The cold, hard, facts

[omtayslick]

Wow. I'm glad I don't know anything.

I have gotten good advice on here, and I have had suggestions made to me that seemed unworthy of a Radio Shack new hire.

So......... after hanging around for a while it becomes apparent who to listen to, and who to take with a grain of salt. (or aspirin)

Also, I have learned when not to give advice above my pay grade.

(I do however, know pizza!)

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

True, also aren't the first two points a bit contradictory?

Weeeellllllll...as written, yes. To be fair, I think by "gear" he was referring to solely that gear on the engineer's side of the equation and not the gear on the performer's side of the equation.

But even then, you're right; it's much the same on both sides - it's much more how you use it than it is what you use. Paul McCartney is famous for admitting how mediocre their gits and amps were.

Django Reinhardt on my bro's cheapshit Japanese Epiphone would still be worth recording. OTOH even if you put a custom Manzer in my ham fists, people would still be staying away from the record button in droves .

G.

 

[true-eurt]

I like jello.

"loud Noises"

You guys keep me happy and there is nothing like happy recording !!!

 

[Bulls Hit]

Nameless, let me ask you this.

As Logic alluded to, you strongly recommend against more than 1 AD conversion and yet you highly recommend using outboard gear in preference to plugins. Which recommendation would take precedence?

Also would you consider the UAD Solo110/610 preamps to be a step up from say a firepod, assuming the room was well treated etc?

 

[RAMI]

I don't know man....Like Chessrock said.

For a thread that's supposed to be opening my eyes and FINALLY laying down the truth ONCE AND FOR ALL, I'm having major deja-vu. This is like an HR Compilation thread.

 

[andyhix]

An open offer to Massive, Mastering House, Southside and Ethan (if he stops by)

Stop by sometime, and we can cook up some crystal meth together. No worries, it's on me!

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

Stop by sometime, and we can cook up some cystal meth together. No worries, it's on me!

LOL. You lost me at "Hello" on that one, Andy

G.

 

[masteringhouse]

Stop by sometime, and we can cook up some crystal meth together. No worries, it's on me!

Meth rots your teeth, I prefer crack.

 

[Nameless]

When I was talking about 1 A/D conversion, I was mainly referring to when using cheaper A/D converters. That's what separates the good ones from the bad ones, how many times you can run something through them before they start to sound shitty. Or how well they 'stack up' if that's how you want to put it.

When I said gear doesn't matter as much as you think, I wasn't talking about instruments, amps, etc. That's the gear that DOES matter more than any kind of audio recording gear.

I've recorded sub-par musicians on their cheap acoustic guitars, using top-of-the-line recording equipment. It sounded only marginally better than most 'good' home recordings!

That's the main point I've been trying to get across. To help people who just don't get the point that they need to spend the money on instruments, (maybe even lessons), and their rooms before ANYTHING else.

That's if they're going for as 'pro' of a sound as possible. If this is just a hobby to you and you're doing it for fun (which is great!) then you can ignore all of this.

I've just seen so many people ask why they're not getting a 'pro' sound and it's for just about every reason I made in my original post.

Oh, and about the digital plugins, most people can't afford the quality ones (UAD, Waves, etc.) and are stuck using the cheap/free ones. They get misleaded when people say "this free plugin is great", when the truth is, it is great, but only for being free.

Personally, I don't use UAD or Waves plugins when I have the option of using quality outboard gear and converters, why would I? Unless for certain situations like transparency as masteringhouse said or hard limiting.

Maybe all of the points I made have been said here a million times, for that I apologize. If anyone has any questions about "how the pros do <insert something here>" or "what would you do it <insert something here>" I'd be glad to do my best to answer.

I think the focus of this board, since there are a lot of people wanting a pro sound on a budget, should more aimed towards getting the best sound possible with low end equipment and untreated rooms.

Although, with the price of room treatment, there shouldn't be an excuse to not treat your room somewhat. At least right after you get your cheap mic and preamp.

 

[tzer]

This might be the place...

Because the discussion in this thread is focused on mixing and mastering your own material in general, I believe I have found the correct thread to post my query. But first, a little info...

I am 39 years old and a long-time musician (primarily electric bass but experience many other instruments including violin, piano, trombone, guitar, etc...) and wannabe composer/arranger/producer.

In short, I am trying to:
Record, produce, engineer, mix and master my project band's material with the limited resources at my disposal and no budget. I have no delusions that I can achieve pro studio results, but that is not going to stop me from trying to get the absolute best results I can with what I have. My goal in this exercise is to experiment with our material within the context of a studio situation so when we do buck up the $$ for a pro studio, we don't go in and THEN figure out that we have "studio things we can do with our songs" - Studio time is too damn expensive to be using it to figure stuff out...

