Mixing Entire CD vs. Mixing One Song...

  • Thread starter Thread starter Robertt8
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Robertt8

Robertt8

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Do you guys mix different when you know you're mixing for an entire album? I mean, you can do a good solid mix on one song, but you want a lot of the songs to sound different (even though they might have all been recorded on the same instruments)...you kind of become a producer in that case...where you decide to loose certain track, just for the sake of making other songs sound better or whatever.

Is there any good practice for this?
 
When we did our CD, we had set ourselves some sort of deadline (I still don't know why) on when it should be finished...

At that point, it was: "12 songs, get 'er done..."

I wish now that I could have taken more of a song by song approach during mixing... Even tho there were some points that a particular song dominated my schedule (and made me temporarily forget about the rest of the unfinished tracks) and I was able to play and tinker based on the song itself...

I still pull out some of those raw tracks and play 'what if' with them... But there won't ever be a 'remixed and remastered' version of the CD any time soon.. lol :rolleyes:

I guess that itself is the best 'practice' ... Just keep doing and tinkering every chance you get... (This might not be acceptable if you're on a deadline... either yours or the paying client's).
Sometimes, you may hear something in your experimentation that sounds awesome but you never would have thought to do...

:)
 
My methodology is no different mixing a single song, or a whole album. For me the same aesthetics apply.... I make mix decision based what's appropriate for the song at hand. Once all the songs are mixed, then it's at the mastering phase that song sequence (order) is chosen, levels between songs are adjusted, and song fades and/or blends are decided upon.
 
Blue Bear Sound said:
My methodology is no different mixing a single song, or a whole album. For me the same aesthetics apply.... I make mix decision based what's appropriate for the song at hand. Once all the songs are mixed, then it's at the mastering phase that song sequence (order) is chosen, levels between songs are adjusted, and song fades and/or blends are decided upon.
Click to expand...

ah...interesting. i'd think that if there might be too much of one thing going on...you know, like too much of one sound, that you might change some things up, decide to leave out tracks in part or entirely if all the tracks started to sound similar just because of the same instruments being used on all the tracks.
 
I'm not sure how Bruce works, but most people who make a job of this sort of thing are getting paid by the hour ... thus, the amount of time they are able to work on an album is dictated by how much time the client is willing to spend.

I often I find that I'm forced to use sort of a cookie-cutter approach. Not that I'd treat their mixing like everyone else's -- just that I will tend to start with one song, and then look for settings that will work well accross their body of work, and just apply it to most or all of the songs on the record / demo, simply because it's quicker.

Treating each song differently takes a lot of time, so again, it's all dictated by how much of your time the client is able/willing to purchase. If they're cool with spending the extra time, then by all means -- treating each song individually would be sort of the ideal.
 
chessrock said:
I'm not sure how Bruce works, but most people who make a job of this sort of thing are getting paid by the hour ... thus, the amount of time they are able to work on an album is dictated by how much time the client is willing to spend.

I often I find that I'm forced to use sort of a cookie-cutter approach. Not that I'd treat their mixing like everyone else's -- just that I will tend to start with one song, and then look for settings that will work well accross their body of work, and just apply it to most or all of the songs on the record / demo, simply because it's quicker.

Treating each song differently takes a lot of time, so again, it's all dictated by how much of your time the client is able/willing to purchase. If they're cool with spending the extra time, then by all means -- treating each song individually would be sort of the ideal.
Click to expand...
All very true - and my approach is often very similar to Chess's... (he just described it better!)
 
I've only gotten to do 4 or 5 full-length projects in the past few years. The first one, I mixed the songs in the order they were to appear on the album. As I listen back to that project now, I can hear how my ears must have changed as the mixing sessions went on. I apparently didn't care for the singer at first as his voice wasn't very "up front" in the mix, but towards the end of the album, I must have grown to like it...

From that point on, I adopted a one song at a time philosophy. The next project, which was my own band, turned out boatloads better.

More recently I’ve done two projects for a neighbor hood punk/pop band. Younger kids, all in their mid/late teens, and honestly not that good. With these, the mixing has been the easy part. Getting them to play well… that was another story.

I’d say there is definitely something to be said for the one track at a time approach, especially when you know which ones will be the “radio friendly singles” and which ones won’t.

The project I’m currently just getting started on is for my newest band. We already know which songs we want to send to the local radio stations and colleges and which ones are going to be more for our live show fans. I suspect that will change the way I approach the mixes quite a bit.
 
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