A
asi9
New member
I found that I am starting to do this more and more, and I was just wondering if anyone else does something like this when mixing down.
After trying to mix pretty much one style of music (rock/metal) for a long period of time, I am finding that there are certain things I want to hear out of each instrument. Say 4khz in the guitars for attack. 1.5 to 2khz for punch in the bass, etc.
Now lets take the kick drum. We know that the punch of the kick drum mainly lies between 80 to 100hz range, and the "click" of kick drum is around 2-3khz. So we solo our kick drum and do a little eq'ing. Drop this, drop that, then we push those to mentioned frequencies until we get that "hit your chest feeling". Ahhh, sounds good. So we go back and unmute the other tracks. Set the volume. Then you may find that with the rest of the mix you hear the "click" well, but not enough thump. Usually for me it's vice versa. I can't hear enough "click". So I've had to go back into the eq, then boost the 2-3khz. Then go back and listen. Not enough, go back and boost it some more, Now I'm adding distortion because I'm having to boost so much, so I back off on the 80-100hz. Of course, now that means that the other frequencies that were cut are slightly louder. Kindof a tug-of-war. Eventually it will be there, but of course, when I do something to another instrument, I'll have to do the same thing over again.
Then one day I got tired of it and said, "Screw it". I copied the kick drum track. One of them I radically eq'ed to get nothing but the thump. The other I did the same except to get the click. Mixed the two together. Sounds no different than before with my previous eq'ing. Going back into the mix, there is plenty of thump and low end, but once again not enough click. But this time, all I have to do is bump up the fader on the "click track" I just made. I hear the click and the thump evenly in the mix. I like it, and I just saved 45 minutes and a headache.
Of course, you may not have to copy the track, if you have two mics on the kick drum, one inside, and one outside, you can do the same thing, and just eq them both so that their good sides really shine.
I'm thinking you can do similar things with snare and bass. A track for the "attack" of the snare... a track for the "body" of the snare... a track for the "punch" of the bass... etc. It simplifies everything to pretty much simple volume adjustments, and maybe very minor eq. (assuming it was recorded right in the first place)
Anyway, once I'm finished with my mix, I'll be sure to post an mp3 using this mixing method so you can see how I did.
After trying to mix pretty much one style of music (rock/metal) for a long period of time, I am finding that there are certain things I want to hear out of each instrument. Say 4khz in the guitars for attack. 1.5 to 2khz for punch in the bass, etc.
Now lets take the kick drum. We know that the punch of the kick drum mainly lies between 80 to 100hz range, and the "click" of kick drum is around 2-3khz. So we solo our kick drum and do a little eq'ing. Drop this, drop that, then we push those to mentioned frequencies until we get that "hit your chest feeling". Ahhh, sounds good. So we go back and unmute the other tracks. Set the volume. Then you may find that with the rest of the mix you hear the "click" well, but not enough thump. Usually for me it's vice versa. I can't hear enough "click". So I've had to go back into the eq, then boost the 2-3khz. Then go back and listen. Not enough, go back and boost it some more, Now I'm adding distortion because I'm having to boost so much, so I back off on the 80-100hz. Of course, now that means that the other frequencies that were cut are slightly louder. Kindof a tug-of-war. Eventually it will be there, but of course, when I do something to another instrument, I'll have to do the same thing over again.
Then one day I got tired of it and said, "Screw it". I copied the kick drum track. One of them I radically eq'ed to get nothing but the thump. The other I did the same except to get the click. Mixed the two together. Sounds no different than before with my previous eq'ing. Going back into the mix, there is plenty of thump and low end, but once again not enough click. But this time, all I have to do is bump up the fader on the "click track" I just made. I hear the click and the thump evenly in the mix. I like it, and I just saved 45 minutes and a headache.
Of course, you may not have to copy the track, if you have two mics on the kick drum, one inside, and one outside, you can do the same thing, and just eq them both so that their good sides really shine.
I'm thinking you can do similar things with snare and bass. A track for the "attack" of the snare... a track for the "body" of the snare... a track for the "punch" of the bass... etc. It simplifies everything to pretty much simple volume adjustments, and maybe very minor eq. (assuming it was recorded right in the first place)
Anyway, once I'm finished with my mix, I'll be sure to post an mp3 using this mixing method so you can see how I did.
