Mixing Music - 5 Tips For a Professional Mix

By Justine Shoolman

Mixing music can be an incredibly inspired process. It is my conviction that it is best to get all of the managerial work out of the way to help facilitate a far more inventive and exciting mixing experience. Use these steps as a guide, make them your own, and I promise you that your final mix will be far more productive.

1. Organize Your Tracks
It is helpful to group your tracks on the multitrack by instrument. Typically, you may have drums, percussion, bass, guitars, keys and other samples or instruments, and vocals. When my colleague worked on the latest Moneen album, he ended up with a ton of guitar tracks. He would blend guitar amps with several mics on each amp for major guitar sounds. It was common for him to have 40-50 guitar tracks per song. As such, organization was key to a successful mix. In the end he ended up grouping the guitar tracks into four unique groups, rhythm and lead tracks for Kenny and Hippy.

2. Edit Prior to Mixing Music
Ensure all of your tracks are appropriately edited before you begin mixing. In today's digital world, we are constantly utilizing playlists and comping the best performances together. Make sure that every edit point has a crossfade as this will aid in avoiding any unwanted clicks and pops.

3. Consolidate
Once you have edited all your tracks it is advised to consolidate them to your session start time. This will guarantee all of your regions will have the same start time which will be a huge benefit if you are going to hire a mixer to work on your music. It will also decrease your computer's processing time. Processing hundreds of crossfades and edits is very hard on a computer. By consolidating your tracks, you are taking away all of the edits and crossfades, by doing so you will free up processing power that can be used for effect processing during your mix. Plus, your computer will run faster during the mix.

4. Clear Unused Regions Before Mixing
Once you have consolidated your tracks it is a good idea to eliminate any unneeded regions or tracks from your session. Keep only what you want to have mixed into your song. This will be helpful if you are hiring a mix engineer as it will ensure that no unwanted sounds end up in your mix.

5. Print Effects
Record any cool effects you are using to their own tracks. You will end up with your original dry track, plus a new, wet track. It is often hard to recreate effects during a mix, especially if you use plug-ins that your mix engineer does not have.

To illustrate this, my colleague was working with a band called A/Collision and they had given him demos of their entire record that they had recorded in cubase. He loved the sound of some of their vocal treatments, so when they were finished recording the vocals, he gave them the consolidated lead vocal track which he had them run through the same cubase plug-ins they used on their original demos. Unfortunately, he was then able to use those effect tracks during the mix -- hitting this point home.

While there are many more strategies to achieve a professional music mix, if you begin with these five, you are off to a great start.

Copyright Creators, a service that helps protect copyright works with eMixEngine.com, an online mixing service, developed for artists to have their music professionally mixed and mastered at a great price.

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Music Production and Mixing Tips & Tricks

By Ian Waugh

What makes a pro recording pro? What is the "sound" that the pros get and how can you make your recordings sound more professional?

The simple answer is - there's no simple answer. But with careful listening and a little experience you can create excellent results with modest equipment.

Good mixing starts ear

The first and most important item of equipment is - who knows? Anyone? It's your ears! Sorry to tell you this, but listening to ten hours of Rave at 110dB will do nothing for them and you might as well give your mix to a turtle as try to mix with misused ears.

Listen to commercial recordings of mixes you like, analyse them, listen for the effects and get to know what constitutes the sort of sound you're after.

Mixing secrets

There's no hidden secret to getting a good sound, but if we had to sum up the secret of mixing in two words it would be this - EQ and compression. Okay that's three words.

These are probably the two most important tools used by professional producers. However, like any tools, if you don't know how to use them you'll be carving Habitat tables instead of Chippendale chairs.

That's where your ears and experience come in. Here we have assembled some production ideas, suggestions, tips and tricks but they can only be guidelines and need to be adapted to suit your material. There are no presets you can switch in to make a bad recording sound good. And if your original material has been poorly recorded not even Abbey Road could salvage your mix. But follow these suggestions and see how much your mixes improve.

Get the level right

You can't push the levels when recording digitally as you can when recording to tape but you still want to get as much signal into the system as possible. This means watching the levels very carefully for clipping, and recording at an even and constant level.

