Mixing multiple songs

[Jay Jay]

I almost always use a template..

I finally got all my instruments sounding how I like them in a mix. All my equiptment is set up in the same room, mic'd the same, and always played by myself. My songs almost always contain drums, bass, and distorted guitar. I load a template and hit record. My drums sound how I like it with the comp, eq, panning, reverb, gate, all set up right for the kit. Same for bass settings and software amp modlers for the guitars. I will tweak settings for each song, although it is usually very little.
It took me many months to get a mix I'm somewhat happy with. Now I finally got it on everything I record. I want the consistancy from song to song on an album. I want them to flow together without any noticable changes.

 

[xstatic]

When I hear stuff that has been done like that, I don't hear it as consistency, I hear it as laziness, and lack of content. To me the flow of an album is determined first by the performers, and second by the engineer (the mix). That flow has nothing to do with whether something is EQ'ed the same, or the levels match exactly between songs. That flow should come from the MUSIC. When every song starts to sound the same to me that is usually a sign that someones career is over whether it be the musicians or the engineers. I hear work like that all the time and personally I am thankful that it is out there. That kind of work brings me a lot of business. There are a lot of loacl studios that really make everything sound the same because they find one thing that happened to work once and apply it to everything.

 

[LRosario]

well the template thing isn't for everybody. Traditionally yes, you start off with your short reverb, a long reverb and bring up your faders to the middle. Then you work from there. I understand that.

However, I find nothing wrong with custom templates for brand new sessions. It's a time thing. If it's mixing for some mega artist, under a specific producer and/or other specific member, then thats a different story. If you got the money, then you get the luxury.

I could never apply the same template to differently tracked instruments of course. But if the album material was tracked consistently and smoothly, then templates work well. I don't think of it as laziness at all, it's simply easing up the work flow during a session that dosn't have enough funding to give it that individual attention.

For every album that I've heard that was tracked in a single tone, I've heard an equal amount that where tracked and/or mixed inconsistantly. The deciding factor to a certain extent is not completely on the engineer, but on the music itself and the circumstances.

Defone's "White Pony" album, for example, was mixed inconsistently. My best assumption is that they jumped from studio to studio during the production of that album. The dead give away were the drums and guitars.

It also sounds like they switched engineers a couple of times. That's only my best guess, I haven't checked the facts on that. However, thats a great album and was received well.

Bad Religion's "The Empire Strikes First", for example, was mixed very consistently. Some type of template had to be used. Good sounds all around. The production on that album was done beautifully. But then again, you have Sound City's Pete Martinez on that project. Also received very well.

Of course as with anything audio, it's very situational.

 

[xstatic]

My only problem with templates lies in mixing, not in tracking. If you just load tracks into a template and compile the mix from that, than you are selling yourself short. It's really hard to listen to an album and just decide why the songs sound different. Maybe they did switch studios and engineers. Maybe thats how they wanted it.