Mixing Part 1 - Critical Listening

Critical Listening

The first step in a journey is knowing your destination. Trying to mix music or anything in audio for that matter without knowing what you're going for is fatal. The combination of the gear you use for reverb, delay etc., techniques for placement, use of compression and more all determines how your mix sounds.
Knowing first-hand is the best way to know how an engineer gets his signature sound. The next best thing to that is critical listening.
Focusing your attention on a musical track is a very constructive way to build your own sense of what works. This is not stealing but building on the work of others. The most creative minds through history started by emulating a mentor and then branching out and finding their own style.

Test Yourself

Let's take a moment and dissect a finished mix. First off you must have a listening environment that lets you concentrate without distraction. If you're lucky enough to have a studio or listening room at your disposal then that's fine. Otherwise a nice set of headphones will suffice. Pick a song you are  not familiar with but one you like. Later on we will cover situations where you may not like the music but need to make it likable for other listeners. For now let's go with something attractive to your ears.

Step 1

Take a pad of paper and a pencil and sit in a comfortable position. We are  going to be listening to this track over a few times just as you would if you  were mixing it. For the first pass I want you to close your eyes and listen.  Feel the music, suspend your critical ear for a moment and let it take you  somewhere emotionally. Listen like a true music lover unfettered by the  technical things, as engineers often are. Developing this kind of ear is  essential to build a track that will move a listener.
Take the pencil to paper and I want you to draw a line horizontally making  a graph of where you "see" the song going. Is it a ballad that starts low in  intensity then builds? Draw that, eyes closed. Concentrate on the feeling  that the piece gives you and nothing else. Listen from top to bottom and then stop and look at what you've done. The song should have built and  ebbed throughout. This is one of the keys to good mixing. Even if a song  doesn't have dynamics, you as a mixer can build it in. This is one of the techniques we'll be exploring in the weeks to come.

Step 2

Now listen to the song again and I want you to write down all the segments of the song as you hear them. Give them a name. Typical names are Intro, Verse, B-section, Chorus, Solo, Tag etc. Carve up the song into it's components and give them names.

Step 3

Now that you've carved up the song and named it I want you to go through again and write down all the instruments that occur in each segment. Of course some will be common to all segments such as drums and bass. For these just put the name down at the first downbeat and draw a line down to represent it in the other sections. You may also have other instruments ducking in and out during other sections. By "instruments" I mean vocals too. We're talking about ingredients here that make up the song.
Now compare your Step 3 to Step 1. Notice how the feeling changed for you and compare it with the ingredient content. The "higher" the song takes you feeling wise will vary from a very sparse section to a very dense one. It all depends on the writer and arranger and how they constructed the song. This is the great thing about mixing. It's like a puzzle that changes for every song.
 

Mixing Part 2
 

Getting Specific

Now there is some required listening that's going to pertain to this exercise. This way I can talk about specific mix attributes and you can follow along. The track you need to listen to is Celine Dion's "The Power of Love". It's from the CD, The Colour of My Love. Whether you like Celine or the style of the music is inconsequential. In fact you may have to work with bands or music that you don't like but you'll still have to do a great job as an engineer. One of the great quotes I read recently from Steve Albini was (paraphrasing) that he didn't have to like the music of the bands he was working with. My observation was that it never kept him from doing a great job on the tracks and mix. A good example to follow. Anyway, beg borrow or steal the CD and follow along.

Breaking it Down

This song couldn't be simpler in structure. It's Verse, Chorus and Bridge. That's it, not even an intro. The beauty of this structure is that it sets the song right in the listener's lap from the start. The problem you have as an arranger and engineer is that you have to pull some rabbits out of the hat to make the track move. It's like telling a story. You can't spill all the beans at once but you have to give the listener some different things along the way to keep it interesting. It's called ear candy.
Listen through the track once and hear what I'm talking about.

Verse 1

Celine is RIGHT in your face from the start. She's got a very sweet sounding long reverb tail hanging off her every word and there's a 1/4 note delay with more reverb on that. Listen carefully to hear the delay. If you listen REAL close you can hear a bit of distortion on sibilant syllables but the rest of the track is so great it's easily ignored. Notice the backing track. It's a panned keyboard pad that's going left to right in a 1/16th note pattern. This could have been done by the arranger or at the time of the mix using a panner. Besides the vocal and panned pad you just have a shaker on the left. Right away you're seeing the relationship between the mixer and arranger and the track. You as an engineer may have to make decisions (consulting with the producer of course) based on the ingredients you're given to work with.

Verse 2 (:30)

Next notice that after 8 bars the track starts to build already. There's a wet percussive effect that announces the entrance of Verse 2 and a string counter line enters. In addition if you listen closely you can hear an arpegiated 1/16th note pattern very low in the mix. Every two bars there's a low bass note that tends to "ground" the track a bit in the low end. This brings up the track just a tad from the first Verse and carries us along the trail to the chorus.

Chorus 1 (:56)

Now the whole track shifts gears. Check out how slick this is. Bass and kick drum enters to add a solid foundation and the string counter line is passed along to the guitar, excellently played by Michael Thompson. There's actually less ingredients here than Verse 2 but listen how it builds.  This is ear candy at it's finest.

Because of the depth we need to get into I have to break this feature into two parts. Listen ahead and see what you come up with for the rest of the song, now that you know what I'm listening for. Then next week compare it with what I came up with. Practice critical listening on your own too to
tune your ears to these concepts.
 

Mixing Part 3
 

Verse 3 (1:24)

Once again the track changes. The panned pad, 1/16th note line, kick and bass remain but now a guitar answer to the vocal is added and a single note string line. In addition a side stick is added but listen to each hit. Hear how the engineer (Humberto Gatica) has alternated the reverb treatments  between a long lush reverb to a short to medium room. Each hit is different.

Verse 4 (1:52)

The counter line that entered in Verse 2 is back now and listen how the high string builds in volume to the chorus.

Chorus 2 (2:19)

Now bring on the hounds!! The toms of DOOM bring in this chorus and play in spots throughout. In addition the side stick becomes a snare and hi-hat enters on the right. There's also assorted cymbal crashes thrown in.
A simple string chordal pad provides the undercurrent and there's a guitar thrown in for color every other bar. In bar 4 (2:33 into the song) there's a one-time percussive effect thrown in on the right side (more of that ear candy). Notice how this chorus, like the last, has LESS ingredients than the previous verse but still builds nicely.

Bridge (3:14)

Listen how the guitar lick from the end of the Chorus announces this section. Now the whole mix gets heavier in the guitar department. Listen to the 1/16th note guitar line providing the gas for this section. Every two bars there's a nice doubled guitar lick filling the holes in the vocal and the snare is very much in evidence. The shaker has dropped out but the hi-hat is on the right.

Chorus 3 (3:45)

Now we're headin' for the home stretch. Listen how the HUGE guitars setup this new chorus. Big stop time accented setup. The shaker returns on the left. Toms return, and there's the answer line again traded off from the keys to guitar and now back to the keys again two octaves higher now. Theme and repetition. The guitar also accents this line but just for four notes right at 4:21. You also have guitar power chords and a stereo key pad. Also notice how background vocals duck in and out especially at the  end of the section.