Some recording software lets you monitor and set the input level from within. Some expect you to use the soundcard's mixer while others have no facility for internally adjusting the input level and expect you to set this at source.

Monitors

Your ears are only as good as the monitors they listen to. DO NOT expect to produce a good, pro mix on tiny computer speakers. It may sound fine on a computer system, but try it on a hi fi, in a disco and through a car stereo.

Oddly enough, you don't necessarily need the most expensive Mic. Many top artists use what some might call "average" Mics because they work well and get the job done. You can spend a wad on a large diaphragm capacitor Mic (yes, they're good for vocals) if you have the lolly but check out dynamic Mics which are much more affordable and can be turned to several tasks.

Mixing MIDI and audio

One of the great things about computer-based recording is that the parts can so easily be changed, edited and processed. It's also so easy to combine MIDI and audio tracks and many musicians use a combination of sample loops, MIDI parts and audio recording.

Audio recordings are generally guitar and acoustic instruments such as the sax and vocals. Incidentally, the best way to record guitars is by sticking a Mic in front of its speakers. You can DI them and process them later and this may be cleaner but for a natural guitar sound a Miced amp is hard to beat.

It's not necessary to record drums live and, in fact, it's difficult to do and retain a modern sound. You can buy off-the-shelf MIDI drum riffs and audio drum loops, or program your own. The quality of the gear which makes drum noises these days is such that anyone with a good riff can sound like a pro.

Mixing MIDI

As MIDI and audio parts appear on the same screen in modern sequencers, it's very easy to arrange them into a song. However, when you come to mix everything down there's another consideration. If you are recording to DAT you can simply route the audio and MIDI outputs through a mixer and into the DAT machine.

However, if you want to create a CD you must first convert the MIDI parts to audio data. The entire song can then be mixed to hard disk and burned to CD. Converting MIDI to audio can have another benefit and that's the ability to process the MIDI tracks using digital effects.

Effects

There are three positions for effects known as Master, Send and Insert. Use the Master for effects you want to apply to the entire mix. These will often be EQ, compression and reverb.

Although giving each channel its own Insert effects is kinda neat, each one uses a corresponding amount of CPU power. So if your computer is struggling and if you're using the same effect on more than one channel, make the effect a Send effect and route those channels to it.

Many pieces of software let you apply an effect Pre or Post fader. With Post fader, the amount of sound sent to the effect is controlled by the fader. With Pre fader, the total volume level of the signal is sent. Post fader is the usual default and the one you'll use the most.

EQ

EQ is the most popular and the most over-used effect. Yes, it can be used to try to "fix a mix" but you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear as me Gran used to say and what she didn't know about mixing could be written in the margin of the book of honest politicians.

But before you start messing with EQ - or any other effect for that matter - make sure you have a decent set of speakers. Have we said that already? Oh, must be important, then.

There are plug-in effects such as MaxxBass which can psychoacoustically enhance the bass frequencies to make it sound better on smaller speakers. However, this is by no means the same as getting a good bass sound in the first place by observing good recording principles.

EQ can enhance a mix to add gloss, fairy dust, shimmer, sheen, a sweetener or whatever you want to call it to the final production. It can be done with enhancers and spectralisers, too, although these tend to mess with the harmonics which some producers don't like. However, don't dismiss them out of hand.

General EQ lore says that you should cut rather than boost. If a sound is top-heavy, the temptation is to boost the mid and bass ranges. But then what usually happens is you start boosting the upper range to compensate and you simply end up boosting everything and you're back where you started - only louder!

The reason why cutting is preferred is that boosting also boosts the noise in the signal which is not what you want. Try it. Boost every frequency and listen to the result. If you think it sounds okay, fine. What do we know?

But when you're fiddling, do keep an eye on the output meter. Boosting EQ inevitably means increasing the gain and it's so-o-o-o easy to clip the output causing distortion which does not sound good.

Finally, check EQ changes to single tracks while playing back the entire piece. In other words, listen to the tracks in context with all the other tracks. It may sound fine in isolation but some frequencies may overlap onto other tracks making the piece frequency rich in some places and frequency poor in others.

