Mixing help, (or) throw me a fricken bone

[Tim A]

i think we are basically saying the same thing. i think i just actively try and weed out information i get, taking everything on board as truth can lead to some crappy habbits, mainly people people just do things without listening and actually hearing if it works for them or not.

[Matt C.]

I'm in a similar spot as the OP, although maybe we're focusing on different mixing skills. I get the impression (and maybe I'm wrong) that most good mixers can use compression as a tool to create a sense of excitement and movement. While I understand compressors in a basic sense, this is one skill I think I'm missing.

My one piece of advice to the OP or anyone else is don't be afraid to try stuff while mixing that seems drastic or "wrong". After reading this board and other online resources for a while, I've come across tons of great advice and tips for recording and mixing. but I also realize that a lot of those tips are coming from guys trying to make music that sounds like the Beatles or Radiohead or something, which is not generally what I'm going for and therefore their advice shouldn't be taken too seriously. Just play around and try new stuff to see what happens.

[fossiltooth]

It depends on what your goals are.

If your goal is to be a great mixing engineer, and you have career aspiration there, then mix a lot of music. Mix your recordings and mix other people's recordings. Then mix them again. Do rough mixes, constantly. Mix shows. Mix live to 2 track. Get multitracks to your favorite songs and mix them. Try to make them sound exactly like the original. Now, try to make them sound totally different and still have them work. Do spec mixes for free, knowing they might not be chosen or you might not get paid for them. (You have a slim advantage there. Most working professionals don't do spec mixes often. They don't have the time.)

If your goals are to be a great musician and you have career aspirations there, then hire someone who is good to mix your music. Make sure you pick someone who has mixed other records that you like the sound of.

And if your goal is to have a fun and fulfilling hobby, then don't stress out about it too much!

It's hard to give specific advice on mixing in general. Whenever people like my mixes and ask what I "did," I find it's a hard question to answer. All I can really think of to say is "EQ, compression, reverb, delays, level." Same stuff as anybody else.

With that said: Don't be afraid of EQ. Don't be afraid of compression. Don't be afraid of riding faders. And don't be afraid of leaving things entirely alone. And yes: Good mixes start with good recordings.

25% of mixing is carving out cluttering frequencies in the lows and low mids and adding presence where appropriate. 25% is finding appropriate level balances and spaces for musical elements using compression and fader rides and ambience, 25% is adding to the attitude and pulse and enhancing emotion. 25% is helping to create a unique and memorable world for the song to live in. And 100% is having great taste, lots of experience, a bag full of tricks, and a deep understanding of aesthetics, emotional impact, technology, and the sound of recorded music from its very inception right up into the present day.

Either that, or assloads of time and a lot of luck.

[CedarSound]

I'd say Justin pretty much nailed it with that post... couldn't have put it better, myself.

[Nick Sevilla]

Hi Lee,

All I can tell you, is to listen a lot more, and adjust a lot less.

Make a plan of it. Listen without making any judgement calls, without any prejudice towards an instrument you don't like, or a performance you don't like, or a musician you don't like. Take the politics out of your mixing decisions. Take the technical aspect also out of this listening time. Do nothing but listen. Do not touch any knobs, faders, or buttons. Do not get distracted. Then listen again and allow yourself to be distracted. Listen from another room. Listen, listen, listen.

Then when you have listened enough to the song, and it's elements, you will come to realize what you technically need to do in order to make the sounds help the song and the message as much as possible. This part is where your knowledge of techniques helps your subconscious mind in bringing out what you want to hear from the song out of the speakers.

What is the song trying to communicate to the listener? Is it a sad, melancholy song? Is it a happy song? Give your song ONE basic emotion, and start working with this in mind.

As an example :

I may be working on a sad love song, one of heartache and loss. am sure most of us here have worked on a song like this, so it serves as a good example.

What are the lyrics? What is the story? Follow the story.

If it is a sad song, your job as mix engineer is to make the sounds FEEL sad. If you have really bright instruments that take you away from that sad feeling, mute them, or EQ all their brightness away.

Does the song have a lyric about travel? Is there an element in the sounds that you can move by panning to help illustrate this travelling? Do it.

Once you really get into the lyrics, things will come to you which may SEEM untechnical, or even awkward, but will work for the song. Do THAT.

As to books, etc, many already have mentioned excellent ones here, check those out.

Cheers

[T-rex]

I recommend you read Zen and the art of mixing by Mixerman.

A great read. It's way more about the intent of mixing than the technique, which is why it's so great.

Nick and fossiltooth had great advice about trying to transmit the "feeling" of a song. It's all goo advice.

The only concrete advice I would lend is that one of the things I started out doing was trying to make every thing balanced, which leads to a really boring mix. Don't be afraid to do something crazy and don't be afraid to mercilessly mute parts that don't work. If you spend hours trying to eq something to fit, it may just need to go, period.