Chorus Repeat (4:37)

Now the chorus repeats. This is where the song runs out of gas a bit. I think the song could have been stronger if they went to the high note out of the end of the 3rd chorus but hey.....it was a smash none the less.

Out Section (5:00)

Here's the finish in site now. Listen how the toms roll into this section and you get a reprise of the key counter line and the guitar answer. In addition you get a rolled snare and side-stick in combination. Now listen to the top of the fade at 5:27. There's a very cool new line she sings in harmony "when I look into your eyes". This is a one shot line they just snuck in. Holding your interest to the very end. Sparing no effort to make this new even after 5 minutes. She repeats the title of the song three times in a cascading fashion so the last thing you hear at the tail of the fade is the title.

Brilliant.

Re-Cap

This song demonstrates record production and mixing at it's finest. It's precisely why I chose to put production and mixing as co-topics for this series. Mixing and production go hand in hand in a big way. Your job as a mix engineer is to tell a story, making sure each instrument is heard. Lead the listener by the hand from section to section. Providing new things to hear all through the song. In reality you may be given more ingredients than are really necessary to have a concise mix. It's your job as an engineer to hold things back, build the song and in a lot of ways arrange these ingredients. For instance some of those guitar parts may have appeared on tape earlier in the song than they did in the actual final mix. But the engineer might have said. "you know, it would be stronger to wait for this till later, I'll mute this until the 2nd chorus" or something to that effect. I'm sure that the shaker was printed throughout the song but the engineer pulled it out here and there.  So mixing is focusing your attention as a listener. My first criterion when I'm mixing is to listen WITHOUT thinking technically. Listening as a listener, a lover of music. If I'm bored then for sure my listener is going to be.
 

 Mixing Part 4
 

 Getting Started

Any journey starts with the first step. The first steps can be the most important because it establishes your direction and if you're in control of your trip or not. This goes for mixing in a big way. I like to set the tone of the mix by first listening to some program material that I'm familiar with. I'll do this as I'm doing the console setup. This will serve a few purposes:

Relax the Session

Set a nice familiar environment for your ears. How does the low end sound in the center chair? the back of the room? off to the side? Knowing this is important. This is where the client hangs out a lot of the time while you're mixing. To them it might sound boomy or lacking low-end, depending on where they are. I'll never make a mix change from an off-axis listener until they're hearing it as I am. I'll nicely say, "ah you may be right, listen where I'm sitting and see if it's the same for you then, you're off-axis over there"

Know the Room

Your hearing is your best friend in any new or familiar situation. What sounded fine last night might sound boomy with fresh ears. Is this room bass deficient? How is the stereo image in the center position. Clear? Well defined or not? I worked in one room where if the studio door was open the stereo image leaned to the right a bit. When you're concentrating on the mix you might forget to look up or even care if the door is open across the room. Always trust your ears and your first impression.

The Setup Itself

How you setup your console says everything about how your mix session will go. It's especially important on a mix involving lots of tracks. It's important that you start with a "zeroed" console and room. In other words all EQs, Aux sends etc set to zero. How you arrange the tracks is also very important. In general you want to group similar instruments, for instance:

                              Group 1 - Drums and percussion
                              Group 2 - Guitars -- solo and rhythm
                              Group 3 - Keys
                              Group 4 - Background Vocals
                              Group 5 - Lead Vocals
                              Group 6 - Reverb returns

There will be some stragglers that are by themselves or in another category but simply use your best judgment. The important thing is that you can easily find these things and adjust them if you need to. Label using a Sharpie or other dark marker. You can even use different colors for different groups. I also put tape next to each fader. This gives me a workspace to make marks if I need them. Writing on the console is generally frowned upon by the owner.

Mixing Part 5

More of the Setup

Once I setup my mix on the console, making sure that mix groups are together and make sense, then I setup my outboard gear. Over the years and through watching other engineers, I've developed a sense of what gear sounds good on what tracks. For instance I'll save my best reverbs for the lead vocal or lead instrument if it's an instrumental track. I've collected my favorite pieces because I've moved from studio to studio for different projects and there's no telling what kind of gear you'll run into. This is especially true in smaller markets like Phoenix or Washington DC where I now live. When I was in LA it was no problem renting gear or having budgets large enough to afford it. But that's not always the case.

What Goes Where?

I'm going to list certain tracks and some of the gear I use on them, this is my opinion and of course different engineers have different approaches:

        Lead vocal:

I always compress to tape and then again when I'm mixing. I'll use a high quality compressor when I can. Nowadays it's hard to find a "bad" compressor, it's just that certain ones don't work for certain situations. For instance, I'd not use a dbx 160XT for a lead vocal but they work great for guitars and certain percussion and drums. My current favorite for lead vocals is the Manley Variable MU. It's a tube compressor/limiter and very clean. It has a personality of its own but it's not overbearing. I also like the Teletronics LA-2A for lead vocals. It is a soft-knee optical limiter/compressor and works great for lead vocals and bass guitar. The reason I use a bit of compression to and from tape is because to get the vocal to stand out in the mix you must limit the dynamic range of the signal. This is so the vocal doesn't get lost amongst the other tracks. Ever notice how loud the breaths are on most CDs? This is because the dynamic range between the breaths, which are usually low level, and the rest of the performance has been brought more closely together by the compressor.
Check it out the next time you hear your favorite sound. Try to hear the compression and how it's working in the track. Generally I'll setup the compressor for between 4 and 8 dB of gain reduction at the peaks.

        Bass guitar:

Another instrument I compress a bit is the bass. This is so it's consistent in the track and "sits down" in the mix. The job of the bass is to provide a tonal and rhythmic center for the song along with the kick drum. If the performance dips too much in volume at different beats, either because of the pitch or player, then the song won't be consistent or driving. When you compress the bass it makes it more consistent with the kick drum and the rest of the song. Depending on the how the player is playing and the part, I'll setup the bass for 2 to 4 dB of gain reduction.

        Kick drum:

The kick drum is another item I'll sometimes compress (depending on the style of music). All for the same reasons as I'd compress the bass. I'll even compress a machine kick drum to give it a bit of a "point" or roundness. This of course depends on the style of the music and how the player is playing if it's live or how the machine kick is sounding. It's very subjective and based on what you personally like to hear in the mix. Listen to your favorite sounds on CDs and try to recreate them.
 

Mixing Part 6
 

What Have We Got?

Let's recap. We're working on a zeroed console for ease of operation and our instruments are grouped by category for organization reasons. At this point it's important to know how our tracks are going to fit together. I've changed my technique through the years and have come up with what works best for me. As with all my features, this is MY opinion and not necessarily what others or yourself would do. I'm simply working the way I'm comfortable working based on what I've observed. All that said, I like to throw up a rough mix if I'm unfamiliar with the material. This gets me familiar with the strong and weak points of the track. For instance I'll start with the kick drum and bass guitar if the track is layed out in the traditional sense. I listen for how they work together. Is the performance of the bass track even? If not it needs compression to make it work better with the kick and in the track. How does the kick drum sound? tubby? no bottom? too much bottom?
All these judgments will determine how you'll EQ the track and if you need to compress at all.

