5 Minutes To A Better Mix II: Power Of The Pad – Part 30 of 31

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Depending on your musical background, you may or may not be using pads in your recordings. If you’re like me (a vocalist and guitarist) then you tend to focus on the “band” instruments. You get it all recorded and then sit back to mix.

The Missing Ingredient

But what I’ve noticed over the years is just how much my mixes can usually benefit from a pad or string patch of some kind at an epic part of the song. It’s typically a subtle part, but it becomes that missing ingredient that opens up a song and breathes life into my mix.

30JAN
2

5 Minutes To A Better Mix II: Reverb Glue – Part 22 of 31

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One thing many home or project recorded tracks lack is a sense of cohesion. It’s likely because everything was recorded at different times in not so musical spaces (i.e. a bedroom). You can be left with disjointed sounding tracks, and that’s no fun.

Having Something In Common

A great way to give your tracks that unity they desperately need is to “glue” them together with a simple reverb effect. A touch of verb on your tracks (the same verb) is a quick and easy way to give your mix a sense of space and focus.

22JAN
3

5 Minutes To A Better Mix II: Switch Vocal Delays – Part 21 of 31

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So much of good mixing is good arranging. Part of your job as a mixer is to keep the listener engaged, and you do that by creating movement and variety throughout the song. One easy opportunity for this is to use multiple vocal delays and switch between them.

The Short And Long Of It

One thing I like to do is to create a really short delay in the verse, giving the vocal a lively, raw sound. And then open it up to a more epic style echo in the chorus to change up the feel entirely. It’s easy to do, but it can make all the difference.

21JAN
6

5 Minutes To A Better Mix II: Dynamic Delay – Part 20 of 31

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Sometimes the best effect is the one you don’t hear. I know it’s true with vocal delays. As much as you want to hear them ring out when a vocal phrase ends, they get in the way when they swirl all over the vocalist as he is singing a line. You turn it down to avoid this problem, but then you don’t hear enough delay at all.

Time For The Smart Delay

The smart delay is really a dynamic delay. One that knows when to turn itself down (getting out of the way of the vocal) and when to turn itself back up to echo out the awesomeness. You can set this up with a regular old delay plugin in your DAW, with just a little help from a compressor with a sidechain.

20JAN
8

5 Minutes To A Better Mix II: Sidechain Compression – Part 19 of 31

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Are your guitars (or anything) fighting your lead vocal? It’s a common problem, one that can be remedied with things like EQ and volume automation. But if that’s not enough, sometimes you can setup a compressor to turn down the guitars only when the vocal is singing.

The Magic Of Sidechaining

With a sidechain and a key input, you can tell a compressor to “look” to another track for when to flip on or off. In this example we want the vocal to dictate when a compressor should turn down some guitars. It’s simple, it’s powerful, it’s helpful. Let’s take a look.

19JAN
1

5 Minutes To A Better Mix II: Vocal Presence – Part 18 of 31

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The lead vocal is so important in a mix. We do all kinds of things to try and get it to sound clear, polished, and larger than life. But sometimes even the right EQ and compression isn’t enough to get vocals standing where you want them in the mix.

The Secret Presence Track

One little tip that many people use is something called a harmonic exciter. It adds harmonic content to the track and gives it a bit of life that wasn’t there. One way to do this in your DAW without that type of effect is to create a vocal presence track that no one will ever know is there, but it makes all the difference.

18JAN
3

5 Minutes To A Better Mix II: Stacking Compressors – Part 17 of 31

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Trying to get that upfront lead vocal sound? If so, then compression is your friend. But everyone knows (or as at least heard) that too much compression is a bad thing. But what does that mean and how do you avoid it?

Do More With Less

One helpful tip is to stack two or more compressors on your lead vocal track in sequence, each doing a little bit of compression rather than one compressor working it’s butt off. It sounds weird, and maybe in the end not much is different under the hood, but it sure works.

17JAN
4

5 Minutes To A Better Mix II: Depth With EQ – Part 15 of 31

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Does your mix have three dimensions? You may hear this all the time, but there’s a lot of truth to it. Good mixes take advantage of more than just volume and panning, they have tracks placed more upfront than others and tracks further away than others.

Reverb Is Not The Only Way

But effects like reverb and delay are not the only way to create a sense of depth in the mix. Simple EQ tweaks can help your tracks move further back into the mix, giving space to more upfront tracks.

15JAN
1

5 Minutes To A Better Mix II: Punchy Acoustic Guitar – Part 14 of 31

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One thing that bums me out is when you’ve recorded a great acoustic guitar track that then disappears in the mix. That’s not what you want. You want a punchy acoustic that cuts through to the listener with clarity. The way to get it? Compression.

It’s All In The Attack And Release

Compression is your friend when it comes to acoustic guitars, but it can also suck the life out of them. The key is to play around with the attack and release settings of the compressor so you’re not cutting off the transients. Once you get this right, you’ll get a nice upfront acoustic sound.

14JAN
4

5 Minutes To A Better Mix II: The Pain Frequency – Part 13 of 31

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One thing many amateur mixes have in common is they are too harsh. For whatever reason young mixers like to boost a lot of upper midrange stuff to make their mixes sound exciting. In the end it only sounds painful.

Notching Out The Pain

There tends to be one or two main frequencies that are worth pulling back in your mix in order to reduce harshness and protect the listener’s ears. If you can avoid boosting this frequency that’s awesome. If you can pull some of it out, even better. Let’s take a look.

13JAN
3
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About Graham

Graham Cochrane is a creative and versatile producer, engineer, songwriter, and worship leader based out of Tampa, FL. He provides remote recording, editing, mixing, and mastering services to clients worldwide through his service Mobile Studio Plus.

As the founder of The Recording Revolution, Graham's articles and tutorials have been featured worldwide by Avid, Presonus, Editors Keys, and Behringer to name a few, reaching readers in over 40 countries.

For more information and samples of Graham's work, please visit www.grahamcochrane.com.