Music Career Talk 7

Welcome, since I seem to skip all over the place when I teach music related subjects I see no reason to stop the trend now. So today we will talk about mixing. You can have the best sounding tracks in the world and F it up by having a poor mix. There’s no trick to having a great sounding recording beyond making sure the instruments, performances and gear all sound great. Don’t mic drums that sound bad thinking you can fix it in the mix. Even with sampled drum sounds if the performance is weak it will sound BAD!!
I make sure everything sounds great before anything gets mic-ed and recorded.
Best to make sure everything is recorded before you start mixing. It sucks to be in mix mode and then have to go back and record something you forgot.
When I start a project from day one and note one I am thinking about the mix. Everything I do is with the mix in mind. What will make the mix easier and sound better. What can I do to avoid unnecessary work in the mix? By recording dry in terms of effects and little use of eq or compression it allows me (or who ever is engineering) to dress the tracks on the way out instead of in and out. So on with the mix. Everybody has their own way of approaching a mix, if you’re looking at the board I go from left to right. Starting with the drums. Not only do the drum tracks have to fit in with the other instruments, but the drums have to be balanced among themselves i.e. snare, kick, toms, cymbals and on.
Each drum has a mic as well as overhead mic’s and room mic’s. Each must be checked for sound quality, level and phasing problems. The drummer hits each drum then plays as a full kit to the producer's and engineer's satisfaction. Next bass; the bass can be recorded with an amp, direct box, through the preamp directly or any combination to create the best sound. Once this has been achieved you have your rhythm section done. If the rhythm section sounds good the rest is cake (not really). When you stack guitars if everything is left and right it becomes hard to tell there is any stereo separation. I like to mix it up. One side may have a heavy guitar on the left with the other one at 2 o’clock. Then maybe acoustic guitars hard left and right.
If there are keys on the track where I place them would depend on the part and if the track is mono or stereo. I place solo’s like vocals, right up the middle and out in front.
My rule for background vocals is not to use any unless they make the lead vocal better. Some songs sound more sincere with just the lead vocals; think of Paul McCartney singing “Yesterday” or Peter Criss singing “Beth” (I got to record that one).
This blog was not meant to be the definitive guide to mixing, loaded with technical jargon, but a quick road map of things to think about regarding the fine art of mixing. If you have recorded great tracks and you want the end result to be great, find a great mixer.
CAIO!!