The Next Step

Once I put up the entire drum kit, bass and percussion I'll move onto keys, guitars and other chording instruments. I see where these lie in relation to the rhythm instruments. Is the keyboard track too percussive and is it competing with the percussion and drums? If so then it may need to have the high end lowered a bit. Is the high hat and shaker on the same side? Does it work well? if not then some creative panning will keep your tracks speaking well. The whole focus of this exercise is to learn to recognize and fix any masking problems you have. Masking is when one sound will cover up another sound of similar frequency. Typical masking problems are with hi-hat and shaker, vocals and key pads, bass guitar and kick drum, boomy acoustic guitar and clarity of instruments in the low end of the mix. All these are mix killers. Listen to your favorite mix and notice how you can hear each instrument speak. This is because the engineer spent time crafting each element to fit in the final picture.

Take Your Time

 When you're starting out make sure you give yourself plenty of time to develop your style and the song you're working on. What I noticed about all the guys I've watched mix is that there's time given for the song to grow. Without this a great final mix will never happen. As you grow and develop this process becomes easier but at first you need to be able to recognize what's good and bad about a mix and then to deal with it. If it's working don't add EQ if not then sculpt the instrument until it fits. Don't do anything unless you have a specific outcome in mind. Don't add top end to a vocal because you read about it in an article. Each track is different and there are NO rules.

Mixing Part 7

Vocals

Last week we put up a quick rough mix to assess what masking problems you have in a mix. We brought up drums and bass and then added keys, guitars and other instruments. The point of this is to get all the instruments up but the vocals. At this point in time I like to concentrate on the non-vocal elements. I will bring up the vocal for a second and see where it lies but for the most part I leave the vocal tweaking til the end.
What you need to keep in mind for the first part of the mix is that you're building a foundation for the vocal to sit in. You really need to focus that because it will color all your decisions. Leave a nice hole in the center of your mix for the vocal by panning other elements to the outside. I've laid out the following instruments from a track sheet I have here and I've applied possible panning for them:
 


Mixing Part 8
 

More Mix Ideas

I received this email a week or two back. I thought it was so good that I'm going to let it speak for itself. Bob Dennis from the Recording Institute of Detroit has a well organized view of drum mixing. Read on:

Kevin,
I wanted to let you know I really like some of your mixing articles. I want to let you know about a technique for explaining the mix of live drums that I developed after thousands of students and decades of teaching that helps new students keep the drum kit elements in balance. The following is from a two page guide on getting a mix used in our Basic Classes, using the 02R. [By the way we have the students mix with audience perspective - high hat on the right]  The key is to have the student listen to the "ambiance" as the drums are being mixed (without additional reverb) and is contained in the "hints" Feel free to reference, post or otherwise use the data:

        Drum Mix

Bring up foot drum, panned center, until half of the yellow bars on  the 02R output meters light on the beat. Bring up the snare, panned center, until the snare is as loud as the foot drum, by ear. Bring up the high hat, panned half-right until it is as present in the mix as the snare. Hint: Without the high hat brought up, you will hear the high hat as leakage in the snare mic pickup. It will be distant and sound in the center. As you slowly bring up the high hat, you will hear the high hat go right in the image and become as present as the snare. Bring up the toms (if on separate tracks), panned in a high-width stereo perspective, until they are as present as the other drums and slightly softer than the snare. Bring up the cymbals (or overhead) tracks, panned full left and right, until they are as present as the other drums/cymbals and crashes come out slightly louder than the high hat. Hint: As you add stereo toms, cymbals or even room mics, the ambiance can be used as a       guide. If you bring up these tracks, do not let their addition add more ambiance to the drum kit. There will always be a point, as these mics are slowly brought up, where the ambiance will get noticeably louder - this means that the mics are too loud. Listen carefully to the overall mix of the drums and make any small adjustments necessary to get an even sound with the kick and snare slightly accented.

Keep up your good work Kevin

 Bob Dennis
 

Mixing Part 9
 

Trust Your Ears

It may seem fruitless and boring to listen to a single piece of music for hours on end, but this is really the only way that you can get the puzzle of a mix to make sense. A recorded track is very much like a puzzle. It presents problems, surprises, satisfaction, frustration and anger. Your emotions run the gamut. As in life, some puzzles are easy, others seemingly unsolvable. I guarantee that if you learn to trust your ears, they will lead you to some kind of final conclusion. Last week we talked about assessing the different ingredients in your track and deciding if they work together. Then using the tools at your disposal to make them fit. The main tools are:
 


Level and Panning

We talked at length about level in the past weeks. It is your first attempt at making the puzzle fit together and it works hand-in-hand with panning. Getting good at placing instruments in perspective with each other only comes with practice. The more roughs you do, the better you get at hearing these relationships. When I listen to finished products on CDs that I buy, I'm constantly listening to relationships and how the engineer placed the ingredients. You have to be able to focus and de-construct the mix. Isolate time-based effects from panning and level, compression from EQ. The more you do this yourself the more you'll be able to develop your ears and hear how others are doing what they do. Masking is the phenomenon by which one sound will be covered up by a louder sound residing closely in frequency. Setting levels and panning is your first line of defense against masking. Getting this right can mean setting levels that are balanced in the smallest of increments. It's not uncommon to get your mix balanced and have one or two moves topple your house of cards. You'll find that the closer you focus and fine-tune the mix, the more sensitive you become to others suggesting moves. This doesn't mean you should be unmoving to other's suggestions, but be judicious in your tweaking. Think of the mix as a living fragile thing that can easily be upset or destroyed by the smallest change. This may sound strange if you're not accustomed to mixing over long periods, but when you do it more and more you'll see what I'm saying strikes a familiar chord. Automation is a tool you'll use later down the road to make your mix come to life, at this point it's too soon to use it but we will be getting into this in depth later on, stay tuned.
Be sure to check out the June issue of PAR, there is a nice feature on 5.1 system setup and some nice reviews on some very slick gear. The new Audio Media has a nice feature on Plug-in Mania that's also worth reading also.

Mixing Part 10

Polishing Plus

After you get all the tracks up in the mix (minus the lead and background vocals for now) it's time to see what works and what needs to be moved around. There's no mix on the planet that's not going to need some tucking and bobbing to make it work. This is where automation comes in very handy. (by the way, check out the review of the Soundcraft Spirit 328 digital automated console in the upcoming July issue of PAR) We'll be covering both situations, automated and not for this series. What I'm talking about is building-in mix dynamics where they're needed. In a beautiful world, all tracks would rise and fall tastefully when needed. This gives the piece a human feel and effects us on many levels as listeners, especially emotionally. However, with modern multi-tracking, MIDI and other things that tend to separate musical performances in time, it's often impossible to build dynamics during a performance. How could you as a player react to the horn section when the horn section isn't scheduled to record til after you lay down your tracks? This is where the engineer puts on his listener's hat and builds in the necessary dynamics. But we're getting a bit ahead of ourselves here. Before we get into fader moves let's discuss EQ and compression, the two items that will let our tracks compete with others and sit in a place where they can be heard.

