What is mixing and how do I do it?

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Buddha17

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I know this is a dumb question but I am currently working with garage band but I want to upgrade to at least logic express 9 but I want to know what the mixing process consists of?

Thank you

Blake
 
To quote Young Neil from Scott Pilgrim vs. the World...

"That's kind of a big question."
:D
 
Welcome.

In it's simplest form....mixing is taking individual elements and blending them to together to form one cohesive piece.
 
If you have to ask, you need to go back to "start" and read every newbie thread linked here!
 
Buddha17 said:
I know this is a dumb question...
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Think about it... what control do you have over any given sound? Not much. You can determine how loud it is, and whether it comes out of the left speaker, or the right speaker. That's mixing. It's not a science, there is no formula.

If you have an enthusiastic drummer and a soft spoken vocalist you don't want your drummer overpowering the mix and this is where you tone 'him' down and turn 'her' up. Perhaps you restrict the drums to the left channel, and the vocalist to the right. Play around, find what sounds best to you.

This is why so many people harp on having quality monitors. If you can't hear it you can't mix it.
 
Danfanmen said:
Think about it... what control do you have over any given sound? Not much. You can determine how loud it is, and whether it comes out of the left speaker, or the right speaker. That's mixing. It's not a science, there is no formula.

If you have an enthusiastic drummer and a soft spoken vocalist you don't want your drummer overpowering the mix and this is where you tone 'him' down and turn 'her' up. Perhaps you restrict the drums to the left channel, and the vocalist to the right. Play around, find what sounds best to you.
Click to expand...
This is kind of it at it's simplest. You take all the recorded sounds and blend them the way you think they sound best. It's important to stress before you embark on this journey that no two humans will ever come up with exactly the same mix and one person's wundermix is another person's WTF ?.
Some people have a natural aptitude for mixing, others have to work damned hard to develop that ear and some may never manage it. But you'll never know unless you spend a few years at it.
So welcome to the BIG CHAIR. ;)
 
Danfanmen said:
It's not a science, there is no formula.
Click to expand...
This reminds me of the only 'direction' I ever got about mixing back in the pre~internet days, it was in the manual of the Fostex X15. It came on the end of a sentence and went something like "aside from the accepted practice of putting the bass and vocals in the centre; mixing is art, not science".
Actually, there are scientific aspects to it but it doesn't matter too tough if you know them intimately or not. The bass and vocal don't have to go anywhere you don't want them to but you may find that some elements seem to sound or work better in particular areas of the stereo spectrum.......and that millions of people have already discovered this.:)
That all said, I think that mixing is primarilly about the opinion and aural vision of the mixer. The actual process involves taking however many individual tracks you have and combining them onto just two {or 5 if you deal in 5:1}.
 
Beyond the most basic definition - summing multiple signals to a stereo pair of signals - mixing entails getting them all in the right balance: left to right, low frequency to high, loudest to softest, closest to farthest, etc. There are a lot of variables to juggle.
 
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