What I have done so far
Suffice it to say I have recorded tracks that I now want to mix. While I make no excuses or claims of having perfectly recorded material, I also feel that the tracks I have are OK for my use in this exercise.
I have raw individual tracks for drums, guitars, bass, vocals, back-up vocals and piano that were recorded "best as I could" with my limited skills and experience. While I am sure they could be better, to my ear they are at least clean, have good levels and good headroom - no whammies. When I listen to them individually or all tossed in together, I am satisfied with what I hear for now. I am rather certain an experienced engineer/producer would listen to these and be able to find tons of imperfections - but that is neither here nor there - they are what they are and I want to make the best of them.

I have placed all tracks into Sonar and tightened up the timing. I have gone through a few nights of "try this eq here - try that compressor there - oh look! I can route the drum track to a buss - hmmm, so should I eq pre-buss, then compress at the buss - oh look, now I can route the buss to another buss... hmm... that seems... I am getting dizzy..."

What I think I should be doing:
Applying just a touch of EQ on each track to minimize frequency build-up - for example, on the vox tracks (lead and 6 backups), I am rolling off a lot of low lows.

To provide more 'control' over my drum sounds - I have created 3 copies of the drum track and EQ'd each to enhance a specific aspect of the kit
- drum track 1, rolled off much of the hi's and mid's and punched up the low and low-mid frequencies that seem to bring out the kick
- drum track 2 EQ'd to bring out the crack of the snare and the toms
- drum track 3 - nuked the lows and enhanced the hi-mid's and hi's to bring out the cymbals.

The rest of the tracks (guitar, bass and keys) are currently unmolested.

I have routed all 3 drum tracks to a "drums buss" and have what sounds like a strong and clean kit mix - levels look good on each track and at the buss (no clipping). I am not all that savvy about busses and what they are there for, but it appears that they help organize groups and permit for applying effects and processing on a 'group' level.

I have duplicated the lead vocal track and plan to leave one 'pure' and use the other to apply 'color' in the form of something like chorus, delay or reverb that I can selectively blend with the pure track. Then I have routed both lead vox tracks to a "lead-vox buss".

The Back-up vox tracks (6) have been routed to a back-up's buss - bass to a bass buss, keys to a key's buss, guitar(s) to a "lead guitar buss" and "other guitar buss".

I need to start mixing. But I run into "experimental paralysis" in that I begin mixing, trying stuff, trying more stuff - getting fatigued - putting the project down - returning the next day only to tear down everything and start over.

I do not have a good set of near-field monitors (well, I do, but I cannot hook 'em up yet because I don't have a good power amp for them...) So I am using a piece-of-junk book-shelf stereo with all of it's "EQ" setting turned off to do my mixing. Everything I have been reading says that headphones are great for hearing everything, but I should be mixing for the general population - so I figured this cruddy stereo was OK (again - it's all I have).

QUESTIONS
With all these "reasonable" tracks nicely set up in Sonar as I have described, is there a nice, logical step-by step to mixing this project that will help me avoid the paralysis of "try this, try that"?

Specifically, are there tips like, "Start with drums and bass - get them balanced in respect to each other - then add in lead vox - then guitars..." etc...

Also, I have read that I need to be mixing in mono - essentially not depending on panning to get instruments out of each other's way. How do you avoid instrumental overcrowding? Is it strictly volume? Volume+EQ? - At times all instruments are in and all vox are on - it seems that without panning, the only real option is volume. Is that true?

I could go on, but any tips or resources that could help a beginner deal with the multitude of options available in digitally mixing a project are appreciated!

Thanks!
--tz

 

[snow lizard]

There's a place called IC Pizza in Edmonton that kicks ass. Every slice is like a buffet.


sl

 

[SonicAlbert]

I do agree about plugins versus hardware. There are very few plugins that hold up, you just don't get the tone out of them that you do hardware.

The other issue I have with most plugins is that if you listen *very* closely on exposed acoustic tracks you can hear what I call their "processing" sound. In other words, the plugin changes the tone very subtly, and in a not good way. Very hard to hear, but it's there in most of them.

My acid test of plugins is to audition them on very exposed acoustic piano tracks that have been well recorded. If they pass that test then I consider using them. Same goes for hardware, by the way.

I recently bought an Avalon AD2044 compressor, and that thing does wonders on piano. Gorgeous. Plugins just don't do that.

 

[andyhix]

Too late now, I suppose, but why not start a new thread, instead of posting here? This thread is dedicated to over-analyizing "Nameless" and hypothesizing on his true identity.

Anyway, did I read correctly that you have 3 copies of the drums - one to accentuate bass frequencies, one to accentuate midrange, and one to accentuate the highs? Sounds very unneccesary, but what do I know...

 

[Nameless]

tzer - You can't expect to become a professional overnight. Or make a great sounding mix in one night (especially with so many tracks).

As for a step-by-step way to mix a song, I'm pretty sure, in the back of your mind, you already know there is no such thing. If there was, I'm sure it would be well known by now among the recording community.

The only way is to see what works for each song. From reading your post, it seems that what you're doing isn't working. Why? Because you're trying to do things "the right way". I hope my post didn't make you think there is a "right" way to do it and a "wrong" way to do it. There is good or bad, but even those are opinions and very subjective.