EQ

EQ stands for equalization. As you know EQ comes in a few different forms. Getting the hang of when to use it and when to leave things alone only comes with learning to trust your ears. What you should try to cultivate is frequency sensitivity. The best way to do this is to mix time and time again. Throw up quick mixes and listen to them dry with just panning and fader levels. Get to know what is covering up what and what is working. To hear what is working listen to your favorite CDs, then listen to your mix (hopefully in a similar style). Critique your own mix against the finished product. This is brutal because they've had the benefits of mastering and hours of tweaking, but it's very revealing and good ear-training. Once you target an area then try to fix things up a bit.
For instance, let's say that you find that your bass is non-descript and total mud has occupied the bottom end of your mix. First, pull some things down a bit or out completely to see if it helps. It could be that your problem could be solved by changing levels. Once you trim and tuck a bit, compare again and see if there's improvement. Once you mess with levels and perhaps panning, then get into some EQ. If it's muddy try taking some low end out of an instrument or two. Then compare once again and see if you can hear a difference. Is your mix getting closer or farther away from the model? In this way you can really go to school on pro mixes and try to get your own ears tuned into what the pros are doing. Do this ten times with your mixes and finished CDs, and see how you start to listen differently to all music.

Compression

Getting to understand what compression sounds like is another ear-training exercise. You'll need a compressor and some tweakable tracks already on tape. Start with the compressor set at Zero threshold, 3:1 compression and unity gain at the output. Pick a few different tracks for this exercise. Something like a vocal and then something with some transients like a snare drum. Take the threshold and move it into the minus area (increasing the amount of signal being compressed) and hear what it does. Conversely, return the threshold to zero, then take the ratio and crank it up and hear what that sounds like. Put on your favorite records and see if you can spot the instruments that sound similar to what you heard. Get used to "hearing" compression on those tracks. We'll get deeper into EQ and compression as the series goes on.

Be sure to check out the interviews with engineers Nathaniel Kunkel (p.
 42) and John Gass (p. 46) in the June issue of EQ magazine.
 

Mixing Part 11

Time = Dimension

From the very early days of recording, engineers were trying to find ways to add dimension to their work. Before stereo, you didn't have too much to work with, one channel with a lot of dry tracks can sound very boring. So using a tape machine, engineers manufactured a tape-based delay that worked quite well. You can hear this on some of the early Elvis Presley recordings as well as the Big Bopper saying "Heloooooooo baby!". This delay was of fixed duration because it relied on the difference in space between the record and playback head. When the signal from the playback head was folded back into the mix, whatever was recorded onto tape was delayed in time. With the advent of digital sampling, it has become much simpler. You feed a signal into a box, it's sampled and then spit back in time depending on how you set the parameters.

        Reverb

Reverb is another time-based effect. In its purest form it's supposed to represent the reverberation found in a real environment. That's why you see such reverb names as Room, Hall, and Stage. Unlike a delay which has one or more repeating versions of the original signal at regular intervals, a reverb has many dense reflections. The parameters on a reverb will sometime be, Early Reflection, Pre-delay, and Reverb Time. This is because in a real environment, you as a listener will hear not only the original signal, but signals bouncing from adjacent walls, seats in front of you, the stage, and ceiling. These early reflections make up your perception of the signal being in an ambient space. The larger the space, the longer the reverb, thus the Reverb Time parameter. Pre-delay is simply the space between where the original attack of the signal starts and the start of the reverb. Pre-delay is a great way to provide clarity for a lead vocal. I'll use 120ms of pre-delay on a lead vocal for instance to give it that quality of being up in the front of the mix but still in a reverberant field. Early revierbs were isolated rooms on the studio premises that were tiled. They contained a microphone at one end and a speaker at the other. You adjusted the decay tome by moving the mic closer or further from the speaker. Very simple and it worked for a lot of records in the 50s and 60s.

        Depth is the Goal

The idea of delaying or adding reverb to a dry signal is to give certain mix ingredients depth. Adding reverb to a complete track would give the track a live sound which can work for certain things but it tends to put the same texture on everything. Picking and choosing certain ingredients to add depth to can really make a mix shine and give those ingredients their own space. This is why I like to use many different reverbs in a mix. Each has its own personality. A delay will be as good as the sample of the signal, but a reverb is dependant on the algorithm. How the reverb tails off, how dense the reflections are, how true-to-life it sounds or not, these things and more are complex and very important. Sometime you're NOT going for a true-to-life sound and that's ok too. A reverb that's not representative of what would happen in the real world is called non-linear. For instance, if the verb gets louder in time rather than trailing off or a gated reverb like the effect you're used to hearing on Phil Collin's drums. Next week we'll explore more time-based effects and what they can do to add dimension to your mixing.
 

 Mixing Part 12
 

Thickening the Soup

There's many more effects at your fingertips than just reverb and delay. Flanging, pitch shifting, chorus, non-linear effects, 3-D simulators and the like are also available for making a mix special. The downside of having such a large grab-bag would be the tendency to overuse the effects. It's important to have a concept before you jump in and start slinging effects around. In the beginning, when you're getting your chops together, the best way to get these concepts together is to listen to what others are doing. Once you decide on an approach, then jump in and try to make your idea sound like the picture in your head. There's nothing wrong with emulating your heroes. While reverb and delay add dimension to a sound by giving it a sense of ambience, a flanger gives more of a swirling effect. Like delay, flanging is another effect originally created using a tape machine. The term flanging came from the way the swirling flange effect was attained. The engineer would run the signal through a tape machine and then get various in and out of phase effects by putting his thumb on the flange (metal hub) of the tape reel and slowing down the tape. Now, this is attained digitally by manipulating a sample and using an LFO (low frequency oscillator) to change the timing of one signal against another. Things that sound interesting with a flange effect are, vocals both lead and background, guitars, strings, keyboards and bass among others. You have to be careful with flanging. If understated it can really make for a nice doubling effect that adds to the depth of a signal, if overdone (and sometime it's cool to overdo it) it renders a very "Austin Powers" type of effect (Yeah Baby!!). You can hear very some very tasty flanging on "Fly Away" by Lenny Kravitz. It's sometime used on a complete track as a breakdown effect ala' "Life in the Fastlane".
Another type of flanger is called a Phase Shifter. It's very similar in sound and structure except you can choose the width of the frequencies you're playing with. By adjusting depth, mix and feedback you can alter the intensity of the effect. Phase shifting sounds good on some keys, guitars and other sustaining signals. It generally doesn't sound good on transient material because the effect needs to be listened to over time.
A chorus on the other hand uses a few different tricks to get it's signature sound. It is very similar to a flanger except for a few things. The delay used between the original and the secondary signal (that creates the chorused sound) is generally a bit longer and does not vary. Secondly, no feedback is used and the delay does not vary over time. Chorus sounds great on guitars, electronic keys such as Fender Rhodes patches, string synth patches and rarely vocals (as an effect).
 

