Your usual steps when first mixing a song

R

RFrecordings

New member
I've kind of winged it with the few songs I've mixed but I'm curious to know the "usual" steps some of you other more experienced engineers take when first mixing a song (i.e. mix down the drums first, where you add compression, EQ.. all that good stuff).

I just want to get a feel as to what road I should be wandering near so-to-speak.
 
whatever works for you is ok, being new, i would tend to go for the standard methods first then branch out to a more custom way of doing mixes as your tallent/skill developes. If its a band tune, I aways start with drums, eq. and compresion where needed. levels ans panning, verbs. Next for me is bass, same drill, eq. and comp. after those 2 i go for whatever strikes me, kind of like chessrock.
 
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for typical drums/bass/guitars/vox stuff, i like to start off with all faders at 0, and stuff generically panned here and there

then i mute all but the drums, and tweak them until i'm satisfied

then i'll usually bring the guitars in, and get them sitting nicely with the drums

then comes the bass...i like to add the bass after the guitar most of the time, so that i can ensure that it "fills in" the space between the drums and guitars

then comes vocals, along with whatever else might be added - synths, cowbells, shakers, who knows

if it's something without drums, then i like to use the "top-down" approach, starting with vocal(or main/lead instrument if no vocals), and work the rest of it around that
 
chessrock said:
I just do whatever I feel like doing, or whatever happens to strike me at the moment.

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I do the same thing, many times though, I work on levels, and placement, giving me a rough estimate of how well it'll sit together and go from there.
 
Ironklad Audio said:
for typical drums/bass/guitars/vox stuff, i like to start off with all faders at 0, and stuff generically panned here and there

then i mute all but the drums, and tweak them until i'm satisfied

then i'll usually bring the guitars in, and get them sitting nicely with the drums

then comes the bass...i like to add the bass after the guitar most of the time, so that i can ensure that it "fills in" the space between the drums and guitars

then comes vocals, along with whatever else might be added - synths, cowbells, shakers, who knows

if it's something without drums, then i like to use the "top-down" approach, starting with vocal(or main/lead instrument if no vocals), and work the rest of it around that
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dont you mean solo the drums?
 
i solo each instrument...do what needs to be done...eq first, maybe compression.

then i pan things in terms of what's important. So i'll solo all of the string parts together and pan them however. solo the acoustic track and pan it how i want.

then i'll bus similar things like vocals, strings, acoustic, bells...whatever. Then i play around with those volumes until its good.

Then i add reverb to some of the track.

then i'll put a limiter and an rms reader on the master track and watch for clipping and what volume the song is at.

that's pretty much it.

it takes a while to track and get takes and things i'm happy with. man, i haven't recorded anything intense for a long time.
 
I personally don't ever solo instruments to work on the equalization of them. I believe that just makes it more troublesome to fit into the mix.

I usually start with everything playing except the drums, which are only having the overhead tracks played. I try to get as good of a sound as I can out of the overheads, and then phase each element of the kit in to add reinforcement to the core sounds. When that is all said and done, I begin trying to find out where the low end mud is coming from, usually the guitars/bass/kick and eq it to clear everything up. From there it really is up in the air.
 
Drums, then bass, and guitars (pianos, keys, screaming yaks etc etc) then vox.

Without a badass drumsound you cant have a badass mix.

Sounds a little knuckledhead-ish, but its the absolute truth.
 
xfinsterx said:
Without a badass drumsound you cant have a badass mix.

Sounds a little knuckledhead-ish, but its the absolute truth.
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The only slightly knuckleheaded part of that is assuming that one always wants a badass mix.

If one is mixing a chuch choir or a dooh wap group or a spanish guitar virtuoso or a space synth composition, not only will a "badass mix" probably not be in order, but there won't even BE any drums to mix first.

The first step in mixing for me - and this is true regardless of the material or genre, and regardless of whether I did the tracking or someone else did it - is to give it a "faders up" listen; i.e. play all racks unmuted and at similar gain.

If who did the tracking did their job extremely well, my job as mix engineer is already 70% done at that point. But whether the tracking was spot on or sucked like a chest wound, that faders up listen will tell me what needs to be done and in what order.

Usually, yes, its rhythm section first (percussion and bass), followed by arrangement and accompaniment instruments, then backgorund vocals and finally lead vocals (all where applicable), BUT, if the faders up listen inspires me in a different order than that, I'll follow the inspiration instead of a recipe.

The questions at the faders up listen are; just what do you want to build the mix around? Is the song lyrics-driven, hook-driven, musicianship-driven, energy-driven, melody-driven, or beat/rhythm-driven? Some songs switch betweens these from refran to chorus to bridge. Others are simpler in design and simpler to lay out in the mix. Either way, pick the important elements for each song (and each measure of the song, when appropriate) and build the mix around those.

G.
 
