i've tracks, I've vision and I've no mixing/mastering smarts. Hold my hand.

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theron

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I'm not sure if this is the forum but, here it goes.
I've recorded all the audio tracks I can. I'm sitting on some suplimental back-up vocals and some key lead guitar from outside talent. I've made dinky 4-track analoge "demo tapes" in the past but, I've never employed compresion or gate or any post recording tools to them. I'm working with Vegas and Sound Forge and I need to get to getting on the tracks I have, i.e. compressing the vocals and getting that underbelly noise out of all the tracks I have. I need to start mixing and preparing the tracks I have. I am overwhelmed at where to start.

I have 8 song, all inside 10 tracks apiece. What can I do while I go through the administrative fuss of getting those outside talent tracks recorded? And after they are recorded, how do I begin to do the tracks justice?

Nice and imprecise questions, no?

Please, let the guidance commence
Thanks in advance for your time,
Theron.

And yes, against all reason, I will master the finish myself (how I don't know) I've no other finacial option.
 
Post one in the mp3 mixing clinic and we'll see if what you need is mixing help, or general tracking help before mixing. If its decent shit, I'll mix one for ya if you want to send the .wav files out, just for fun.
Peace.
 
if you've got underbelly noise

then you're already in trouble, unless by underbelly you mean spots where the talent isn't playing (or isn't supposed to be) and you want to cut those measures out of the track.

if want you mean by underbelly is eq'ing out the mudd tones, etc... it's best to get as close to clean as you can while tracking because limited gear means limited cleanup ability.
 
Yes, "underbelly noise" is in referance to parts where the talent is not playing.
 
ok, cool. this is what i do:

i'm using cakewalk, but i'm sure they all have similar functionality.

once you've scrubbed... hold up let me start at the start

1) if you have a CD burner, go get some CD-RW's and put each song on its own CD-RW. In cakewalk, they have .bun (bundle) files which include all the tracks (wav) and midi stuff into one big file. This way if you accidently screw up one of your tracks, you can start over. Also, this way i can put the cakewalk file, CD quality wave file, and MP3 file on the same CD.

2) now, that you've got backups. go through the individual tracks of each tune and wipe out the parts where the musicians are 'laying out'. in cakewalk there is a remove silence feature i normally use an attack of 20ms, a hold of 80-120ms and a release of 40-80ms with a gate open/close of -64db.

3) i get a rough mix. i start low and go high so the kick and bass are mixed first, then the rest of the drum kit, then the instrumentation, then the back vocals, then the lead. i do the lead vocals last because i know that i want for it to sit on top of the mix.

4) i set the graphics on the track display to show both peak and rms levels for each track, so i can visually see the difference. it helps me to know which tracks i need to compress and how fast the compression attack should be.

5) any tracks that need compression.

6) any tracks that need EQ. Especially tracks where i want to cut the lows and low-mids.

Hopefully at this point, I'm loving the mix and there's no real EQ surgery that needs to be done.
7) any effects (reverb, delay, chorus).
8) any panning and volume changes (ie... lead guitar swells up and moves to center during the solo).

ALERT!!!
Here's where i piss on my own head. this is where i start worrying about whether the mix is HOT enough. No matter how nice the mix sounds I want for it to be loud like the pro stuff. So this is where I put a multi-band compressor on the main out and feck everything up by going too far with it. However, i have noticed that the better i get with mix levels and applying compression, the less i feck it up with the multi-band. I've just got to find that cut-off point where the dynamics are there, but the mix is hot at the same time.
 
Very useable advice and that article is wonderfully practical. Now I'm on my way. Thanks very,very much. I don't feel so lost. Now I'm eager to dig in!
theron.
 
There's a printable version on there. 40pps, but worth it.

Queue
 
hey cross or anyone else...

you mentioned monitoring peaks and rms during mixdown.

anyone know if it is possible to monitor both peaks and rms in cubase?

that would totally help for figuring out how much compression to apply to certain tracks... sounds like a great idea, i'm just not sure that i can do it in cubase. can i?
 
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