How important is mixing?

  • Thread starter Thread starter KeithG
  • Start date Start date
K

KeithG

New member
I'm starting to understand what mixing does, but can't you change the EQ and add effects on the recorder itself, so why spend the money? The main question is how important is having and being able to use a good quality mixer? And if it's a necessary piece of equipment (I'm making a studio made from all hardware, no computer) what mixers give you the most quality and reliabilty for your money?
 
behringer is good i used to have it but a mixer is not all that important if u know someone who can mix really good its jus the same
 
How important is mixing?

What a question. When talking about recording it just as crazy a question as How important is walking. If you want a recording with more than one instrument or sound in it.....you need to mix...lol. Sorry I couldn't be less cynical.
 
Thanks

Thanks Murdersgalore. I needed someone to say something like that to get my attention. I didn't know that it's that critical to recording.
 
It is. Unless you plan on doing everything live and the sound is 100% perfect going in and out. I'm not trying to be a prick or anything, but I, along with 90% of the people here, would agree that mixing and having a mixer in general is absolutely crucial.
 
Unless you plan on doing everything live and the sound is 100% perfect going in and out.
Click to expand...
You still have to mix the inputs, too.

Unless you're recording a single source to it's final product (such as recording a staff meeting to a micro-cassette recorder for archival purposes) you don't have any choice but to mix.

This isn't even a question.

You certainly don't need a physical mixer to mix digitally - But you have to mix.
 
Lets Just say recording a song is liking making a cake.
Mixing importance applies to both.
Thats how important mixing is.
God, I need to stop eating and recording.
 
KeithG said:
I'm starting to understand what mixing does, but can't you change the EQ and add effects on the recorder itself, so why spend the money? The main question is how important is having and being able to use a good quality mixer? And if it's a necessary piece of equipment (I'm making a studio made from all hardware, no computer) what mixers give you the most quality and reliabilty for your money?
Click to expand...

Mixing is simply the task of mixing multiple tracks together to make a song. It's pretty damn critical. The EQ stuff is just part of the process to sweeten the sound.

On the EQ and effects side, it's probably better practice to do all that stuff in mixing. Sure, you can record with effects and EQ, but one you do that, it's permanent and if it sucks your stuck with it, leaving you with no choice but to either rerecord or botch it up with more EQ and effects in mixing. If you wait to do the effects and EQ in mixing, you can change what you've done as you see fit.

The other thing is that when you are EQing or adding effects to a mix, you really should do it within the context of the mix. You need to know how, say, that guitar track is going to sound EQ'd and played with everything else. If you EQ etc on recording, you're likely going to be concentrating on the sound of that particular instrument or track on it's own, with FX and EQ. And how a track sounds on it's own has little bearing on how it will sound mixed with everything else. And as the finished product is going to be about how everything sounds together, that's what you should be concentrating on from the outset.
 
Murdersgalore said:
having a mixer in general is absolutely crucial.
Click to expand...

Yes but it depends what you mean. You don't neccessarily need an actual hardware mixer if you're recording and mixing digitally and everything is ITB. Although in that case you'll have a software mixer.

But yeah, you need some kind of mixer, be it software or hardware, to mix, and you need to mix if you have anymore than one track. Even 2 tracks require mixing, even if it's just balancing the volume between the two. That's essentially what mixing is.
 
There are only two things more important than mixing the recording; recording the performance, and the performance being recorded.

G.
 
Yo Keith! Mixing is the second most important thing about a finished music product (after tracking). It has very little to do with the mixer, and everything to do with the mixing engineer. Mixing is the process by which any number of tracks become 2 tracks- left and right, commonly called stereo. That's how most of us listen to music, not just because of industry standards, but because we have 2 ears. There are several major decisions involved. First, panning. Will any given track be on the left or right side,or both? How much of each, and will that change during playback? Secondly, the volume of each track must be set relative to each other, and that may change during the song, like bringing up a solo. Things that suck are often mixed down and things that rock are mixed up. Then EQ and effects can be applied (or not) to each track. EQ is often used to carve out a place in the audio spectrum, so that tracks that are in the same frequency band aren't fighting with each other for acoustic space. EQ can also be used to reduce noise. Dynamic processing, such as compression, can be applied to control tracks that suddenly get loud, and then quiet again, screwing up the dynamic balance of the recording. Overuse of compression will destroy the dynamics of music.