RFrecordings said:
I've kind of winged it with the few songs I've mixed but I'm curious to know the "usual" steps some of you other more experienced engineers take when first mixing a song (i.e. mix down the drums first, where you add compression, EQ.. all that good stuff).

I just want to get a feel as to what road I should be wandering near so-to-speak.
Click to expand...

I will only listen to the bed tracks (each musician in the band) to start. I want to know how solid the main tracks are. Sometimes overdubs are put in to "fix" weak bed tracks. When the main band's mix is done, then I review the overdubs to see what will/will not work. Many times, overdubs just don't strengthen the song and take it to confusing directions.



Another way is to pull up the vocal and build the mix around the vocal. The vocal will be the focus and you can eq the rest of the tracks to put them into their sonic space.
 
RAMI said:
Thread reported. That's sacreligious!!!!!
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Nah, it's just the kick in the ass this board needs once in a while to avoid that "we have BOTH kinds of music here, heavy metal and heavier metal" rut that it can sometimes fall into :D.

G.
 
The first thing I do is nothing.:D

I have to live with the tunes. Since my stuff is unusually complicated, I cant just sit down and mix it. I mix as I go, figuring out what works and what doesnt.

My mixing is usually "revising", I constantly make different versions with different patches, sometimes different tempos (in midi). Its not uncommon for me to be 99% done and start over.:rolleyes:

Since 80% of my tracks are synths, not much eq is needed. To me, it is about figuring out what patches go together. After I have that settled, I tend to head to my car.:cool: The car tells me more and more about the basic elements of music. If my stuff has 80 tracks, it tells me which two or 3 actually matter.
 
xfinsterx said:
Drums, then bass, and guitars (pianos, keys, screaming yaks etc etc) then vox.

Without a badass drumsound you cant have a badass mix.

Sounds a little knuckledhead-ish, but its the absolute truth.
Click to expand...

This is what I do too. I won't touch EQ or shit till I have a decent rough mix going. And I won't EQ anything solo'd. I want to hear what it's doing in the tune, not in a vacuum.
 
...I'm a noob, so this is my noobisch view of things, because ½ the time I have no idea of what I'm doing, and no idea as how to make the crap I recorded sound remotly better than revolting :)

...But I have been getting better after A LOT of experiments and A LOT of reading tutorials, books, watching DVD's and reading threads like these.

Mixing is a artform, like painting or playing music. There's no way anyone can learn by just copying workmethods or presets. :o

So take what you can and learn from it.

First thing is to do the faders up listening. If you're a member of the band, or the engineer, or even worse both (as well as the song writer and the overall aranger of the songs....like I am), then TRY REALLY HARD to forget that. You have to become the mixer and listen to the track with fresh ears.

Once you done the faders up listen a few times, you will have a pretty good idea of how the track goes, and then....

...STEP 2:D

Get a cup of coffe, a piece of paper and a pen. Sit down in another room or go outside. Then relax and then organize how you will do it. Try to grasp your initial aproach of what you'll do where....This is really hard, since you have to know your tools, or at least know your options. Then try to make some kind of plan on how you'll do it. Maybe even do a little math, just to make sure you have the resorces to do what you want. Nothing sux more than to run out of CPU, if you want to mix ITB.
This is proberly kids stuff for the pro's, but it was a really eyeopener for me.

The rest is basicly either down/up mixing (drums-bas-guitar/keys-vocals-backing vocals), or up/down (Vocals, Guitar/keys, backing vocals, kick/bass, rest of the kit, ...). Depends on the song.
 
My first steps in mixing actually take place in the tracking stage. Since I mostly record my favorite artist (me) I have a fairly clear idea of what I want to end up with in terms of arrangement, sonority, blends etc. The challenge is to end up where I intended. Sometimes things dont work musically, but if the overall concept is good, then the mixing phase is relatively easy. When I find myself having problems with the mix, I go back to the tracking stage and fix stuff at that level. If I had to pay for studio time I couldn't afford to do this.


chazba
 
jmorris said:
whatever works for you is ok, being new, i would tend to go for the standard methods first then branch out to a more custom way of doing mixes as your tallent/skill developes. If its a band tune, I aways start with drums, eq. and compresion where needed. levels ans panning, verbs. Next for me is bass, same drill, eq. and comp. after those 2 i go for whatever strikes me, kind of like chessrock.
Click to expand...

Not nit picking or anything as you probably don't do it in that order but putting a compressor after eq will put the eq all outta whack. Better to put compressor then eq as compressors compress the eq boosts etc.

Note: this wasn't aimed at you (saying your wrong) but its best to point out since it is a question on the order you do things
 
With the caveat that I do mainly electronic noisy stuff, I will usually start with whatever is in the low end.

In a more traditional situation, this would normally be the Kick/Bass relationship. I start there, get these two to play nice with each other, and then the rest follows (it will probably mean bringing up the rest of the drums and then going from there).
 
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