Mixing visually

M

MikeA

New member
There was a thread going on around here back late last fall that basically went all over the map. One of the sub-threads of it though concerned using your eyes in addition to/instead of your ears while mixing. I that what was being discussed concerned using DAWs and not necissarily analog meters but I just found an interesting story about deaf mixing that I thought I'd share. Check it out here:

http://recforums.prosoundweb.com/index.php/t/4307/0

The thread even includes an mp3 of the song about 6 or 7 posts down...

Mike
 
MikeA said:
There was a thread going on around here back late last fall that basically went all over the map. One of the sub-threads of it though concerned using your eyes in addition to/instead of your ears while mixing. I that what was being discussed concerned using DAWs and not necissarily analog meters but I just found an interesting story about deaf mixing that I thought I'd share. Check it out here:

http://recforums.prosoundweb.com/index.php/t/4307/0

The thread even includes an mp3 of the song about 6 or 7 posts down...

Mike
Click to expand...
I like to watch the meters go up and down,but given my druthers,I prefer to hear the tracks!
 
Kids - don't try this at home. :eek:

If that story is true, and I don't have any reason to think otherwise, it is pretty amazing. I think a couple of points are;

1: If there were drums on the song, I think it would have been MUCH harder to pull that off.

2: I think this may be more of an example of how really F'n good recording techniques/equipment/room/instruments/talent make a set of tracks that practically mix themselves. Not to take away from a pretty incredible display of skill and experience, but I think you're hearing some magical tracking and a pretty neat trick on just setting levels by sight.
 
RobertD,

I agree completely. When you're dealing with musicians and engineers of that caliber and experience it makes it a completely different situation. I was kind of disappointed too that there weren't drums on it. That would have REALLY been something.
I've worked with several engineers from STAX and they all said the same thing though. You can read a lot about a mix by watching the VU meters. Of course, those are a dying species these days too.

Mike
 
beezelbubba said:
I like to watch the meters go up and down,but given my druthers,I prefer to hear the tracks!
Click to expand...
I'd rather see boobies, and hear music....
 
if someone hasn't heard a song, how could they know what parts are being played by the differant instruments and know how to use them to best bennefit the song? Maybe, if it's a straight forward song with minimal tracks.
 
Being a deaf lefty, I have to say that life in mono sucks. Anyone have an iPod with a mono switch? It took years to get over it but now I've got the head trained fairly well...if I do say so myself.

Suprisingly depth is something I'm very comfortable with. Weird really...going out to dinner with the wife, to a noisy restaurant, I can't hear her across the table but I can hear the guy across the room like he was in my head.

The biggest thing I really have trouble with is panning. I know it's not a little thing but I get help with that by using some visual tools. Wave Lab has some handy visual/spatial tools which I find helpful. I'm sure there are others but I'm happy with what I've got.
 
Grinder,

Did you read the post then listen to the track? Like Robert D said, if drums had been included it would have been a lot tougher, but still, if you've been doing this as long as Terry Manning has you KNOW what tracks are what (or at least can give an educated guess) by watching them. If you start mixing and the only faders you have up and you're bouncing against 0, then your mix is already out of balance. I'm not saying that this IS the way to mix, but rather that, as an experiment you can learn something.
 
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