Reverb

Reverb creates space. It gives the impression that a sound was recorded in a hall or canyon instead of the broom cupboard. Recording lore suggests that you record everything dry, with no reverb, so you can experiment with a choice later on. You can't un-reverb a track once it's been recorded.

The more reverb you apply, the further away sound will seem. To make a vocal up-front, use only enough reverb to take away the dryness. Vocals don't want to be mushy (lyrics can be mushy) so use a bright reverb.

A common novice error is to swamp everything with different types of reverb. Don't - it sounds horrible!

Mixing down

You've done all the recordings, done the edits, applied the effects and now it's time to mix everything into a Big Number One Hit! Before you do, go home and have a good night's sleep. Have two. In fact, sleep for a week.

Yes, we know you're hot and raring to go but your ears are tired. They're falling asleep. Listen carefully and you might hear then snore!

There is a phenomenon known as ear fatigue and consistent exposure to sound, especially the same frequencies, makes our ears less responsive to them. Goes back to the bit about spending your life in a Rave club - you'll never be a master producer. If you try to mix after spending a day arranging, your ears will not be as responsive, so do them and your mix a favour by waiting at least a day.

Now, go forth and mix! And don't forget - you get better with practice. For more information about mixing, pick up a FREE copy of Creating The Perfect Mix at www.making-music.com.

Ian Waugh is one of the UK's leading hi tech music writers and creator of http://www.making-music.com. He has written for most of the major - and not so major - hi tech music magazines in the UK and many general computing titles both offline and online.

His output numbers over 2,000 articles, features and reviews and he has written several books and albums. He is author of the "Quick Guide to..." series which includes the Quick Guide to Dance Music, Digital Audio Recording, MP3 and Digital Music, and Analogue Synthesis.

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Music Mixing and Mastering - What To Bring To Your Studio Session

By Andrew Yankiwski

Are you a musician, artist or in a band that is working on a new music project? This article is part of a series designed to help you have the best experience every time you're in the recording studio. The topic for this article is what do I need to bring to a mixing session at a professional studio. I'm going to assume you've recorded your own song and are going to the studio to work with a professional mix engineer. This is an important question because there is a lot of confusion around this subject.

If you've recorded your own song you're likely using a digital audio workstation (Pro-Tools, Logic, Cubase, Reaper, etc.) to make your multi-track recording. So you'll have several different tracks with different instruments (bass, guitars, kick drum, snare drum, etc.) Your mix engineer will need each of those tracks individually. There's a couple of ways this can occur. One way is to bring the entire studio session project to your mix engineer and have him or her export the audio files they need.

However, if you are using software that is different from your engineer then you will have to export or render each track individually to a separate stereo/mono audio file (.WAV, etc.). You would do this by soloing each individual track and rendering out only that track as a high-resolution audio file. It's important to render every track to the exact length of your full song so everything syncs up properly when your mix engineer opens it up. So even if you have a vocal track that only plays incidentally through the song, the render of that track should still be the entire length of time of your song.

Another important consideration is the digital resolution you render your files out to. This refers to the sample rate and bit depth (most commonly 44.1khz and 16-bits). It's important to render out at the native resolution, or the resolution at which you recorded your audio/MIDI. Finally it's important that none of your individual tracks or your master track is clipping or "going into the red" and that you have no effects on the master bus (compression, limiting, etc.) of your renders. Having a clean render ensures your mix engineer can do the best possible job for you. Simply copy all your tracks to a CD/DVD, USB stick or external drive and bring them to your mix engineer.

Andrew Yankiwski is a professional audio engineer and owner of Precursor Productions, One of Canada's Premiere Digital Mastering Studios.

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Music Production Tips - How to Use a Compressor During Mixing

By Gugulethu Mokwebo

For this music production tip I'm going to be looking at how to use a compressor during mixing. Basically a compressor is a vital tool to give enthusiastic and dynamic performance. It automatically adjusts the level of an instrument, vocal or even the whole mix. You can achieve the same results by using a technique called gain riding (manually setting the levels of individual sounds in the arrangement or overall mix) but using a compressor makes the hard work easy.