Mixing is a contact sport. You just have to dive in with no fear and start throwing punches. At least, that's what my alter ego keeps telling me.

[fossiltooth]

That's true, T-Rex. Great balances do not just operate on a "set-it-and-forget-it" basis.

Great mixes breathe, and elements and perspectives within them can shift over time. Even more to your point, it's important not to iron out all the wrinkles sometimes. Let something be startlingly loud if it increases the emotional impact. Let one or two instruments be central, and have others bow to them. And realize that this perspective is allowed to morph over time.

And Nick brings up another good point. I've always said that we often do our best mixing when we're not mixing. Sometimes, a little distance is needed to hear things for real. That's a refrain that came up again and again when I interviewed some of my favorite mixers for this story: http://www.sonicscoop.com/2012/08/09/th ... at-mixers/

[Gregg Juke]

A LOT of good points, and in some cases seemingly contradictory advice that is actually all "true." As always here at TO, "It depends."

I just wanted to share one concept that I have re: static vs. dynamic mixes. I agree with Justin that things can and should change perspective. If you are making a real studio-oriented type of record, rather than a live type of thing, go ahead and shift panning. If it's a vocal tune, the lead vocal should be front and center. But when the left-of-center guitar fills move into a full-on guitar solo after the second chorus, go ahead and move that instrument to the center; that's the "feature" of the song at that point. Same goes for sax, bass, whatever.

Also, don't be afraid to try different things. say, with back-up vocals, there are a million ways to mix them, but a lot of the approach should stem from what role they are suppossed to have. Are they actual harmonies that support the lead vocal? If so, they'll probably need to be more upfront. Are they really just supportive background "bed" stuff, like oohs aahhs, and a few echoed lyrics? Mix them back so they're audible but not a distraction from the main lyrics. And there are so many ways to pan back-ups in the spectrum from hard-left to hard-right, fan-panning, etc.

Think of the mix as a big part of/part-and-parcel with the _arrangement_ of the song-- it should build-up from the first downbeat or introductory synth part to a crescendo; in other words, however you envision the song, the mix, like the song itself, should have its own arc.

GJ

[metrocenter]

There IS a difference between EQing for tone and EQing for the mix.

EQing for tone can largely be avoided by having (a) a good instrument, (b) a good performance, and (c) the correct mics in the right positions.

As an example, when recording a bass through an amp, I might record DI along with 2 or 3 mics, all at the same time. I'll close-mic with a D112 to capture the deep bass, and maybe an SM57 or Sennheiser 421 to capture some presence and midrange. Then I might add a condenser 1-2 feet away to capture some "air". Then EQing is simply a matter of mixing these down in the right quantities.

Ideally, each track should have been recorded or edited to have the best possible tone before mixing begins.

During mixing, EQing (mostly subtractive) is necessary to make space for each instrument, so that they all work together and don't conflict in the frequency space. I tend to start mixing with the instrument most important to the song/sound (often the drums and bass). Then as I add other instruments, I carefully remove certain frequencies to avoid conflict between the tracks.

For me, the most critical areas of EQ are (1) in the lower bass/kick range (30-250 hz) and in the lower midrange (350-1000 hz).

[Snarl 12/8]

I've come to the conclusion that my mixes suck because my mixing room sucks. Taking some measurements with some test tones reaffirmed this.

One thing to try, put the vocal up first and leave it there. Never leave anything else up that steps on the vocal unless you want that effect.

[Dakota]

other people's methodology on EQing

Lots of entirely awesome input on this thread, so I won't duplicate any of the previous brilliance.

One simple yet profound approach I suggest you try, and form your own opinion of, is an EQ approach called "cut the uglies". (This potential approach will already be taken for granted by lots of veteran mixers here).

The uglies are either frequencies that sound harshly un-musical from a musician/artist/aesthetic-pleasure viewpoint, or are boomy or bulky and take up space without contributing aesthetic goodness.

One can be scientific with expectations, or just use your ears. Final results are the same.

Any given track, bring up an EQ, set a band to narrow Q and boost a lot - like 12 or even 18 db - and sweep it around. Not listening for "nice", but listening for "nasty". Note the frequency areas that particularly make you wince or exclaim "holy %$&! that's particularly awful" - then make note of those areas and cut each of them, usually with narrow Q although whatever it needs - cutting enough so those areas don't seem to stick out any more - that could be 6db cut or it could be anything. Then if the EQ has overall gain makeup, set it so that the perceived overall volume of the track is the same with the EQ in or bypassed. Switch back and forth. Is it better? Sleeker? More musical?

Repeat this with all prominent tracks. Do a rough mix with all these de-uglied EQs in, then do another with the levels the same and all these EQs out. See what *you* think. Learn from that.

The danger of this approach is that one can get paranoid and over-do it with the slicey cuts. You moderate that through practice.

