I'm posting this purely to share some knowledge and maybe be able to give some new ideas or thought patterns relating to mixing. Found this great video by Warren Huart...
Here are some of the things I think you should think about a little...
I find when it comes to monitoring, great ears, great technique, great gear, great room helps a lot, but I have found that in general each type of monitors will generally sum down into a certain type of sound from your mix when you mix with your ears. This is because you are always going to make your moves based on what you hear, unless you are extremely experienced with meters and can overcome issues without your ears telling you they are there, besides your ears are unique so it is the combination that needs to work. I think it is very important to spend a lot of time A) finding a set that works for you with your ears and B) finding a combination of sets that works for you with your ears. This is similar to achieving a good ride with a motorcycle, your weight is unique, your size is unique and what you want to get out of the ride is unique, so you have to find a motorcycle that works for you. Similarly, finding sets that make you sound great, makes sense. Although most of the warmth of a mix comes from the recording, there are some monitoring solutions that will yield an overall warmer sound than others. Monitoring is very important.
I find vitality is in gain boost (perceived loudness), sweetness is in gain reduction. Simply put, when you turn down the faders the mix becomes a bit more sweet sounding but it also loses its vitality. So how can you achieve both vitality and sweetness at the same time? One thing that helps is the combination of side chaining followed by two stage compression. Side chaining reduces the peak-to-rms ratio and two stage compression relaxes the compression when needed. So instead of having a sound source vital enough at level A, it can now be vital enough at a lower level B. You have achieved the desired amount of vitality at a lower gain setting, so now it is a bit sweeter. I find this is important especially for the bass, kick, snare, toms that tend to describe how "soft and sweet" a mix is. It is that initial perceived attack of the sound that sets the perceived loudness. When you can perceive more of that attack to get the right amount of vitality, without having to resort to gain to do so, it simply ends up sweeter sounding. Sound sources can also be made sweet by keeping them alive by adding peaks through temporary volume automation. The sound is at a sweet level but because various sound sources keep jumping front the mix as a whole is vital too. Remember that this automation is done after the compression.
I find mid side processing is important. When I started mixing a long time ago, I found that mid side processing was making things more complicated than they had to be, I was not happy with the results. I was thinking like a newbie. Once I realized that mid side processing works great when you know what to achieve in mid vs. in side, then I realized mid side processing is very important in mixing. When you are great with mid side processing and you combine that with great monitoring, your mixes will sound better. It takes some time to figure out what content the mid should have and what content the side should have, but it is worth the effort of finding out...
Thinking in terms of frequency bands is something that has made me a better engineer. Many engineers choose to perceive the mix as a set of sound source tracks and it is valid, but I find it is also important to perceive the mix as a set of frequency bands having certain peak, rms and peak-to-rms levels. When you understand your audio/mix at that level you understand more what your mix is and what it is not and you enrich the shaping of the sound of your mix.
There are 6 important questions you need to have correct answers to, before your mix will shine:
- Do I have enough low end?
- Do I have too much low end?
- Do I have enough mid range?
- Do I have too much mid range?
- Do I have enough high end?
- Do I have too much high end?
These questions might appear obvious to most, but are you really achieving the balance and how well are you achieving the combination throughout a whole mix...
In some mixes you might discover that there are actually frequencies in the content, that just contribute with noise. A sound source becomes noisy when it lacks resolution/detail/balance due to the recording, is unimportant enough to the mix to be set at a loud volume or when you realize it sounds the best with most bands muted. If you have a few of those kinds of sound sources in your mix, it can really eat on the mix quality. Mute them. And don't forget, that now you might be able to un-mute other stuff in the recording, because you've created a different landscape for it to exist in.
As a pro mixing engineer, I find your most important task is to analyze the quality of the incoming content, be really great at that and say no to mixes that are not ready for mixing. Practice to perceive what a certain type of recording can sound like and what it cannot sound like, so that immediately when you find this is stuff that cannot sound great, you never start mixing that. You are the producer/recording engineer's insurance policy. For instance if you end up muting most of the tracks, because they don't sound good, you might find yourself in a situation when you have too little good sounding stuff to mix. That is because the production has been sent to you in an unfinished condition, lots of issues have not been addressed. There are limits to what you can and should do in mixing. Practicing is different, but for a pro result you have to have the discipline to say no. It will make you into a better engineer and it will make the producer(s)/recording engineer(s) into better engineers.
Finally. Being sloppy with audio and music, does not work. A creative artist might find being a little out of tune to be cool sounding, a normal person on the street does not understand that kind of stuff. Similarly, a boomy low end might sound cool on some particular speakers but a normal guy on the street will appreciate the opposite more. If the high end is harsh, it is harsh. So it is very important to listen to the mix from many perspectives before concluding you have reached your target quality. A mix might be very free from mud but lack body. Similarly, a mix can have lots of body but also be very muddy. You might like a mix to be fat and loud, but others might prefer a more gentle version. So the art is not only to balance the mix in terms of frequency, but to find a balance that hits the taste sweet spot of most listeners. For that to be possible you need to mix also with the mastering engineer hat on.