The problem with gain riding is the stereo link. Both your left and right channels need to be compressed the same or else this will cause what is called image shift in the stereo sound stage. Always think of the compressor as a processor than an effect. If you are working with vocals and acoustic instruments a compressor is an important studio processor to own.
Do not compress everything when you are mixing, this will make your mix to sound flat. You must use it on sounds that are not steady/constant in level, mostly these are recorded or midi programmed sounds such as bass, vocals, guitars and more.

The side chain effect is mostly used if your bass is clashing with your kick drum sound or maybe you want to get a pumping effect on your pad or synth sound. Side chaining is also known as the ducking effect, a good example would be radio, notice that whenever the DJ starts talking the music automatically ducks/the level of the music drops (by how much will be determined by the threshold and ratio settings) and as he/she stops talking the level of the music goes up again, that is side chaining.

If you compress your signal at a threshold of 5db you must bring up your make up gain by +5db, and that also means your softer parts will come up +5db and that includes your background noise. The more a signal is compressed the higher its average energy level. By using a high gain reduction you are bringing up more background noise, so you really need to be careful with that.

Parallel compression A.K.A New York compression is when you mix a compressed signal with an uncompressed signal. There's many ways to achieve this, some compressors come with a built in mix knob/parameter or you can use a compressor as a send Fx. Reverse compression is great for vocals, basically here you will be using your attack as the release and release as attack.

To achieve this you need to reverse you whole vocal and insert a compressor after you are happy with the settings bounce the vocals and then reverse it again. The most frequently asked question is whether to insert a compressor before or after the eq, my recommendation would be to use it after the eq. You have to remember that a compressor deals with RMS and Peaks, so if you start with the compressor and then insert an eq do you think it will deal with the RMS and Peaks correctly?

I hope this music production tip will help you understand how to use a compressor during mixing. Here's more detailed info on how to mix music http://hubpages.com/hub/howtomixmusic

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How to Record the Best Vocal

I have been asked several times how do you get those great vocal tracks. After the trial and error of engineering for many years, this is what we have found to work for us.

Setup:
First after listening to the singer we look through our microphone selection and choose 5 or 6 that we think would work well with their voice. Than we setup these microphones and go through the process of them singing though each microphone and each preamp, until we find the combination that brings out the quality of their individual voice. Once we find the combination of microphone and preamp, we go though all the compressors until we find the one that tightens up the track and colors the vocal that produces the sound we are looking for.

Of course recording a good singer in an acoustically great sounding room with quality microphones and excellent microphone placement, all plays a major part in creating a great vocal track. Matching these items can make or break a CD as the vocal usually sits out in the front of the mix

Punching In:
Now on the subject of using 15 takes and choosing parts from each one to make one good vocal track doesn't really work well, because you have different feelings, emotions, attitude, timing etc. on every track you sing. We found that singing the song till you get a take that has life and emotion in it, and only than punch in the spots that need to be fixed, gives you a bigger and better sounding vocal with the same feelings and tone quality throughout the whole vocal track. This way everything works together and sounds consistent. We don't cut and paste vocal sections because we believe that singing the parts live gives the vocal a more natural, musical sound with an organic feeling. We're not trying to invent something new we're trying to capture the vocal at its best and natural state.

Equalization:
We do have certain occasions that we have to use equalization when we record. But we try not to use any equalization when we're recording the vocals, as we find it works better for us if we rather spend our time setting up the proper placement of the microphones. If we need equalization to fix a problem we can than find the right equalizer with the proper transparency and color without affecting the track.

Doubling Vocals:
We than double or triple the vocal track which thickens it up. We're not talking duplicating, which only makes the vocal louder not thicker. But we're suggesting recording 2 or 3 takes which will always be a hair different no matter what you do, but they must be very similar to one another; this makes the vocal tracks to have a slight delay in them and thickens it up, making it sound full and rich.

These are techniques that should be done with an engineer in a professional studio so that the results of the vocal will come out to be world class. One of the advantages of using a professional studio is having a large assortment of microphones and equipment, and good rooms that gives an artist every opportunity to capture a great performance and produce a quality CD.

If you're looking to record world class vocals in a Maui recording studio check out http://www.GraceRecordingStudio.com

The studio is 100% solar powered and gated for security. Call us at (808) 874-0225

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