When writing songs, are you worried if you're doing it the "right way" or not? I hope not. It's the same thing with recording and mixing. This is why it is called an art. Because "right" and "wrong" do not apply.

You need to step back from the mix. This is the first step that people skip entirely, and it happens to be the most important step.

You need to hear in your head what you want your song to sound like when it's finished. Are there any other songs that have the sound you're looking for? Or at least something similar? Never go without a source of reference, or another few songs that you can listen to to get ideas. This is especially important in home recording.

This is your song and you have total control over it. Ask yourself these questions and write down the answers before you start mixing.

The drums:
How loud should the drums be?
Where should each drum be panned?
Are they an important aspect of the song or more of a backup/filler?

The guitars:
How loud should the guitars be?
How many guitars are in the song?
Where do you hear them in your head? Panned hard L/R? Somewhere in the middle?
Is there a chance that the tone I chose for the guitars might interfere with th lead/vocals? Should I choose another tone? Is my playing perfect?

The bass:
How loud should the bass be?
Should it be panned dead center? Maybe slightly off center to give the kick drum more room (is the kick drum important? or a backup/filler?)
Should the bass cut through the mix or is there to fill in the low end?

The vocals:
Most important part of the song (almost always, Yes)
Everything else can take comprimises for the sake of the vocals
How far above the mix should the vocals be? (don't want it to sound like a karaoke with someone singing over a backing track).

These are just a few questions you need to answer. There are many more. Don't think of your mix as a 2D, left/center/right mix. This is a 3D world, when you see a band play it's not in 2D.

Don't reach for any effects until one of the answers to those questions suggests that you need to.
Always retrack if you can before doing any EQ or other effects.
Think of the mixing process like the songwriting process. Mix in the order that it's easiest to. Write songs in the order that it's easiest to. (guitar first? then vocals? then drums/bass?).

And remember, there are no rules. Don't let yourself ask the one question that sets almost EVERYONE back, even some professionals, "Am I doing this the right way?".

 

[Nameless]

Too late now, I suppose, but why not start a new thread, instead of posting here? This thread is dedicated to over-analyizing "Nameless" and hypothesizing on his true identity.

I hope this instead, could be a thread for "can the experts give some advice"? Assuming the other ones (masteringhouse? SouthSide Glen?) are willing and I'm sure they are.

Anyway, did I read correctly that you have 3 copies of the drums - one to accentuate bass frequencies, one to accentuate midrange, and one to accentuate the highs? Sounds very unneccesary, but what do I know...

I would agree that sounds unnecessary. Easily 90% (100% in some cases) of the problems in mixing can be fixed in the tracking stage.

 

[masteringhouse]

You need to hear in your head what you want your song to sound like when it's finished. Are there any other songs that have the sound you're looking for? Or at least something similar? Never go without a source of reference, or another few songs that you can listen to to get ideas. This is especially important in home recording.

YES!

It's been said before, but since many comments like this are buried in a heap of "what's the cheapest" and "why don't my mixes sound loud enough" posts it bears repeating.

Know what sound you're going for, whether it's by doing some pre-production work or experience. Without a goal you will often find yourself "chasing your tail" or getting a compromised result overall.

Also I see your point about musicians gear and talent. Both Glen, John, and I have said in the past that audio quality usually get worse as you go further down the chain. A live performance is usually the best audio quality, a mix next, and a CD last. One of our jobs as engineers is to try to preserve as much of that quality as possible going through the various stages of audio production. That's why cheap gear isn't in general going to give you the best results, it's compromised for the sake of price.

Of course all of the above goes out the window for styles of music where grunge or production is a major part of the sound.

 

[zacanger]

Of course all of the above goes out the window for styles of music where grunge or production is a major part of the sound.

Damn straight it does .

 

[snow lizard]

QUESTIONS
With all these "reasonable" tracks nicely set up in Sonar as I have described, is there a nice, logical step-by step to mixing this project that will help me avoid the "paralysis" of "try this, try that"?

Thanks!
--tz

I have nowhere near the experience level of a lot of the good folks here, but I'm reminded of a quote from Mick Zermann that says something like, "mixing cannot be taught, it can only be learned".

Beyond that, my approach would be to try and decide on a comfortable monitoring level. If you have a decibel meter, you can pretty much nail it. Find some well recorded reference material and do some critical listening to set your ears for mixing. Your own mixes will not be as loud as a commercially mastered recording, so it will probably be necessary to crank the monitors a bit more than the reference material.

You might want to play around with some compression on the bass. How much, and where should you place the bass in the mix are kind of subjective, but having a nice tight low end seems like a good goal.

In the end you'll want your mixes to translate well to a bunch of different systems. Maybe check it in the car, in the living room, in your buddie's living room, earbuds, headphones, boom box etc...

Just my $0.02...


sl

 

[Thurgood]

Very good advice. I strongly believe that the most important decisions come early in the process; I suspect that the "pros" will tell you the same, particularly the part about knowing where you are headed.

 

[Freudian Slip]

Wow! this has turned into a very good thread.
Nice post nameless.


F.S.