Mixing Part 13

Even More Effects

A pitch shifter takes one or more signals, alters the pitch in real time and spits it back. The other parameters that are available are delay, feedback and the mix of the unaltered signal to be played along with the shifted signal. In stereo the effect can be striking and provide a nice thick landscape for the ears. As you may or may not know, anytime you take a signal and alter it using some king of digital process, you introduce delay or latency into the signal. This goes for plug-ins as well as hardware based effects. This is something you may want to keep in mind when adding delay of your own.
Using a pitch shifter effectively can make your tracks stand out without sounding affected. This goes for all effects by the way. It doesn't have to hit you over the head to be effective. If you have a track that's thick with vocals, and you want one to stand out a bit more than another, or be thicker, then a pitch shifter is the tool you'll use. Even using no shift whatsoever, just by having the shifter in line with the signal with a minimum of parameter tweaking, you can thicken a track enough to achieve the desired results.

Non-Linear Effects

As we stated last week, a non-linear effect or reverb is one that can't be reproduced in nature. It's a completely manufactured effect such as a gated reverb or a reverb that gets louder in time rather than softer. This can provide a dramatic effect when used with percussive or transient signals. This sounds great on Toms and percussion. For instance, on a recent project I used a gated/flanged/reverb on a signal that was created from a drummer hitting metal pipes. It made the sound much bigger than it's quick transient would normally allow. This is because it changes the envelope of the sound.

3-D Effects

Over the years there have been a few companies that have come out with devices that can exploit more dimensions than just the stereo image alone will allow. One of them is the BASE by Bedini. It was a simple two rackspace device that would use phase and other proprietary functions to lead the listener to believe a sound could move in 360 degrees. This was supposed to be able to suspend an effect or sound out to the side or around the head of a listener. It was not dynamic but depending on the signal (it worked best with percussive sounds) you could realistically add a new dimension to a mix. I've used it on one side of a reverb return to great effect. You'll find 3-D simulators in a lot of Roland products, including the VS-880. There was another process popular for about 5 minutes in the early 90s called Qsound. The company wanted to charge the artists percentage points to use the process. It's used tastefully by Hugh Padgham on Sting's Soul Cages CD. After a while the mystique wore off and Qsound went the way of the T-Rex. Tune in next week when we talk about mix construction in more detail.
 

Mixing Part 14
 

What We've Learned

We've come a long way but we're not on the home stretch quite yet. Let's take a moment and recap before we move on. We started out talking about critical listening and even had a listening exercise in our first mix feature. Next we took a mix apart piece by piece, we dissected a Celine Dionne song mixed by Humberto Gatica. In our next feature we talked about knowing the room and actually organizing the song elements in our mix. In Part 5 we talked about compression and when to use it, this directly effects the dynamic range /blglossary.htm of the signals in your mix and makes tracks sit down so they can stand out.
In Part 6 we carried on by talking about EQ and how to use it to overcome masking. Part 8 talked about panning, another tool used in the battle against masking. Then, we dug deeper into level and panning in Part 9 and in Part 10 laid out the compression and EQ tools. This brings us up to the last three features where we laid out most of the time-based processing you'll be dealing with during a mix. Reverb, delay, (Part 11) chorus, flanging, phase shifting (Part 12), pitch shifting and 3-D effects (Part 13) were all discussed.
Now that we're all caught up let's get to the meat of the matter. Once you get your mix up and you've assessed what's sticking out and needs to be tamed or what's tamed and needs to be sticking out, you can use your dynamics to make that sit where you want. For instance, say the bass part is too loud on certain notes and not loud enough on others and it's not "bonding" with the kick drum. In this case you could squash it until you get the desired results, of course by squashing I mean using compression. Then you hear that the lead vocal is sounding dull so you could hit it with some EQ to bring it out in the overall mix. This is all very subjective and dependent on your source material so I'm speaking in generalities. What's going to keep you on the straight and narrow is referencing other material in the same bag as what you're mixing. There's nothing wrong with doing
this, I've worked with some very successful engineers who did this very thing.

Mixing Part 15

Building the Perfect Beast

Now that we've got an idea of what needs help with EQ and compression (never using either just for the sake of it of course!) we can carry on with our mix. At this point in time you should have a pretty good sounding static mix going. You've tweaked the levels, pans and added EQ, compression and effects as needed. If you like what's happening you have to be careful. This is because after hours of tweaking, you have a very fragile structure. It's not unusual to lose control of the mix, even having to dump the faders and start over. Especially if a client or producer/artist come in and either start moving faders, or making suggestions that you carry out and end up losing the magical balance.

Who's in Charge?

Control and concept is something you'll deal with every time you mix. This is why it's so important to have a solid idea where you want to take the mix. Creative back and forth is to be expected. What you have to know is that by experimenting at this point in the process, you could add considerable time to your voyage. If it gets too much out of control, I'll prepare a path back to where I was through the technology at hand. What I'm talking about is recalling a mix. Of course you have to be using a console that has this feature, or do it manually. For instance, if I'm working away and happy about what I'm doing, I'll save a mix so I can recall it later if the experiment fails.

Case in Point

Scenario one:

The client has left you alone and you've been mixing a good 4 or 5 hours.
Then he/she enters the room and sits down and says something to the effect that they're not hearing enough guitars or that the drums are too loud. They may be right! This is why I like the client to stay out of the room at the beginning and come in later with fresh ears. Especially if you've been mixing for a few days and keeping long hours. Fatigue can really change your perspective on things. This is why I also like to do a mix a day and take the days work home. Listening on different systems (or even headphones) will yield a new perspective and help you get a great mix.
However, you may also be right, this is why it's a good idea to save a mix at this point and then start tweaking. There's nothing worse than changing direction for an hour or so, and then the client/artist says, "you know, you were right. I liked your original concept better". If you can easily get back to the original, nothing is lost but time.

Mixing Part 16

Scenario Two:

You've been mixing for a good amount of time and people come in and start moving faders saying "I think this needs to be louder". STOP THE PRESSES. This is one of mixing's BIG no-no's. If this ever happens, I'll firmly but politely say "please let me make the moves, this way I can write it properly into the automation". Or, if there is no automation I'll just ask them politely to tell me what they want and then I'll make the adjustments.
This is really irksome, especially when people don't realize all the fine tuning that goes into a mix. As a fail-safe on any type of console, I'll put down a piece of tape next to each fader, then mark the position of the fader with a pencil. This can help you get back to ground zero no matter what.

