"Buried DEEP in the mix"
- Thread starter EFaaT
- Start date
devonjdawson
New member
Hi Efaat,
Something that is "buried in a mix" usually means it's not prominent, or hard to hear. For instance, if it's hard to distinguish the notes from a bass guitar, the player might complain that his tone is "buried in the mix". It's usually a negative thing, but sometimes you might want to make a sound more subtle; this is not quite the same thing. If you did want to "bury" a sound though, there are several ways to go about achieving this, the most obvious being turning something down. However, often times something might be lost in the mix because of an EQ or phase problem. With EQ, a novice may accidentally "hide" something behind the EQ of another instrument––this happens all the time with two instruments that have similar tonal qualities, like a piano and acoustic guitar.
I hope this helps!
Something that is "buried in a mix" usually means it's not prominent, or hard to hear. For instance, if it's hard to distinguish the notes from a bass guitar, the player might complain that his tone is "buried in the mix". It's usually a negative thing, but sometimes you might want to make a sound more subtle; this is not quite the same thing. If you did want to "bury" a sound though, there are several ways to go about achieving this, the most obvious being turning something down. However, often times something might be lost in the mix because of an EQ or phase problem. With EQ, a novice may accidentally "hide" something behind the EQ of another instrument––this happens all the time with two instruments that have similar tonal qualities, like a piano and acoustic guitar.
I hope this helps!
grimtraveller
If only for a moment.....
I was just listening to a piece recorded some years ago, it's 5 songs but pretty much recorded as a single piece, certainly the last three songs. It was quite hard to mix, having to be done in one go and 21 minutes long but the last piece had two acoustics, an overdriven acoustic that sounded growly, a double bass, flute and two tracks of percussion.
I remember doing the percussion like it was yesterday, even though it was last century. My mate and I used various household objects like keys and the sound of scissors snipping. Listening back to the original tracks on headphones the other day, I noticed something I'd been completely unaware of for years, some congas. I must've totally forgotten about them because for the last goodness knows how many years, they've not formed any part of my memory of this piece.
They were buried in the mix.
I think the reason for that was twofold. Partly because, in order to get as much percussion on as possible, I put two separate mics on, one on me, one on my mate. We were down to our last two tracks of an 8 track portastudio so I put the mics through a mic mixer that split the signals {we were on opposite sides of the small room we recorded in in my then flat}. We tracked twice.
The other reason was that my miking was pretty shit in those days so the congas barely came out. So much so that I'd forgotten for a good 13 years that there were even congas on the piece until two days ago.
Sometimes for a joke, engineers would bury something deep in the mix so you wouldn't really notice it but the band would have a laugh knowing that some taboo word or a fart or whatever would play every time the song would play. For example, buried in the mix of the song "Hey Jude", you can hear Paul McCartney saying something like "fookin' 'ell" when he comes in a bit early.
I remember doing the percussion like it was yesterday, even though it was last century. My mate and I used various household objects like keys and the sound of scissors snipping. Listening back to the original tracks on headphones the other day, I noticed something I'd been completely unaware of for years, some congas. I must've totally forgotten about them because for the last goodness knows how many years, they've not formed any part of my memory of this piece.
They were buried in the mix.
I think the reason for that was twofold. Partly because, in order to get as much percussion on as possible, I put two separate mics on, one on me, one on my mate. We were down to our last two tracks of an 8 track portastudio so I put the mics through a mic mixer that split the signals {we were on opposite sides of the small room we recorded in in my then flat}. We tracked twice.
The other reason was that my miking was pretty shit in those days so the congas barely came out. So much so that I'd forgotten for a good 13 years that there were even congas on the piece until two days ago.
Sometimes for a joke, engineers would bury something deep in the mix so you wouldn't really notice it but the band would have a laugh knowing that some taboo word or a fart or whatever would play every time the song would play. For example, buried in the mix of the song "Hey Jude", you can hear Paul McCartney saying something like "fookin' 'ell" when he comes in a bit early.
chuckduffy
Well-known member
Whenever you hear a stacked vocal harmony or solo performance that just sounds like there is too much air to be believed there is a good possibility that a whisper track was involved. Basically you lay it in so that it is barely audible and optionally use a high pass filter. Also - it need not literally be a whisper - just a really quiet volume and lots of air, sometimes an octave higher is good too.
miroslav
Cosmic Cowboy
***WARNING*** SHAMELESS FORUM PLUG TO FOLLOW ***
You know...we have an audio/recording pro coming here on May 2nd to answer any/all questions in this forum:
https://homerecording.com/bbs/special-forums/bobby-owsinski-q/
Soooo...anyone looking for a simple, one question, one answer to something they've not wanted to toss out here on the open forums...this is your chance!
Bobby Owsinski has written a lot of books on audio/recording (Google him)...and I bet many of you have read at least one of his books at some point, so now you can get a few questions in without concern about lengthy debates-n-arguments.
HR is trying to make this type of thing a repeating event, with new pros coming in from time to time...but if few of us members take part, then it won't be worth the time/effort to bring other pros in...so don't miss out on it.
You know...we have an audio/recording pro coming here on May 2nd to answer any/all questions in this forum:
https://homerecording.com/bbs/special-forums/bobby-owsinski-q/
Soooo...anyone looking for a simple, one question, one answer to something they've not wanted to toss out here on the open forums...this is your chance!
Bobby Owsinski has written a lot of books on audio/recording (Google him)...and I bet many of you have read at least one of his books at some point, so now you can get a few questions in without concern about lengthy debates-n-arguments.
HR is trying to make this type of thing a repeating event, with new pros coming in from time to time...but if few of us members take part, then it won't be worth the time/effort to bring other pros in...so don't miss out on it.
"Rider's on the storm..."