Here are some of the things I think you should think about a little...
I find when it comes to monitoring, great ears, great technique, great gear, great room helps a lot, but I have found that in general each type of monitors will generally sum down into a certain type of sound from your mix when you mix with your ears. This is because you are always going to make your moves based on what you hear, unless you are extremely experienced with meters and can overcome issues without your ears telling you they are there, besides your ears are unique so it is the combination that needs to work. I think it is very important to spend a lot of time A) finding a set that works for you with your ears and B) finding a combination of sets that works for you with your ears. This is similar to achieving a good ride with a motorcycle, your weight is unique, your size is unique and what you want to get out of the ride is unique, so you have to find a motorcycle that works for you. Similarly, finding sets that make you sound great, makes sense. Although most of the warmth of a mix comes from the recording, there are some monitoring solutions that will yield an overall warmer sound than others. Monitoring is very important.
I find vitality is in gain boost (perceived loudness), sweetness is in gain reduction. Simply put, when you turn down the faders the mix becomes a bit more sweet sounding but it also loses its vitality. So how can you achieve both vitality and sweetness at the same time? One thing that helps is the combination of side chaining followed by two stage compression. Side chaining reduces the peak-to-rms ratio and two stage compression relaxes the compression when needed. So instead of having a sound source vital enough at level A, it can now be vital enough at a lower level B. You have achieved the desired amount of vitality at a lower gain setting, so now it is a bit sweeter. I find this is important especially for the bass, kick, snare, toms that tend to describe how "soft and sweet" a mix is. It is that initial perceived attack of the sound that sets the perceived loudness. When you can perceive more of that attack to get the right amount of vitality, without having to resort to gain to do so, it simply ends up sweeter sounding. Sound sources can also be made sweet by keeping them alive by adding peaks through temporary volume automation. The sound is at a sweet level but because various sound sources keep jumping front the mix as a whole is vital too. Remember that this automation is done after the compression.
I find mid side processing is important. When I started mixing a long time ago, I found that mid side processing was making things more complicated than they had to be, I was not happy with the results. I was thinking like a newbie. Once I realized that mid side processing works great when you know what to achieve in mid vs. in side, then I realized mid side processing is very important in mixing. When you are great with mid side processing and you combine that with great monitoring, your mixes will sound better. It takes some time to figure out what content the mid should have and what content the side should have, but it is worth the effort of finding out...
Thinking in terms of frequency bands is something that has made me a better engineer. Many engineers choose to perceive the mix as a set of sound source tracks and it is valid, but I find it is also important to perceive the mix as a set of frequency bands having certain peak, rms and peak-to-rms levels. When you understand your audio/mix at that level you understand more what your mix is and what it is not and you enrich the shaping of the sound of your mix.
There are 6 important questions you need to have correct answers to, before your mix will shine:
- Do I have enough low end?
- Do I have too much low end?
- Do I have enough mid range?
- Do I have too much mid range?
- Do I have enough high end?
- Do I have too much high end?
These questions might appear obvious to most, but are you really achieving the balance and how well are you achieving the combination throughout a whole mix...
In some mixes you might discover that there are actually frequencies in the content, that just contribute with noise. A sound source becomes noisy when it lacks resolution/detail/balance due to the recording, is unimportant enough to the mix to be set at a loud volume or when you realize it sounds the best with most bands muted. If you have a few of those kinds of sound sources in your mix, it can really eat on the mix quality. Mute them. And don't forget, that now you might be able to un-mute other stuff in the recording, because you've created a different landscape for it to exist in.
As a pro mixing engineer, I find your most important task is to analyze the quality of the incoming content, be really great at that and say no to mixes that are not ready for mixing. Practice to perceive what a certain type of recording can sound like and what it cannot sound like, so that immediately when you find this is stuff that cannot sound great, you never start mixing that. You are the producer/recording engineer's insurance policy. For instance if you end up muting most of the tracks, because they don't sound good, you might find yourself in a situation when you have too little good sounding stuff to mix. That is because the production has been sent to you in an unfinished condition, lots of issues have not been addressed. There are limits to what you can and should do in mixing. Practicing is different, but for a pro result you have to have the discipline to say no. It will make you into a better engineer and it will make the producer(s)/recording engineer(s) into better engineers.
Finally. Being sloppy with audio and music, does not work. A creative artist might find being a little out of tune to be cool sounding, a normal person on the street does not understand that kind of stuff. Similarly, a boomy low end might sound cool on some particular speakers but a normal guy on the street will appreciate the opposite more. If the high end is harsh, it is harsh. So it is very important to listen to the mix from many perspectives before concluding you have reached your target quality. A mix might be very free from mud but lack body. Similarly, a mix can have lots of body but also be very muddy. You might like a mix to be fat and loud, but others might prefer a more gentle version. So the art is not only to balance the mix in terms of frequency, but to find a balance that hits the taste sweet spot of most listeners. For that to be possible you need to mix also with the mastering engineer hat on.
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