Archive for 'Mixing'

These days, everything in the studio seems to blend together. From recording, to mixing, to arranging, to songwriting. Some people are even trying to master while they mix. It can get confusing and convoluted. So the question for today will be: is it OK to mix while you record? And if so what does that look like?

In fact recently a TRR reader emailed this quandry, and I’m sure many of you can identify with his situation:

I might pan some of the guitars, turn them down, etc while I get ready to track another guitar, keyboard part, bass, etc. Is that normal or should I not touch anything on the mixer until the song is pretty much done in the recording phase? – Doug (TRR reader)

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One way to speed up your mixing workflow is to treat your DAW like a console. By that I mean to set up a custom template that always opens with the exact tracks, routing, EQs and compressors you’d normally use already setup and ready to go. It allows you to work much like you would on an analog console where your raw tracks route through the board with all the effects patched in and ready go. Here’s how mine looks these days…

This week I got to spend some quality time with a few audio friends (both old and new) in Nashville. In fact, my last night there I got to sit around a bon fire and talk all things recording and mixing with two of my favorite audio bloggers out there: Joe Gilder and Kevin Ward. If you don’t follow these guys yet, you should.

Kevin Ward – Mix Coach

Kevin is an award winning mixing engineer and producer, a great teacher, and all around humble guy. He does so much full time production and mixing work in his Nashville studio, that I don’t even know how he has time to run MixCoach.com, but he does. His site is packed with tips, tricks, video tutorials, and helpful podcasts aimed at the beginner all the way up to the advanced mix engineer.
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I have huge news to share today. For the first time ever I will be hosting a live, world wide, web event designed to help all of you frustrated home studio owners. From recording, to mixing, to where to invest money in gear, I’m covering it all. The event is called Take Back Your Studio and it’s going to be awesome.

Feeling Your Frustrations

I know what it’s like to not be getting the recordings you want. I know how it feels to spend forever mixing a song only have it fall apart, forcing you to start all over. I’ve lived the agony of money being tight and wondering whether or not one specific gear upgrade would really make a difference in the sound of my recordings.

So I know how you feel. But the truth is, it doesn’t have to be this way!
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Every time I bring up the idea of gain staging people’s eyes seem to gloss over. I know, it sounds boring. But until you do it right you won’t believe just how critical it is to getting a big, clear, and musical mix. That’s why I started my very first 5 Minutes To A Better Mix series with this concept. Today I want to show you another way to setup your mixing levels using a simple trim plugin.

Today I want to address a very common question I get in my inbox on an almost weekly basis: whether or not audio school is worth it. With so many young (and young at heart) readers of The Recording Revolution discovering their passion for music production, the natural progression for some is to want to produce music full time, for a living.

So, like many professions, one assumes a degree is needed not only for the experience and knowledge but for the pedigree, for the resume, etc. Plus let’s be honest: the idea of going to “school” to play around with mixing consoles and expensive microphones is pretty enticing. So if you’ve wrestled with this question, let me give you a few thoughts.

You Don’t Need A Degree To Do This For A Living

I’ll get straight to the point. You do not need a degree to make a living recording, mixing, or producing music. You just don’t. In fact I wouldn’t be surprised if we polled most top level engineers only to find out a majority of them didn’t go to school for audio. Some may have not gone to college at all.
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There is a lot of hype surrounding the latest vintage console emulation plugin from Waves, the REDD consoles from Abby Road Studios. Does this replaces something like Slate Digital’s Virtual Console Collection or Waves own NLS (Non Linear Summer)? Or is it something more? Today I do a little show and tell of how I’ve used it in real mixes as of late.

You know what the problem with your mixes is? You don’t spend enough time recording. I know, I know, we just spent a month pouring over simple, practical mixing tips to help you get the most out of your tracks. But the real secret to every great sounding pro mix out there, is plenty of time spent getting a great recording.

Your Recording To Mix Ratio

Recently on the Simply Recording Podcast we discussed the fact that all of us have a recording to mix ratio. That is, the time we spent in the recording phase versus time spent mixing those recordings. For many of us our ratio looks something like 20% Recording to 80% Mixing. Translation: we spend hardly anytime on the recording end, so we are slaves to mixing for ever and ever, trying to turn our subpar recordings into gold.
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I love to see competition in the plugin world. It better serves the customer/user. Today’s review covers the Plug And Mix VIP Bundle from the guys at DontCrack.com. It’s a very affordable bundle of plugins ($399US for 40 plugins) that both sound good and are fun to use. Here’s a little show and tell from a mix that I used a bunch of these plugins on.

So just this week my band released our most recent EP entitled Lower. It’s a simple 5 song album that was tracked, mixed, and mastered in my own project studio. I thought today I would not only share it with you, but highlight a few lessons (good and bad) that I learned from this specific project.

Less Is More

I would say the biggest lesson that was re-enforced on this project was that less is more in the recording phase. I think I did this well when it came to guitars. During the tracking process I kept stripping away guitar parts until we were left with the absolute foundational parts. This made the songs easier to mix and they sounded bigger in the long run. Go figure.
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