(And yeah - for sure hi-pass everything that doesn't live in the bass range, and maybe those things as well, as per above advice).

& Big caveat! - if (say) 734hz boost always sounds awful to you on every track - it might be your room, so don't be fooled by that - to double check this stuff, put on headphones and shut off the monitors, etc. - listen in a lot of different contexts to make sure the problem frequencies are real.

[jgimbel]

One simple yet profound approach I suggest you try, and form your own opinion of, is an EQ approach called "cut the uglies". (This potential approach will already be taken for granted by lots of veteran mixers here).

The uglies are either frequencies that sound harshly un-musical from a musician/artist/aesthetic-pleasure viewpoint, or are boomy or bulky and take up space without contributing aesthetic goodness.

This was going to be my suggestion. I saw a good summation of it in a video with George Massenburg (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9r6BmcJpYeE), where he did just this. I've been doing this a lot lately and it has made things dramatically easier to work with when it comes to mixing. I especially find things sticking up, depending on the instrument, often being really boomy (250Hz-ish), something boxy 400Hz-600Hz, or something harsh somewhere between 1kHz and 3kHz. Of course it depends on a million factors but these are culprits I'm seeing pop up a lot. The way I've been working is just as Dakota mentioned - boosting a narrow Q band and sweeping it, and there will often be one spot (or two, occasionally three) spots that really stick out and give that kind of whistling resonance. It's easy to go overboard then cutting these frequencies out, though I often find that I really am on the correct spot if I can pull out a ton of gain from it and it doesn't sound totally unusable with it like that. So I then bring it back up so it sounds more normal. Doing this all over the place has totally taken away the whole blind EQ thing for me, where things sound weird but I can't figure out why. This kind of balance has made it so much easier for me to get something that sounds like a great, professional recording.

I'll usually use a transparent utilitarian parametric EQ for that work, and then I'll use something Pultec-like to then EQ for tone, which is possible now that things are balanced how they should be. I can then boost air, bring up presence, fill out "oomp", whatever is needed in the more artistic/emotional side of making the song come out.

GREAT suggestions all over this thread, Nick and fossiltooth especially. Nicely done.

[lee]

[It's the author again. Thanks everyone for your advice so far. For real.]

What about a spectrum analyzer? Do you guys think that it's a bad idea to use one in the mixing process? I've been using them on each individual track to see if there is anything weird happening in the sub-lows, to see where to roll it off, but as for the rest of the spectrum, what do you think? When is a good time to use one?

And as for reverb and delay, let me put it this way, do most reverb plug-ins sound bad or am I just terrible at dialing them in! I like how it gives a real sense of 3-dimensionality, but it always comes with a little cheese. Do you think that reverb in mastering should put the band "In a room", and reverb in mixing should be used as, for the lack of a better word, an effect?

Thanks again!

[lefthanddoes]

Hey Lee, I actually listened to your sample mix. It makes a lot of this advice seem kind of all over the place and vague, including my own...

I'd say it sounds pretty good. I really like the writing, it reminds me of a sort of Sufjan Stevens weirdness/eclecticism. The mixing style also evokes something off Illinois.

There are some specific problems I'm hearing. First is that some of the performances lack confidence. This could be subjective. The vocals sound a little wavy, but it seems like a stylistic choice to some degree. The flutes (or clarinets or whatever they are) are shaky sounding. Since the arrangements are so ambitious and dynamic, the playing has to be extra confident timing-wise, dynamics-wise and pitch-wise. It just makes all the ideas easier to hear, which means the mix will automatically be better.
I also hear some kind of really short reverb on a lot of things, especially the vocal. I could be wrong, but it doesn't sound like the room it was in. It sounds like an effect. I think things would sound more normal without that. However, I think if the above were improved, the reverb would just sound like an interesting new sound.

All the factors (song, arrangement, performance, recording, mixing) have to work together to make it easy for a listener like me to understand what you're trying to communicate/express, or how you imagine the music making people feel. If you were doing blues-rock, the arrangement/part writing could afford to be more amateurish and I would still dig it. If you were doing a single guitar and vocal doing strummy folk, the performance could be a little shakier and I would still dig it.

What you've got on your side is the classical instrumentation, so you have a little room for mic choice and EQ, cause everyone knows what a clarinet sounds like (although I get it mixed up with a flute ). I don't hear any problems with mic choice, or with part writing, your arrangements are really creative and instruments move in and out of the way of each other well.
Hope that's helpful.

[MoreSpaceEcho]

the only proper use of a spectrum analyzer is for making fun of 'and justice for all'.

seriously. turn that shit off and listen.

as for reverb, try rolling off the highs and lows and see if that doesn't help with the cheese factor.

adding reverb in mastering happens pretty much never, but i did actually add a little on one record last week, at the band's request. you really wanna get the band 'in the room' in the mix. or, preferably, in tracking.