In this pro mixing tutorial I'm going to dig a bit deeper into the difficult art of improving the emotional depth of a mix.
As you might or might not know, quite a lot of the emotion you pick up from music comes from the musicians having a warm feeling inside that is then expressed dynamically lightly and gently to reflect that kindness and love felt inside as well as the opposite - playing softly and switching into more hard hits. An example of such emotion can be for instance cymbal hits that can be played a bit more expressively, which then expresses the emotion that the drummer has inside. So in other words, a lot of the emotion the listeners pick up come from certain patterns of certain gain and attack. This is why it generally does not work well to add lots of loudness and power after recording, because the softer playing no longer becomes soft and gentle enough - the original expression of emotion is gone.
Technically speaking this means that one should be a bit careful about producing masters having a higher RMS than integrated LUFS, usually that becomes a bit rough. It is damaging to go too loud too soon during mixing, it is much better to stay a bit more gentle with the loudness during the mixing process and let the emotion of the lighter expressions "sink in", so that once you begin with the post-mixing and mastering you will notice when the soft parts become too loud and you lose emotion.
So it is very key to understand that in order to achieve a great level of emotion you need both loud enough and soft enough dynamics. There are many ways you can control that, but it is difficult and here is why. The rhythm element is dynamic by nature and the pad element which might contain some emotional piano playing for instance has to balance against the rhythm. In order to get enough harmonics you need enough of the pad element, that means you need to lower the gain on the rhythm element. But when you do this and you then loudness increase the mix, what will happen is that once you achieve the balance between rhythm and pad, you are likely also losing the softer parts of the pad element. That's the issue, with more gain on the pad comes more loud soft parts and you are gradually losing emotion. You are to some degree getting some added emotion from the increased modulation, but you are also losing quite a lot from having the softer playing becoming much louder. This is why you need little enough compression on the pad element, much enough gain and soft enough attack. The same about vocals really, it's just that with vocals you have much wider dynamics naturally, so in this case you need a bit more compression. So keep in mind that having vocals up front might not be so great if you don't get enough soft words in there.
For emotional mixing you also need to mix using proper monitoring volume. If you monitor with too little volume, it means that you are much sooner going to over compress towards losing the gentle expressions. That means reduced emotions. On the other hand with too high monitoring volume your ears are starting to not like the expressive loud playing that also expresses emotions, so you are naturally starting to reduce the emotions of the loud hits, hence lost emotion. For emotional mixing it is therefore key to find the perfect monitoring loudness somewhere in between, where your ears can stand loud hits and hear the soft playing loud enough. So in other words compression can both add and remove emotion, it all depends on how it is used and the context of the usage.
It is also important to understand that soft playing exists within a context. So if you for instance have piano that plays softly, but on the same hits you might have some other sounds playing louder, that can very quickly remove the emotion of the piano. It helps to use panning as a way of creating separation, but it is also important not to let the soft and the loud playing of sound sources, compete within the mix. This is where arrangement comes in. During the production process it is important that all sound sources communicate similar emotions. If the piano player communicates warm feelings and the drummer communicates something wild, it can become energetic but not so emotional. From an engineering point of view it becomes key to balance the loud and the soft hits among sound sources, this is where appropriate gaining, compression and reducing dynamic range results in added emotion. So let's say you have some emotion present in some loud cymbal hits and you have some other playing on the same track that needs to be much softer in order not to compete too much with soft playing present in the mix. This is a candidate for expanding - you have the gain level so that the overall hits are quiet enough, but as soon as the drummer plays more expressively, you add to that by expanding. In other words when gain and expanders are set to indirectly allow the soft playing of other elements to not have to compete so much, you introduce emotion into the mix. So the art of emotion is really to monitor the dynamics of each hit, understand where the emotion is both in terms of loud and soft playing, and then adjust the dynamics so that these expressions are optimal in level and compete much less. Also side chain compression can be used to add emotion, it's just important not to combine them so that the emotion of important loud playing gets lost by the signal attenuation. For example a piano that is ducking some cymbal is probably not going to work so well.
In this pro mixing tutorial I have explained how the emotion is present in the dynamics of a mix - the combination of loud and soft playing. For an emotional mix you need certain playing soft enough or loud enough and you want minimal competition between those. I've taught how you lose emotion by monitoring very softly or very loudly. I've taught how it is not ideal to go too loud too soon, because you do not allow the emotional experience of the music sink in much enough first, hence you are not aware of the amount of emotion that is lost when you loudness increase the mix. I've also mentioned that both expanders and compressors are needed to increase the perception of the gentle playing.
I want to add that constant repetitive hits should be soft enough. For instance the kick drum is such a sound source that should not be too loud, it has to be quiet enough and it has to cut through the mix as such well enough (side chaining). Both the snare and the kick drum are by default good comp side chain candidates for an emotional mix. The focus is to find the right gain level first of all and then use the side chain to allow much enough of that perception cut through, so that these hits remain soft in the perception. That adds a lot of emotion.
For emotion, allow enough of the soft playing "cut through". That's more important than the loud playing, because usually the loud playing tends to add enough emotion after the loudness increase.
This essentially then means that the dynamics between sound sources determine how loud a mix should be. It is more important to find that sweet spot than to reach a particular target loudness level. If you want it louder you might need to tune the dynamics between the sound sources first, before it can be loudness increased with a good result. The louder you make it, the more difficult it will be to make the emotion cut through. It is possible, but it gets advanced very soon...
