Do you start "producing" your song before it's done?

[tc4b]

Wow, looks like I'm in the minority here, but I throw all my track onto the DAW before I touch any of them. The most I do before I'm done tracking is pan a guitar or vocal hard right or left while I'm tracking the harmony part. The longer period of time between tracking and mixing, the better I do. So, it goes something like this:
write -> track -> ROUGH (10 minutes or less) mix for ipod -> wait a month or two ->final mixdown

 

[BlackHawk2029]

Time is a greater revealer of mixing flaws.

The excitement of getting soething done can cloud your acoustic judgement, and convince you that what you've just done is a masterpiece.

As I mentioned above, I like to mix as I go. But I also like to then forget it for a while and come back to it. Sometimes it makes me say "what on earth was I thinking when I mixed that?" Sometimes it reveals a recording flaw that should have been picked up earlier (like a bass slightly out of tune, or whatever).

Sometimes I decide to start completely from scratch, and totally rebuild the mix. But you know what? When I compare 'before' with 'after', in many cases the difference is barely perceptible.

I'm actually quite the opposite with this. I find that I'm harder on myself and tend to think my mixes sound like crap at first. then I give them a few days and realize they're better than I thought.


On a second note, I usually start to mix after drums, guitar, and bass are in, but before the vocals. Granted, I'm only recording my own band right now, but I find that it sometimes changes the way our vocallist does some things, and brings a new feel into the music that wasn't there before.

 

[nzausrec]

It's hard to believe that Gerg throws in the vocals later, (don't we all) and thinks they aren't integrated well, yet conversely to what he thinks they are integrated well.

 

[Manslick]

Do you start "producing" your song before it's done?

I have to because I am a homie who labors in solitude writing songs that voices never share.

Now let me go away and cry. boo hoo


Okay now I'm better. But if you're like me, you not only have to be the producer but also the composer, lyricist, arranger, engineer, studio gopher, artist, mix and master engineer. Wud I leave out?

Oh yeah, I recently switched over from my 2488 to a computer based system from Propellerhead that marries Reason and Record, so I guess I should add computer nerd and IT guy to my list of hobbies.

It all happens as the need arises; never really thought about it before.

 

[gcapel]

Most of us I believe are the band producer engineer all in one. So we can tolerate our self and mix as you go.

If I were just the producer/engineer I would most likely lay all the tracks and tell the band to get out and go home so I can play.

 

[Zaphod B]

To me it's all part of the same process.

I usually have a pretty firm audio image in my mind of how I want a tune to sound before I start tracking anything. As I track, that audio in my head constantly evolves as the reality of the tracked instruments gets factored in.

It's a reiterative process and sometimes the final product is pretty similar to the original intent and sometimes it's quite different.

As I track more stuff it's important to be able to have recorded tracks audible as I continue tracking so that I can play against them, and it relieves me of the burden of having to play the song in my head at the same time I'm tracking (which is what I have to do when I'm putting together the percussion and bass tracks. I'm a play-by-ear musician and don't score anything except the percussion, for which I have my own type of notation.) But even though I may be playing around with mixing as I track, when I'm actually tracking the mix is heavily skewed toward the drums and bass, to help myself keep in time.

 

[DrewPeterson7]

As I track more stuff it's important to be able to have recorded tracks audible as I continue tracking so that I can play against them, and it relieves me of the burden of having to play the song in my head at the same time I'm tracking

You know, this is something I've always found kind of interesting...

I was helping/hanging out with a buddy of mine when he was tracking for an album he's been working on for some time, and he kept absolutely fucking up the guitar part on one of his songs (it probably didn't help that the engineer was having him play with his (solid state rack) amp very low, and in a different room). Finally, he got the first half of the song down, right up to a break in the middle of the song. The engineer started talking about deleting it and trying again, but I proposed that my buddy just leave it for now, and double that existing performance for the time being.

He nailed it this time, playing against his already-recorded guitar part. Flawless, where it'd taken him maybe 10 takes to even get to the halfway point before.

I've noticed the same thing about my own playing - the other night I was demoing out an idea for a band I might be joining, and while the intro riff wasn't super-complicated, it had an odd picking rhythm to it where if you were playing with straight alternate picking, you'd start the riff on a downstroke the first time through, and an upstroke the second (it was straight 8ths for the first 3 bars, then for the final bar I tossed in two sixteenths and an 8th). Again, nothing too complex, but at a fairly brisk tempo I had to really concentrate on keeping my picking hand relaxed, because while the down-up-down double-time picked bit was pretty easy, the up-down-up that followed it the next measure felt weird.

I did a bunch of takes where my ark kept tensing up and the performance was off, before finally getting one that was more-or-less right. I armed another track, did a few quick knob twists on the amp, and hit record, and nailed the second take, first try. I then went back and re-recorded the first take (again, after twisting knobs back to about the original settings), and again hit it in one pass.

It could simply be that the picking was finally starting to sound natural to me... But I suspect it's also partially a psychological thing, where something about hearing a guitar in the mix (i hadn't tracked bass yet) really helped me lock into the part. I should probably try cutting the bass first. :lol:

 

[Zaphod B]

But I suspect it's also partially a psychological thing, where something about hearing a guitar in the mix (i hadn't tracked bass yet) really helped me lock into the part. I should probably try cutting the bass first. :lol:

It's just easier for me to hear other stuff, and not have to play into a musically sterile environment.

In fact, after tracking bass and drums (gotta do that before I start laying in the guitars), the first guitar track is normally just a scratch track for subsequent tracks - or maybe just the next one recorded - to play against. That first track is almost always discarded, but it serves as a backboard.

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

I'm kinda surprised it took this long for someone to bring up the idea of cue mixing, I've kind of been waiting for it.

My question there, though, is how close the cue mix actually winds up being to an actual production mix. For me, I'd prefer to just throw up a faders-up mix to the artists, and then if they wish (and they usually do) they will ask me to turn this up or that down.

IME this rarely winds up being anything close to what the actual production mix will sound like; for that reason (among others already mentioned) actually creating the production mix on the fly often just doesn't work for me. I'm not going to spend tracking time working on the production mix when I'm already spending time dialing in cue mixes.

Maybe it's different for the self-recording musician, who perhaps may have a bit of a different ear while tracking, and would prefer to hear something closer to the production mix in progress while they continue to track, because they have more of the engineering ear thing going on.

But it seems to me that if I'm engineering someone else, that sending them a production-style cue mix often doesn't work (no more than it works to mix with the whole band in the control room giving their individual "advice").

G.

 

[Zaphod B]

Glen, I can see your point. I think the difference is that there are two different kinds of creative process taking place. Also, just speaking for myself, if I already have a number of tracks done, I don't want to hear all of it at a production level while I'm tracking, because I want what I'm recording to stand out heavily. And I may only want to hear, for example, one other guitar (in addition to bass and percussion) just to keep what's being fed into my head a little simpler.

I guess it just depends.

 

[RAMI]

I guess it just depends.

That's really what it comes down to.

I guess my question was more geared towards the "home recordist" who conceives of a song in their head, goes through the whole recording process by themselves, as well as mixing, etc.....

In those cases, we have a lot of time where we can't record (someone's running a lawnmower by the window...too many people in the house to feel comfortable doing a vocal track, etc.....). So, I find myself using much of that time listening and mixing. And since I usually know how I want the song to sound, more or less, I'll start with the EQ'ing of guitars and bass, or I'll put the reverb that I want on the drums. Before I know it, I'm a good 75-90% done as far as "mixing" goes, before I added vocals and/or solos and spice, etc.....