There is absolutely no problem with me understanding your posts, keep it as it is! I am asking a lot of different things anyway, I am not exactly making it easy for you to keep track of things.
I would much rather buy analogue than plugins. I was never a fan of those (pay monthly fees to use our plugins that you will never own) approaches. I don’t have outboard gear but I am left with a setup that allows for it. I brought a patchbay ready for it and have space in my rack. It is just something I have yet to fill. When it comes to plugins I use Rbass, ProQ2 and Fabfilter Saturn and that is just about it! Oh and probably the most important ADPTR A/B Reference, so I can dig deep into pro mixes to dissect them as best I can. I use the ProQ2 on the master without any EQ applied purely as a spectrum analyzer. ProQ3 would make my life much easier but I don’t mind getting by with stock plugins (I use LogicX) If I am going to spend a lot of money, I would like those nice mics, compressors, pre-amps, instruments etc.. I just get a bad vibe with throwing money at plugins. These things never existed not so long ago anyway, so this tells me everything I need to know.
I would of course love all the latest and greatest plugins though, and that will come later.
My monitoring is pretty decent. I can switch my mix on the fly to various playback systems in a treated room, along with Sonarworks Reference although I am not using very often anymore, It’s practically just used as a plugin now to EQ my speakers into a flatter response at listening position only and I only use it briefly to check that my mix is not thrown out of whack, just for a moment.
I might just go for the focusrite Red7 when the time is right. that compressor is pre-preamp? I would rather options, and I have a setup which has allowed for it because I knew I was going to delve into the world of outboard one day.
I have a free day tomorrow, I will be ploughing the entire day into the studio. (good times!)
The first thing I am going to try is boosting that harsh 3.5khz on my acoustic guitars into a compressor and see what happens. I generally have a bump in the low end which is the most dominant so I might activate the sidechain part of the compressor and put a HPF at 500hz, then boost that annoying 3k ish into it. I never though of doing that. Maybe it will sound better than De-essing. Worth a try! I know it is common to boost the air or high end of a vocal into a compressor, warren talks about it all the time. it gives a good smack and is a technique he uses all the time. But to boost that unpleasant frequency into it is a different take on it and eager to try it out to see what kind of effect I get from it. Thank you for mentioning that!
I know you say I can compress in the box but I was thinking a little control on the way into a pre-amp so I can hit that (sweet spot) more consistently might really benefit some of my recordings, just to help me get that extra 1% even! I don’t really know enough about recording to know what I am talking about so I could be talking crap!
interesting take on adding a little room to everything at the start of the mix. This is going to be the second thing I try first thing in the morning! I usually add small room (750ms decay) - 5-7ms predelay, small room algorithm, then high pass it at 200hz and low pass at 5 or 7khz, reason I mention these settings is I am hoping you will tell me if I am doing something wrong! Am I to assume that although you may pan acoustic guitar perhaps 70% Left and Right, you would also pan the room verb directly under those guitars at 70% Left and Right also? I know you mentioned panning FX 100% but I was not sure if you would count the Room reverb as FX.
I am getting soooo much better results by not hard panning my guitars (acoustic guitars) Hard panned guitars sounds not only unnaturally wide, but also FAR too in your face (wide stereo feels too close, it is that bad that I actually feel a sense of relief switching to mono!, my stereo mixes DO sound better, but not for long periods), I am fighting the mix too much to make the hard panned guitars sit right when I could just tighten up the stereo image and be done with it. I am now of the assumption warren has panned his guitars in. I’ve seen Joe Baressi talk about not hard panning acoustic guitars also because of this, and you mentioned CLA not doing it. I think panning my guitars tastefully could honestly be the single biggest thing I can do for my current mix to improve it.
I got pissed off a little while back because I reached out to Warren directly to ask him politely and I did not get a response at all, I have been a paying customer of his for 4 years + at the academy and it was just a simple question that would have taken just a moment. Nobody else in the academy knew the answer nor could help me so I have been banging my head up against the wall trying out a lot of different things and struggling along with it, which is fine too, I am learning a lot in the process but a nudge in the right direction would have been awesome!, and while panning the guitars in of course sounds better, I still felt like I was doing things wrong. So I am looking forward to trying out your panning suggestions with reverb a little further out to see if this really improves the stereo image. With Distorted guitars, there is never a problem, 100% L/R sounds great to me. Acoustic…… not so much.
My approach to a mix is a little different, I don’t even balance my tracks while listening to the whole frequency range. Lately the first thing I do
1.Master EQ, HPF 300hz, LPF 4khz, THEN I balance my tracks using faders only, this puts my mids somewhere near, and already my mix will translate to a crappy speaker.
2: Bypass master EQ, now the low end is all over the place and without touching a fader anymore, I will sort out the low end using EQ only, create the seperation, do my high passing etc. And then the same for the top end, above 4k. I guess this technique is similar to what some people do when they do the first part of the mix on one of those crappy speakers, or auratone or whatever. which I do not own. I find it so much easier to get that low end right once the mids are already sounding pretty balanced, an out of control low end becomes painfully obvious to me at this point but if listening to the mix’s full frequency from the start, my ear adjusts and I lose perspective very quickly and can end up with far too much, or too little low end if not careful
3: panning first, checking in mono so I can hear the level drops from the panned tracks, fine tuning EQ’s, compressing etc.
4: Adding FX
5: automations.
6: Listening on different playback systems.
Tomorrow I will try out a different workflow, i think i will have a go at adding room verbs near the beginning, panning differently, mixing in mono until I get that seperation etc. I think I will end up with a totally different result, it could be a really good thing.
My Mix approach up above was using the (magic is in the mids) approach. I thought I would give it a try, it does help. but truthfully it’s just like using stabilizers when learning how to ride a bike. I won’t do it that way forever, my ear will become good enough to hear those mids even through all of the gunky low end in time. but right now I find it too difficult. it can mask important frequencies, much like when too much low end can bury a vocal that shines in 5k. It’s a weird phenomenon and I don’t know why it happens but focusing on the mid range can really help me. I guess there is a good reason why some mixers swear by auratones, or ns10’s etc.
You posts are not at all too long, with all of the information in there I am still very thankful for you spending the time to reply to me in this thread. I am trying my best not to ask you many more questions. I know you are busy! There is definitely no need to get back to me anytime soon. Just whenever you feel like it.
Thanks man. I’m digging this thread, I am looking forward to diggin into this stuff tomorrow!
edit: I know a lot is written, and it's unavoidable because of the detail you are going into. But just so you know other people are reading these too and not commenting and are finding it very helpful. I know this because I have had Private Messages telling me this. But I will calm down on the questions because it's not fair I take up all of your time. You have loaded me up with enough to keep my quite busy for a long time actually!