As you might or might not know, quite a lot of the emotion you pick up from music comes from the musicians having a warm feeling inside that is then expressed dynamically lightly and gently to reflect that kindness and love felt inside as well as the opposite - playing softly and switching into more hard hits. An example of such emotion can be for instance cymbal hits that can be played a bit more expressively, which then expresses the emotion that the drummer has inside. So in other words, a lot of the emotion the listeners pick up come from certain patterns of certain gain and attack. This is why it generally does not work well to add lots of loudness and power after recording, because the softer playing no longer becomes soft and gentle enough - the original expression of emotion is gone.
Technically speaking this means that one should be a bit careful about producing masters having a higher RMS than integrated LUFS, usually that becomes a bit rough. It is damaging to go too loud too soon during mixing, it is much better to stay a bit more gentle with the loudness during the mixing process and let the emotion of the lighter expressions "sink in", so that once you begin with the post-mixing and mastering you will notice when the soft parts become too loud and you lose emotion.
So it is very key to understand that in order to achieve a great level of emotion you need both loud enough and soft enough dynamics. There are many ways you can control that, but it is difficult and here is why. The rhythm element is dynamic by nature and the pad element which might contain some emotional piano playing for instance has to balance against the rhythm. In order to get enough harmonics you need enough of the pad element, that means you need to lower the gain on the rhythm element. But when you do this and you then loudness increase the mix, what will happen is that once you achieve the balance between rhythm and pad, you are likely also losing the softer parts of the pad element. That's the issue, with more gain on the pad comes more loud soft parts and you are gradually losing emotion. You are to some degree getting some added emotion from the increased modulation, but you are also losing quite a lot from having the softer playing becoming much louder. This is why you need little enough compression on the pad element, much enough gain and soft enough attack. The same about vocals really, it's just that with vocals you have much wider dynamics naturally, so in this case you need a bit more compression. So keep in mind that having vocals up front might not be so great if you don't get enough soft words in there.
For emotional mixing you also need to mix using proper monitoring volume. If you monitor with too little volume, it means that you are much sooner going to over compress towards losing the gentle expressions. That means reduced emotions. On the other hand with too high monitoring volume your ears are starting to not like the expressive loud playing that also expresses emotions, so you are naturally starting to reduce the emotions of the loud hits, hence lost emotion. For emotional mixing it is therefore key to find the perfect monitoring loudness somewhere in between, where your ears can stand loud hits and hear the soft playing loud enough. So in other words compression can both add and remove emotion, it all depends on how it is used and the context of the usage.
It is also important to understand that soft playing exists within a context. So if you for instance have piano that plays softly, but on the same hits you might have some other sounds playing louder, that can very quickly remove the emotion of the piano. It helps to use panning as a way of creating separation, but it is also important not to let the soft and the loud playing of sound sources, compete within the mix. This is where arrangement comes in. During the production process it is important that all sound sources communicate similar emotions. If the piano player communicates warm feelings and the drummer communicates something wild, it can become energetic but not so emotional. From an engineering point of view it becomes key to balance the loud and the soft hits among sound sources, this is where appropriate gaining, compression and reducing dynamic range results in added emotion. So let's say you have some emotion present in some loud cymbal hits and you have some other playing on the same track that needs to be much softer in order not to compete too much with soft playing present in the mix. This is a candidate for expanding - you have the gain level so that the overall hits are quiet enough, but as soon as the drummer plays more expressively, you add to that by expanding. In other words when gain and expanders are set to indirectly allow the soft playing of other elements to not have to compete so much, you introduce emotion into the mix. So the art of emotion is really to monitor the dynamics of each hit, understand where the emotion is both in terms of loud and soft playing, and then adjust the dynamics so that these expressions are optimal in level and compete much less. Also side chain compression can be used to add emotion, it's just important not to combine them so that the emotion of important loud playing gets lost by the signal attenuation. For example a piano that is ducking some cymbal is probably not going to work so well.
In this pro mixing tutorial I have explained how the emotion is present in the dynamics of a mix - the combination of loud and soft playing. For an emotional mix you need certain playing soft enough or loud enough and you want minimal competition between those. I've taught how you lose emotion by monitoring very softly or very loudly. I've taught how it is not ideal to go too loud too soon, because you do not allow the emotional experience of the music sink in much enough first, hence you are not aware of the amount of emotion that is lost when you loudness increase the mix. I've also mentioned that both expanders and compressors are needed to increase the perception of the gentle playing.
I want to add that constant repetitive hits should be soft enough. For instance the kick drum is such a sound source that should not be too loud, it has to be quiet enough and it has to cut through the mix as such well enough (side chaining). Both the snare and the kick drum are by default good comp side chain candidates for an emotional mix. The focus is to find the right gain level first of all and then use the side chain to allow much enough of that perception cut through, so that these hits remain soft in the perception. That adds a lot of emotion.
For emotion, allow enough of the soft playing "cut through". That's more important than the loud playing, because usually the loud playing tends to add enough emotion after the loudness increase.
This essentially then means that the dynamics between sound sources determine how loud a mix should be. It is more important to find that sweet spot than to reach a particular target loudness level. If you want it louder you might need to tune the dynamics between the sound sources first, before it can be loudness increased with a good result. The louder you make it, the more difficult it will be to make the emotion cut through. It is possible, but it gets advanced very soon...
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