Scenario Three:

This has thankfully never happened to me but I've seen it happen under pressure cooker situations. The client has a very strong opinion of where he/she wants the mix to go and you just don't hear it that way. This is rare because usually there is some kind of simpatico going on before you reach the mix stage. Either they've heard the work you've done before or you've discussed it in general. This is where the importance of pre-production comes into play. I'll sit down with an artist/client before we ever spend a day in the studio and we'll listen to some CDs that either they or I will bring. We'll discuss direction for the project, style, where they see it going, how they want to work, the rate you charge, what you will and won't do (allow large groups of looky-loos to inhabit the studio, smoking, drugs etc..). After this takes place they should know how you stand and you get a feel for them as well. At this point I'll also make a point of eliminating the impossible. For instance, I've had people think that I could mix 4 songs a day. Impossible unless they're going for rough mixes. Anytime I've tried to do things I know are impossible just to please the client or get the gig, I've regretted it. Not that you have to be an immovable jerk, but there are just certain things that can't be done and shouldn't. All in all, your experience with the project and client should be a pleasant one. The attitude I take is this: The reason I got into this business in the first place is because I love to be around music and creative people, I'm here to have fun and do a killer job so lets get to it. Not rocket science but a good way to look at things.

Mixing Part 17

More Control

When I was coming up in the engineering world, I was exposed to the best automation systems available. They are basically still the same systems used today.
GML Moving Fader automation, Flying Faders and Ultimation (SSL) are the three big moving fader systems. These are very expensive and involve installing a fader with a motor on each channel. In addition there's a computer that's used to record and control all the movements that you make on the work surface. The beauty of these systems is that the audio remains untouched. Nothing extra happens to the audio signal path. It's just that the faders are motorized and controlled by the computer.

        VCA Automation

The other type of pro automation is called VCA automation. VCA stands for Voltage Controlled Amplifier. Just like the word says, the VCA takes input from the tape machine and your audio actually runs through another gain stage on it's path through the console. For this reason some engineers frowned on this type of automation. With the development of better and better VCAs as the years went on, it virtually eliminated the naysayers and now that type of automation is the most common. Mainly because the SSL consoles have been so popular.
On a VCA system the fader doesn't actually move on playback of the mix, it's stationary, but the reference voltage first recorded by the computer is played back. This is reflected as volume monitored through the channel. The way that either one of these systems knows where the music is on tape is by using SMPTE time code. It basically is a clock that is generated from a subcode on tape or is actually printed on the tape itself.

        MIDI Automation

The third kind of automation is called MIDI automation and it uses MIDI time code and a MIDI signal to store the fader movements to a computer. The weakness of MIDI automation is that it only can assign 128 levels of movement to a fader. The resolution of this is not fine enough for pro studios but for the home studio and some project studios it's just fine. As a comparison, the two systems above use nearly four times as much resolution for each fader. This would mean that you could make very fine moves and the computer could play them back perfectly.
This ability to record and playback fader and mute moves comprises the basic automation package. The only difference is the accuracy of the system and whether it's a moving fader, VCA or MIDI sysetm. Next week we get deeper into automation and how to use it in your mix.
 

Mixing Part 18

Nuts and Bolts

 Whether you have a moving fader, VCA or MIDI based automation system, there are some basic concepts that work no matter how you're implementing them. First, let's break down automation into its basics. The majority of systems, unless you're using a digital console, just automate faders and mutes. Faders of course alter volume of the individual signals on each channel and mutes turns the channel on and off, putting the signal in or out of the stereo mix. In the perfect system, the fader would represent each incremental move you made, no matter how small, and each on/off switch would noiselessly do its job as well. However, there's no such thing as the perfect system! Each has its foibles, strong points and weaknesses.

The Ideal System

Basically what you want to look for in a system is a fader with as many steps as you can cram into 100mm (the length of each fader path on a large fader). As I stated in our last mix feature, this is the weakness of a MIDI system. The fader only has 128 levels where the pro systems have hundreds. Some systems have noisy switches as well. They may be acceptable as individuals but once you start adding switches together you start to hear them. This was the case with a very high profile system I used to use all the time. I used to clean up the front end of songs using switches, having all the faders that were going to play at the downbeat open to the proper volume. I'd do an offline edit (we'll cover this later) to open all the switches at once just before the downbeat. Sure enough as I added multiple switches together you started to hear a faint "ffffft" at the front of the song. Not a big deal in the grand scheme of things but when a client is paying the big bucks in the big city they want perfection. I got around this by writing a fade-up on the master fader just before the downbeat and leaving the switches open.

FYI

Moving fader systems use a touch-sensitive fader. It's made of conductive plastic that goes to ground when you touch it, turning on the circuit that puts the fader into the chosen mode. So you can't, for instance, use a pencil or some other non conductive item to move the fader. The computer will not recognize it and you won't be writing a move.

Modes of Operation

There are a few basic concepts of operation for faders. Manufacturers have a way of calling them different things but the basics remain the same.


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As you go through a mix you'll often toggle between these three modes on individual channels. It's not a good rule to be doing global mode changes once you get past your initial pass (such as putting the entire console into Write), this is because its easy to mistakenly bump a fader or have someone in the room accidently write a new level for you. Not advisable. Individual control is best, letting the entire console reside in safe mode and only pushing Write or Update on selected channels.

More Modes of Operation
 


Next week we get into offline editing and what it can do to save you time and make you more creative.
 

Offline Editing

Nothing Up My Sleeve

One of the most useful and time saving features of an automation system is offline editing. What that means is simply that the tape/HD is not moving and spitting back audio through the speakers, but you're able to alter mix data none the less. For instance if I wanted to bring the vocal fader up by 1.5 dB I could do it offline (the tape/HD stopped) and then play back the results instantly. The other option would be to run the song from beginning to end and make the move in real time. You can see that for global moves, offline editing can save you a lot of time.

Features

Offline editing can let you do the following things to faders and mutes:
 


As you can see just this short list is quite extensive. As you get up into the more technical systems on digital consoles, you can do even more. For instance you could alter EQ, Auxes and dynamics in real time or offline.

More Features

One of the coolest things you can do offline is Merging parts of a previous mix with the current mix. A mix system doesn't work like your common software. Whereas your word processor saves over the previous copy you saved, automation software saves a new copy of the mix every time you archive a pass. Until then it resides in RAM and is volitile. (Some systems differ). For instance you could work on a part of a song for 10-15 minutes and then save it. At that point the archive reflects that 15 minutes of work. Then you go another 15 minutes, save and so on. Remember that if the power fails or the computer crashes in minute 14, before you save, you lose all the data after your last save and before the crash. So saving early and often is highly recommended. All that said, as you go along mixing for 4, 5 or more hours you might have 30-40 versions of the mix saved to your drive. Moves stacked on moves, your lastest save containing all moves. So if you screw up and erase a fader or mute now, you can always go back to a previous save and grab those moves, that's called merging or joining the mix. As I said earlier some systems differ in that they save automatically every time you push the stop button. Flying faders is like this.
However on SSL and GML systems you have to save your passes manually.

