Band Balance for Recording and Mixing?

[Big Cadillac]

I do some recording as a hobby, e.g. band practice. I would like to know how the balance should be set-up? I've heard that the band should be balanced to the kick drum. That is all instruments (guitar, bass) should be at about the same dB as the kick drum in general. Is this the proper set-up? Should the rest of the drums (snare, toms) be mic'd at the same sound level as the kick? Is there a prescribed sound level the drums, vocals, guitar and bass should be at relative to each other? Can anyone with professional experience give me some advice? Is this how the band should be set-up for a show?

 

[ssscientist]

I've heard that the band should be balanced to the kick drum.

That doesn't mean quite what it sounds like.

It is true that the drum kit needs to have an anchor and the kick drum is the logical place to start, but the purpose of having individual mics on individual drums is so they can be independently leveled and balanced in the mix along with the other instruments.

Blanket generalizations about mic levels being the same as the kick will start you off on the wrong foot and lead you down a path from which you will need to backtrack if not all then most of the way.

If you have a drummer who will cooperate try a micing and recording session with just the drummer, then apply what you've learned to the full band and work the guitar, bass and vocal over the drums.

 

[littledog]

A lot of this depends on how you are recording.

The first step in setting levels is make sure nothing is clipping the mic preamps.

After that, if you are recording direct to a stereo device, like a cassette, DAT, or CD Burner, the idea is to balance it so it sounds like a professional recording - which means the balance of the different elements will vary depending on the style of music. A Nashville type song will have the vocals more out front than a heavy metal rocker would. It is important that the overall stereo level isn't clipping the recording device. If it is, you have to back everything off proportionally.

As ssscientist said, if you are making a multitrack recording, you can adjust the levels later during mixdown. But either way, the idea is to use your ears to determine if the relative levels sound good to you. That's really the only rule - make it sound good.

A lot of people mix the rhythm section first (bass and drums) and then gradually add in the other instruments one by one. Sometimes the lead vocal is one of the last things added in. Others will put the lead vocal into the mix very early, and mix the other instruments relative to that. There is no absolute right or wrong technique.

Ideally? Even when multitracking, you set your mic levels so that when you bring all the faders up to "0" it already sounds mixed!

 

[MCreel]

I have alwyas operated under the school of record each part with as much gain as you can. Try to get it to sound like you would want it to sound if it were the only thing in the recording.

then once thats done and you're in mixdown you can pull levels down, mess with eq, etc. It's just important to have the most solid signal to work with from the beginning as you can.

 

[LeeRosario]

well the idea is not to record everything at full volume, gain...whatever. However, I've worked with engineers that love to clip the #$%# out of everything.

I think the best method that was worked for me is to develop an organized sense of events. The idea is to make things easy for mixing. So when you're dealing with alot of tracks (maybe 24-124), you're going to need headroom.

Essentially you leave your faders flat and adjust your gain trim. You get relative balances within groups and the idea is to try and make it sound like a song right from the get go. If that means that your lead guitar is -12 instead of -3, then thats fine. The idea is to get balance, not to max out every last track. It's ok for things to show up really low if that's the intended purpose.

So for example,if a professional track engineer sends you a session you have to mix, your first instinct is to set your faders flat. Maybe a little higher than mid way (to prevent distortion). Right off the bat, things should sound generally balanced and not out of whack in relation to one another. Plus it's ok for the mix to sound low, you're job is simply to mix and create blends. Loudness is a post mix thing. You might see values like(for the sake of examples):


kick & snare peaking at -3dbfs, OH, toms & HH peaking at -6, bass peaking at -6, guitars at -8 and vocals at say -4. You wouldn't try to normalize everything to get it close to zero. Your job is to preserve that balance as was intended in the tracking session.

If it was a good tracking engineer, he actually made your job really easy as a mix engineer.

So essentially, the idea is to preserve the holy balance. The better you can do that from the beggining of the food chain, the better your mix will sound. So even during recording, you're acting as a make shift mix engineer.

But really, above anything else, I think it's very comforting to know that there are a million different techniques in this world that work. So its because of that fact that I'd rather use my ears than memorize any numbers or specific steps to doing something.

75 years ago they could of told you not to max out analog because it sounds horrible. Then come to find out that it becomes a cool effect in the 70s, 80s, 90s etc. So alot of it has to do with trends of the industry and the kind of music your mixing against. It's a total judgment call.