT]

Originally Posted by bigwillz24

A 50 dollar investment made a believer out of me...

I recently bought a behringer (thats right I bought a behringer) ECM8000 reference microphone. Then I used a spectrum analyzer and pink noise to to tune my room.
Granted this isn't the best way to do it and you probably should look into some room treament. BUT DAMN I AMAZED AT WHAT A DIFFERANCE IT MADE IN MY MIXES.

I can hear everything so much clearer and the translation from room to every other system I played the mix on was FLAWLESS IMO.

My mixes that I alway wasn't happy with sound like commercial cds now. I was seriously about to invest into some serious equipment but now I think I'm going spend more money on room treatment.

I did this too, probably the best thing i did in 2005. I called it my "room tuner".
It was a second pass at finer tuning the setup. Re-reading Ethan Winers Library of Info and the RTA.

It was fun....
Doesn't guarentee my mix skills are better, but slight angles and tweeks of Monitor placement and Traps helped setup Optimum locations.
and I thought what few mixes I did sounded a bit better.

and just about every speaker I tried started dropping off at 100hz, which is normalk per alot of the 6.5" speaker. The Sub woofer picked up from 100hz to 60-70.....

and I agree, maybe the room and not the equipment or speakers could add another level of upgrade.

but this is just HR...not Mixing like a Pro in my case! not even close yet.

[faderjockey]

Yeah..The up and down thing is tough...Not sure I get it where I want it all the time. It's easier to place things side to side and front to back..

But sometimes when you effect things and tweak eq..If you try and play with the size of things..You can make it more up and down..Sort of.. That is a tough one to explain.

I do my size thing with making something smaller next to something big..That's easy..Sometimes you can place something back with just a volume change..Others need some room F/X to feel back. But as is the Digital Verb thread...I EQ all F/X.. If you get it right you can make things feel up and down. I think Bob Clearmountian does great F/X placement.

[punkin]

Originally Posted by chessrock

This is going to sound extremely radical, I know.

But if you close-mic everything, then things will tend to sound pretty up-front. The microphones are kind of like your ears, and if you press something right up against a mic, then it will tend to have a sililar effect, in the sound-scape, as having something pressed right up against the speakers or against your ears when you listen back.

Try using some combination of close mic and distant mic, and use more room mics while tracking. While mixing, blend in more of the distant mic track to push something back, or blend in more of the close mic to bring it forward. You can also push something back a bit by using some reverb. Good luck.

YUP!...never appreciated this until we had the place set up for recording. The room used to suck so close micing was the best we could do...all the mixes seemed to sound flat. Now that the rooms are in working order, we can get further away and get real ambiance in the recordings. Big difference!

[pipelineaudio]

Originally Posted by Cloneboy Studio

How to mix like a pro:

5.) Kick the artist/band out of the studio.

TWIDDLING KNOBS

99% of it right there

If YOU happen to be in the band or BE the band

watch out

[travelin travis]

How in the hell do you set something in a mix up/down? I don't think I have ever noticed anything in a mix up/down.

[faderjockey]

You never heard Cd's that sound really large? Like not just big side to side and front and back.. I remember Collective Soul record years ago...Sounded like it was mixed through a straw...Really small...Like if you closed your eyes it sounded right in front of you. Still when I hear it on the radio I change the channel.

But some mixes if your close your eys seem to almost wrap around you and go above you and below...

Maybe I'm crazy...But I sure hear it. Not saying I can achive this all the time...But I hear it and want it.

[travelin travis]

Originally Posted by faderjockey

You never heard Cd's that sound really large? Like not just big side to side and front and back.. I remember Collective Soul record years ago...Sounded like it was mixed through a straw...Really small...Like if you closed your eyes it sounded right in front of you. Still when I hear it on the radio I change the channel.

But some mixes if your close your eys seem to almost wrap around you and go above you and below...

Maybe I'm crazy...But I sure hear it. Not saying I can achive this all the time...But I hear it and want it.

I said up/down............I hear left/right, back/forward, big/thin........but up/down?

[faderjockey]

And I said...With a ? You do not hear large mixes....That are NOT JUST side to side and front to back..

Key word Just.. I'm sure you hear side to side and front and back...But I said earlier I'm thinking up and down as well....

I also said if you think about sitting at home plate..You can place players all over the field...But there are some mixes I feel like i'm not only seeing the players on the field but I'm seeing the fans UP in the seats..and maybe a solo or horn fly by like a ball heading to outfield..

It was mentioned earlier that you hear that stuff in Movies now...Which is true...

My point originally was that I (meaning me) think this way...If you are standing in a room...Do you mean to tell me you can't hear above your head and below.... You never heard someone say....Man that bass feels deep? Why to you think we call highs -Highs? Or Top end? People think top to bottom allot...Just never talk about it..I was pointing out when asked about 3D mixing..You can't try and get 3D if your only thinking 2D... Get it?

I said in the last post...Maybe I'm (meaning me again) crazy.

[travelin travis]

Ok, I could understand the up/down thing if I had a speaker on the floor and one overhead......and a up/down pan control. I just don't see it happening without 4 speakers, 2 for left/right and 2 for up/down. I would like to hear a piece of music thru either stereo speakers or headphones in which things can be heard up/down in the mix. Any suggestions to check out? I'm not trying to be a sarcastic smartass. I really would like to hear up/down.

BTW, you said "really large", not "up/down".

[pipelineaudio]

you know, EVERY friggin !@#$$ time someone mentions treble appearing higher in space than bass my mixing world falls apart

I hear it that way always

but when someone SAYS it, I think about it, then it stops working then I get all messed up and everything becomes a muddy mess as I mix it

[noisewreck]

Originally Posted by TravisinFlorida

Ok, I could understand the up/down thing if I had a speaker on the floor and one overhead......and a up/down pan control. I just don't see it happening without 4 speakers

As I mentioned, I've also heard this on headphones. Certainly I can't put the headphones so that one can is on top of my head and another under my chin? A couple of weeks ago I watched 28 Days Later wearing headphones (it was 3am and I wanted to listen to the whole thing w/o waking up people). There was some serious up/down movement in it.

There is certainly some psychoacoustic play going on there, that causes the brain to think that a sound is coming from up, down when there aren't speakers there. Just the same way that the brain thinks that a sound that's panned center and is left pretty dry comes straight out of the computer monitor... obviously it doesn't, but the brain picks it up as such. The same way the brain thinks that the sound is coming from further away, or closer forward... You don't have speakers arrayed 1 meter, then another set 5 meter, then another set 10 meters away from you right? But you can play with reverb, EQ and volume to push sounds back.

Some time ago I was experimenting with "panning" so that it appeared that the sound went from left to behind my head to right. What I did was used the same source panned hard left and hard right. Put an Allpass filter on one channel, (for those that don't know an Allpass filter progressivly phase-shifts the higher frequency components of a sound), and followed them by 2 pole low pass filters. Set so that the same controller would modulate the filters in opposite direction, while maintaining the same exact frequency range of the sweep. This caused the sound to appear to pan left and right, and when the low-pass filter's cutoff was at the same frequency on both, they appeared to come from behind my head.

The catch was, this only worked on the headphones. When listening to it on the speakers, the overall sound just appeared to be washed up and unfocused. You could forget about mono compatibility altogether as well.

[bigwillz24]

Is there a up down pan knob somewhere?

I gotta get me one of those...