Often in mixing, it is what the engineer *doesn't* do that defines how good they are. Bad mixing engineers throw EQ and compression around like a paint ball gun. Great mixing engineers use the same paint to do the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Yeah, a nice mixer is a very good thing, but I'd rather have a great mixing engineer any day, than a great mixer, which is just one of the many tools that engineer will use. The most important tool he has is his brain, which contains his imagination and his common sense, and is connected to his ears. Mixing is a skill and an art. Some people are better at it than others, and it takes years of practice to become good at it, if you ever do.-Richie
 
Thanks to the advice now I actually understand the reason for mixing. There's a lot more time for me to hopefully learn the art and perfect it. I'm probably going to try music production in college. It seems like everything else.......the more you practice the better you are.
 
You said that you can add EQ and effects in the recorder, but that mixing.
You have a recorder/mixer combo, and if you EQ and add effects during your recording, you are mixing while you record.
Hell, I even mix while I'm songwriting.
I write in guitar pro, which has individual volumes and even panpots for every channel, so when I finish songwriting, I know how everything has to sound, I just apply that to mixer (Sonar in my case)
Mixing is always there, even if you don't realize it.

As for mixing gear, much more important than the mixer itself, it's your monitoring system.
I guess the most important requirement of your mixer is to have the sufficient number of channels you are planning to mix, which is why Software mixing is more and more popular.
If you want to mix 24 tracks, you need a Mackie 24x8 or similar, and a HD24. About 6000$.
Or, you can get any DAW software in your computer and mix 24, or 32, or 64, or 124634 channels, and each with tons of Plug-ins for EQ, compression, limiting, Reverb.... The only limit is your computer.

Bottom line: Mixing is pretty damm important, not to say mandatory, so if you are making a hardware only studio, start saving some serious bucks :)
 
Bottom line: Mixing is pretty damm important, not to say mandatory, so if you are making a hardware only studio, start saving some serious bucks

Very true but I'm only 16 years old with miniscule amounts of money. How many channels would you recommend If all I'm doing is recording guitar through some mics and adding backing drums and bass guitar with a drum machine?
 
KeithG said:
Bottom line: Mixing is pretty damm important, not to say mandatory, so if you are making a hardware only studio, start saving some serious bucks

Very true but I'm only 16 years old with miniscule amounts of money. How many channels would you recommend If all I'm doing is recording guitar through some mics and adding backing drums and bass guitar with a drum machine?
Click to expand...
No vocals? 4 channels should do it.
 
KeithG said:
Bottom line: Mixing is pretty damm important, not to say mandatory, so if you are making a hardware only studio, start saving some serious bucks

Very true but I'm only 16 years old with miniscule amounts of money. How many channels would you recommend If all I'm doing is recording guitar through some mics and adding backing drums and bass guitar with a drum machine?
Click to expand...
As many channels as you can get cause once you start mixing and learning the trade...you'll have guitar solo's everywhere...each drum broken down to one track each...more guitars...two different bass tracks plus a track containing a bassline you quite liked but feel you could EQ better...more guitars...bottom line is Keith...get Reaper and learn to mix first before you start spending.

Another thing that hasn't really been mentioned is your ears. Doesn't matter how much gear or knowledge you have...you just won't hear what you're doing until you train your ears. It's pretty amazing how they get better and better the more you mix...I've only being doing it for around a year myself and yet mixes that I thought sounded great a month ago...well I listened to one the other day and I cringed at the nasty noises I heard.

When you first start, you'll only hear things if you turn knobs/faders fully up/down but as your ears get better, you'll turn a knob just slightly and know that it's way too much. And once you're over the age of 25, you'll lose the ability to hear sounds over 16k, so get to know what they sound like now while you can. ;)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top