Mute Presets

The Game Plan

There are a number of strategies you can use when automating a mix. For instance, you could automate mutes first and leave faders for last. This would be especially helpful if you have tracks that are littered with noise. (If you weren't a punchmeister and didn't clean your tracks as you were working, now you must pay the piper.) I used to assist for a famous engineer who would give the task of muting all the dead spots between the audio performances to the assistant. This meant every track on tape, and this could mean 40+, had to be listened to and muted when it wasn't playing. This went for kick and snare drum as well. You can imagine having to mute every spot between a kick or snare drum hit! For an up and coming engineer, it was heaven to be able to play with the automation and it served to make me very adept at system operation.

Multing and Muting

One great thing about automation is that it lets you use your tracks as a workspace. For instance, you could take an unused portion of a vocal track to record a cymbal crash overdub (as long as the two don't overlap). This means on track XX you'd have vocals for a portion of the song and then cymbal crashes, all on the same track. Where automation comes in handy during mixdown, is when you mult the vocal/cymbal track to two channels. You then turn the vocal off when the cymbal plays and the cymbal off when the vocal plays. This way you have individual EQ, panning, aux sends and fader levels for each.

The Preset

Before you do any mutes or fader moves you must do an automation preset. In our current scenario (doing mutes first), this would mean deciding what was to be open at the front of the song and what was to be closed. In other words, turn off tracks that aren't playing at the downbeat.
A few weeks ago I mentioned how you could sometime hear stacked mutes, so keep that in mind when doing a lot of mutes during silence. I like to start with everything off and then bring things in as they start playing.
This way you're sure that your mix will be clean. Even if there is no audible recorded noise on tape, it's still a good idea to mute, thus shutting off any noise that's coming from the channel itself.

The preset procedure would be this:

· Wind the tape to 10 seconds before the song starts
· Turn off all non-essential channels including reverb returns (mute)
· Put all channels into mute write
· Start the tape and write to the end of the song

All The Way Out

Some systems have a "write to end" feature to let you play ten seconds of tape and then stop. At this point the system writes your mutes until the end of the song saving you the time of running the tape all the way to the last note. On an SSL system you can do this by typing NAME HERE END MIX. It varies from system to system but most good ones have it. No matter how you have to do it, once it's done you can go back to the top and start working on individual tracks opening or closing them when needed.

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On some systems you can listen to tape on the solo buss as you mute. You will not hear the channel come on or off but it's a great way to know what's coming up or where the song is. For instance, you could solo a keyboard and drum track for chords and timing while you're doing mutes on a soloed background vocal track. After you're done you can go back and listen to your mutes and see if they're right. If you've missed one you can easily fix them online or offline.

Next week we talk about fader presets and fader moves.

Fader Automation
 

Level Control

Fader automation gives you the flexibility of being able to change your levels in real time during a mix, and then having the computer play back those moves. In the past we talked about fader resolution and the fact that the more levels of resolution you have the better. When you're making fine moves and they play back perfectly as you heard them, you'll appreciate what I was talking about. The time in the mix when you're ready to make fader moves is after the following has happened. (Techniques may vary from engineer to engineer, this is my way of doing things)
 

Fader Preset

You've done all the steps up to this point so now you're ready for a fader preset. It varies from system to system but the seed idea is the same. You're providing a reference point for the fader throughout the song. This is accomplished by putting the faders into Write mode and either playing the song through or shortcutting a "write to end" if it's provided in your software. At this point you now have a mute preset, fader preset and you're ready to start making some moves. Next week we'll get into the finer points of fader movement on our way to the mastering session.

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On a moving fader system it is very important to turn on the fader power BEFORE you start the mix. I learned this lesson after I was assisting for Mick Guzauski on a mix. I neglected to turn on the fader power that day. After a good 3-4 hours of mixing, when Mick was ready for the faders, I turned on the faders, did a preset and then ran the tape. All the faders, that is the entire mix, jumped to new positions because they had no reference.
Needless to say Mick wasn't happy. Always being quick to learn a lesson, from that day on I made sure that the power was always on at the beginning of a mix session. Furthermore, I put a piece of tape next to each fader, and marked their position before I would do a preset and run tape.
This way even if the system screwed up and the faders jumped, I could always get the mix back. I use this technique even when I'm mixing on a non-moving fader system. This way when I want to get back to the absolute level I had at the beginning of the mix, I can use Write/Absolute mode and put the fader on the mark.

Fader Automation Part 2

Do the Tighten Up

Once your mutes and faders are preset, the computer knows and can always get back to the foundation of your mix. In other words, if you run tape and go wacky on the faders and mutes, changing levels and channel on/off status, you can always run the tape back to any point in the song
 and the mix will resort to the preset status. Only when you overwrite your mix by putting the faders or mutes into write or update mode will you be changing the preset. Also, remember that as you save mixes, you won't be saving over your preset but saving additional changed copies of your mix. So there is as many undo's as you have mixes saved. That's why it's ALWAYS good to save early and often, even after every pass.

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If your diskspace or storage area for saving mixes is limited, you can always delete those non-essential in-between mix saves that are expendable. For instance let's say you've saved a mix every 5 minutes and after two hours your computer comes back to you with a DISK FULL prompt. You could save your initial pass and then every other pass up to your current mix thus clearing half of your workspace and still have more than you'll ever need. At the end of a mix for instance I'll save the initial pass and the last five mixes and archive that onto a floppy or some other removable format. The last five passes contain all the previous info anyway and if you need to merge a mix you can always get a specific fader or mute move by offline editing.

Tucking in or Building Your Ingredients

The most beneficial thing about fader automation is being able to create dynamics in a mix or tame down amplitude peaks in a mix without resorting to a lot of heavy-handed compression. For instance, I mixed a track recently that was very uninspiring. The band had an eighth note building line into the chorus that was played very flat. By grouping faders and then riding them, that is boosting level as the line was building, I was able to artificially create dynamics and give the chorus a real lift. This becomes more and more intuitive as you get better at critical listening. You have to wear two hats as you mix. One as the engineer who takes care of the technical aspects and then as an interested listener. I'll make a move as an engineer and then listen back, assessing the part. Does it move me? If not why? Can I build dynamics? Does it need an effect? As you get better and better at pulling rabbits out of your hat, clients will learn to trust your ears. You are presenting a perspective that they may have lost by being so attached to the material. The more time you have to polish a mix the better it will be. Don't be afraid to meditate on a mix, get into it, concentrate on a level you've never gone to before.

Getting To Know Your Stuff

As you use automation more and more you'll become very comfortable jumping between fader and mute modes and running the system. There's always a learning curve but as you work on more systems you start to get an intuitive feel for automation and it's not hard to pick up a new system very quickly.

Archiving Your Mix

The Home Stretch

Once you've tweaked your mix to perfection it's time to carve it into stone so to speak. But first:

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When you're mixing and think you're ready to lay it down to tape or CD or HD or whatever you're using, do yourself a favor and do the following things:

Take a sizeable break, at least an hour. Go to dinner, go outside and take a walk, play some hoop, something active away from the studio environment. Watching TV in the lounge is not what I'm talking about. Come back after your break and listen down to your mix with a fresher perspective. Burn a CD and isten with headphones, on a boom box, in your car or at home. Compare it to a CD you're familiar with. I guarantee you that you'll come up with a few more moves that you didn't hear earlier. The absolute best thing to do is to sleep on it, come back the next day and then put it down.

