mixing secrets by everyone

[corban]

Definitely tweak the settings. Play around, see what sounds good.

 

[giraffe]

7. If nothing about the mix annoys someone in the room, the mix is often times not done.

Mixerman

heheheheheheheh

 

[Monkey Allen]

So those big mixing boards are for the incoming signal?

 

[MCI2424]

I figured since the other thread is so full of crap, we could add our own insight in to mixing. I am no expert, but here is what I do...

First and foremost, the most time and care must be spent on tracking. The air is your best mixer. Make sure you get a good sound going in. If it's for drums, I will get the best sound I can in the overheads and get a good stereo image, leaving room in the center for other instruments. For guitar, capture mostly the mid range frequencies and so on and so forth. Vocals are higher, bass is low. The point is to capture a good sound and don't think of it as a single entity, but imagine how it will sound in the mix once all the pieces come together. The distorted guitar may sound great, but then when you listen back it's got crazy harmonics and now you can barely hear the bass. Take out the lows and turn the distortion way down.

When it comes to mixing, I start only by adjusting the volume and getting the levels to where I need them to be. I go as far as I can with just the volume, then when I need more clarity I use compression - especially on drums and vocals. After I've done everything I can with volume and compression, I'm mostly done - because I captured it the way I wanted it to sound. Depending on the instrument, I may add just a hint of reverb... if you can hear it it's too much.

Unless there are crazy mistakes and/or errors, I'm mostly done. Otherwise I will go through and cut the bad parts out and make sure everything is lined up correctly. If the singer stopped a little short of holding out a note, I may extend it slightly - things like that. The most important part of the mixing process is tracking... if you have great musicians, you'll do alright. Study mic placement techniques.

I would like to know exactly WHERE this BS about "if you have prefect tracks, then mixing should have no EQ, effects etc,. added"

I think these people should try a visit to a real pro studio and see why they get PAID to mix and wht mixing REALLY is as opposed to tracking.

I can assure you that EQ, effects etc. are used extensively in tracking and mixing for 2 different reasons. SSL 96 input consoles were made for a reason.

 

[Harvey Gerst]

So those big mixing boards are for the incoming signal?

Yup, incoming signals from the instruments during tracking - and incoming signals from the recorder during mixdown.

 

[NL5]

I was wondering, are those boards used basically for the ingoing signal? Because once the signal is captured, you use the software (Cubase. protools, sonar, whatever it may be) to make adjustments to the sound is that right?

That is what's called ITB - or "In The Box" mixing. Most people send all the tracks out to an analog board and do all the mixing there. ProTools is just used for editing. There is also a "hybrid" technique that involes parts of both - that's what I use myself.

 

[sloom]

This is a great thread on all counts. And thank you, mixerman, for keeping the rind on the ethic. Never peel your ethic, I say.

 

[modson]

swearing!

1 thing ive leaned so far - Preset is a very dirtty word, worse even than Cu...
IMHO always play around, be creative but try to be subtle if its not a creative effect.

chris

 

[sloom]

Those Dirty Presets!

Presets get you started. It's a ballpark idea- they put you in the neighborhood of what you're after. It's nice to pick a compressor preset, for instance, because let's say you pick a comp preset "Drums". There exists, generally speaking, a range of effective attack/release times for instruments with a sharp attack and not a lot of sustain. So you play with the threshold values, then your ratio, make-up gain,... then tweak around with attack and release. But the whole time, you're pretty much dealing with what is "close" to an effective comp setting for your drum sound.

It would be an injsutice to your time spent on your music to remain satisfied with a set of factory dial-ins. Your wife wants a red hat. Do you just go to a store and buy her the first red hat you see? Right...

Presets also take a lot of the mystery out of finding the right setting. And if you get lost and screw it up real good, you can always go back to the preset you started with. This is an example of what many of us will call the "Learning Process".

 

[mixsit]

The tone of your 'verb has much to do with timbre of what's feeding it.