What Format?

What format should you choose? Analog 1/4" or 1/2" DAT? CD-R? Back to your digital multi-track? Hard Drive? Straight to Sonic Solutions? MD? First off, NEVER think of cassette as an option. The format is dead and you should let it rest in peace. Next, eliminate any format that uses compression or is not at the sampling rate that you're going to end up at on the final product. MD should be thought of as a consumer format not pro. You never know where you're final mix will end up, treat it with respect. Case in Point: Roseanne Cash was working on demos with an engineer in New York. When they were done she took it to the record company and they said "These sound fine, use THIS as the record". The lesson is always do your best work, you never know where it will go. Here's my opinion of the rest of the formats I mentioned:
 

Archiving Your Mix
 

Formats
 
 


such as a Studer. Even if you're product is completely digital up til now you can use an analog back end to warm it up. Use some of the newer tape formulations from Emtech (BASF) or Quantegy, you can print a lot hotter to tape and keep the noise floor at bay. Dolby SR is another nice option if you have it available.
 


mixes at 44.1 not 48k, you don't gain anything by extending your sample rate then having to knock it down later by dithering. Using outboard converters such as ones made by Apogee is always nice.
 


If he's comfortable with it then go for it. At the very least back up your masters to CD-R by running it straight from the mixer when you're laying down your master format. In other words don't make copies of your masters, burn them simultaneously with the master.
 


to your digital multi-track. Especially if you do a music minus vocal or your lead instrument if it's a non-vocal track. This way it's easy to add another lead later or fix the track by using your finished mix and then adding your new parts. The new mix is already done and all you have to do is to compile the new parts with the music minus mix. You simply run your finished mix from the multitrack back to the console, add the new tracks, then mix them all through your stereo buss. The stereo buss is then patched to two empty tracks, just make sure they're not coming back to the console when you lay it down or else you're asking for feedback.
 


HD is not a bad idea either. In fact it's all the rage and the way things will be in the future. Check out Alesis's new Masterlink recorder. It's a HD and CD-R in one unit. You can archive multiple sample rates and bit rates and burn reference copies on a disk that can be read by any computer as an AIFF file. Slick stuff and very forward thinking, watch this item to be copied by other companies and the $1600 price tag to plummet in years to come.

The bottom line is to make the mastering engineer's job a pleasant one. A good mix laid down sloppily or to an inferior format is a waste of your time and resources. Take care and make sure your product can survive into the future, it's an investment in your career.

Mastering

The Magic of Mastering?

I've been fortunate enough to work with some of the best mastering engineers in the world. I've seen what it takes and what's done in that important last step before the final mixes become a CD. The first time I went into a mastering studio I was expecting to see all kinds of magic going on. What I did see was someone with fantastic ears, listening back on a killer system and then often opting to do very little or nothing to the track. I've got to qualify this by saying that the mixes were tweaked by some of the hottest mix engineers on the scene so it was done right in the first place. This is why I've stressed all along to get things right as your going through the production process. If you're expecting that something magical will happen that will fix things you didn't have time to fix, or let slip through the cracks, you'll be sorely disappointed when a mastering session can't put the shine on your music.

Why Even Do It?

I get mail from quite a few people who have said, "I'm going to master this project myself, I can't afford it". In my estimation this is a big mistake. A trusted mastering engineer is the final ears before the project becomes etched in stone (or at least aluminum). Keep in mind that this has your name on it! Every project you put out will be heard by your friends, family and people who may want to hire you as an engineer, musician or however you're representing yourself. If everything is not your absolute best effort that you can be proud of then you're doing yourself a disservice. Generally friends and family will be impressed by your effort. They are an easy audience to please. It's the people you don't know who can sometimes advance your career or pass your name along to someone else who has work for you.

HOT TIP

Cut yourself some slack. I'm generally nit-picky about my work and can always find some kind of flaw. Only a few times have I really nailed something to the point that I'll sit back and say "YES! awesome!" This is very counter-productive. I've really had a tough time wrestling with this side of myself and have tried to cut myself some slack. Do yourself a favor and do the same. When you do your best and it's still not what you're "hearing" in your mind. Sit back, assess, learn from the mistake and then let the project go. Don't forget the lesson, but forget the criticism. Being negative and beating up on yourself is self-indulgent and takes your mind off the next task. Learn, learn again and then learn some more. Pile up mistakes until you can stand at the top of the heap and scream with joy at the skills you've gained. End of lecture.
 

Mastering
 

 The Assets of Mastering

 A good mastering session will accomplish the following:
 

  1. Hearing your mixes on another quality system(s)
  2. Have another set of trained ears on the job assessing with you
  3. Hearing your songs in order
  4. Hearing your songs with the fronts and tails cleaned up
  5. Hearing your mixes and comparing the volume and EQ song to song
  6. Hearing other music similar in scope to yours in the mastering session
  7. Hearing if your mixes need some compression to make the "sit down" a bit more
How to Pick an Engineer

When you're picking an engineer, ask them what they've done or if they have a demo CD of their work. Go to the studio and assess tracks you are familiar with on their system. Then hear their work on that same system. If you like what you hear then that's a good thing! Go on the recommendations of people you trust. Once you book the session, keep it to just the essential creative personnel. This is not a back patting session but very important work. Make it easier on yourself and the engineer by being professional.

What to Expect

Don't expect the engineer to be able to bring up individual instruments. There are sometimes some general EQ tweaks that can be done but this is icing and a cherry, don't expect him to be able to change the cake to chocolate if you've got vanilla. Expect the things I listed under Assets of Mastering (at the top of this page) and not much more. If it doesn't sound like a record when you've finished the mixes don't expect someone else to be able to fix it. Less is definitely more in mastering.

The End

Once your session is over the engineer will keep your tracks and make a reference CD for you (called a ref). Expect to pay for this and don't scrimp, it's very important. Get one for you and the artist. Take a few days off before you listen back to the ref. Listen at home on a trusted system or back in the recording studio. A/B it with your mixes (before you had them mastered). See if they're better. If you have changes or suggestions tell the engineer, there is generally no charge for this unless the requests are ridiculous. Also don't be afraid to ask questions or admit when you don't know what he's talking about. Get another ref and listen again. Don't be afraid to say what you're hearing. If need be go and listen on the mastering studio's speakers again. One system might bring out things that another will let pass. Lastly, a good mastering engineer will be willing to work with you to make your project the best it can be. It only serves to bring back more business when people are saying how great your tracks sound!
Next week I'll be bringing you the best and latest from the AES show in NY. The show ends on Monday so don't look for the new feature until Tuesday night. Stay tuned because you won't be disappointed. There are some very cool things going on.