Mixing Discussion

[Adverse]

Dustin ...thresh. -10db ... wow!!! M8 unless U have really heavy dynamics on yer track I thing that might b a bit 2 much ... !?

No 1 goes 4 a multi comp!?!?

Fernando b very carefull with the BBE I have found that it can have a positive feel but U have 2 really ease up on the param. otherwise it kills a lot of the midrange....

MHO,

Z

-10 seems a bit much too me..

[Dustin Zahn]

Yeah, it could be. Musically, my knowledge is limited. I just tweak things until they sound cool. I'll look into changing it. That's why I posted it in the first place, maybe to see where I have some errors.

[DJZeMig_L]

Well m8.. depends a lot on what u r after but over compressed stuff might sound not that lively ... I'll msn U asap! ;)

Z

[davethedrummer]

i tend to mix very much as i go along
i don't really subscribe to all this plug in processing.
i think you should do all that at the cut really
i think cutting rooms have the analogue gear that the software guys try to emulate anyway. so why not use the originlas and talk to the cutting engineer about your mix at the same time.
tend to start all midi and analogue and mulitrack stuff to the mac as i go along
including effect sweeps and filters etc.

one thing though
i read an article with a famous breaks and house producer (sorry lost th name) and he made a lot of sense
he started saying that he used to use a lot of eq
but now he spends more time getting the source sounds right and really trying not to use too much eq on the channels
i sort of agree with this 'cos you can process all the "life" out of a track by just doing too much to it.

sometimes i break down the mix once i finished the arrangement
but on a good day it does itself as i go along .

[davethedrummer]

one more thing
finish the bloody thing.
it's so important o get it finished
it doesn't matter if it has imperfections (it always will)(to you anyway)
(obviously, unless you are a genuis)
but getting your music around on labels and on sound systems will help you see what you are doing wrong (or right) much quicker than you'll be able to work it out just by yourself.
so send it off get it signed or start a label or whatever
even play it off a c.d. in a club to test it
but i've always just moved on from track to track
i don't like to go backwards (unless it's really worth it)
i know a few young guys here in london and this is their only problem, they just don't ever really finish anything!

[Dustin Zahn]

one thing though
i read an article with a famous breaks and house producer (sorry lost th name) and he made a lot of sense
he started saying that he used to use a lot of eq
but now he spends more time getting the source sounds right and really trying not to use too much eq on the channels
i sort of agree with this 'cos you can process all the "life" out of a track by just doing too much to it.

I agree. I used to do a lot of sampling back when I first started producing, and I would constantly filter and EQ my samples to try and warp them into different sounds. At the end of the day, I would make the tracks work, but the final mastering you could tell certain frequencies were missing and things just don't sound good. For the past...7 or 8 months I've went to doing my own synth programing and what not instead of sampling. I've found that the thickness and quality of my sounds have shot up ten fold because I am not doing all this clumsy EQ editing, etc. I've taken the time to totally rethink how I do my tracks. These days I concentrate more on the sounds going in, than how I can take a shitty sound and make it cool.

[DJZeMig_L]

Dave I would agree with ya 70 % ... the other 30% would go into doing a smart eq (sensibility is the key word.. nothing 2 crazy just normal cuting of irrelevant freq. on each channel), even smarter balancing of channel levels/ gains & panning... I tend 2 use less and less comp/ limiting (exept for the odd bass with insertion from the kick)... unless I the comp. pumping is what I'm looking 4 or somethin'
I go for cleaning, clearing sounds b4 I dirty them up again.. get a good dinamic, moving mix.. and then touch it up just a notch..

Then It should b a proper mastering person... now over here I must be one of the there basically no 1 who really know how 2 master tracks 4 techno/ house/ transe so u preatty much have 2 get stuff released and work from there...

[Adverse]

one thing though
i read an article with a famous breaks and house producer (sorry lost th name) and he made a lot of sense
he started saying that he used to use a lot of eq
but now he spends more time getting the source sounds right and really trying not to use too much eq on the channels
i sort of agree with this 'cos you can process all the "life" out of a track by just doing too much to it.

i've just started doing this and i must say it's paying off nicely.

[djTequila]

Fernando b very carefull with the BBE I have found that it can have a positive feel but U have 2 really ease up on the param. otherwise it kills a lot of the midrange....

It sounds like its using a technique (also employed by the 'loudness' button on stereos) whereby the lower and upper frequencies are boosted to produce a psychoacoustic effect that increases apparent loudness. If the overall level was kept the same, the midrange would suffer.

It's probably better to do this yourself, so you can play the EQ more musically.

Tequila

[interferron]

one thing though
i read an article with a famous breaks and house producer (sorry lost th name) and he made a lot of sense
he started saying that he used to use a lot of eq
but now he spends more time getting the source sounds right and really trying not to use too much eq on the channels

it makes a lot of sense, there's the old saying "if you try to fix sh*t with effects, you'll only get effected sh*t". same goes for the eq usually. of course if the source sound is as good as possible you don't have to use force on the channel when mixing. i usually get worried if i have everything ready for mixing and i notice some channel that would _clearly_ need effects to sit better in the mix - i think that you should already have an acceptable mix in the arrangement stage, and when you record everything into a mixdown version and start the mixing, the mix should be done because you know it will make the whole track sound so much better.

and the next step, mastering, i try to leave to the professionals. once again, i make the mix the best i can so i'm not demanding anything more when i hear it. but a professional mastering engineer with his equipment can give that last touch to it.

as for the mixdown, i record everything to audio tracks, everything separately (a mixdown version would contain 8-14 audio tracks): kicks, snares, hihats, percussions, bass, instruments, vocals, everything. hi-pass or low-shelf filter on every track, then noise gate, possibly a little overdrive (snares, sometimes bass and kick), individual compression, perhaps individual reverb or delay, then route into a bus channel.
kick+bass - bus 1, snare + other drums - bus 2, usually a generic reverb stands on bus 3. i compress kick and bass together, usually use a side-chain compression on other drums-bus so that i trigger the compression by the kick channel (heavy kick eats just a little bit 0.5dB-1dB out of hihats, snare etc).
every channel in mono, possibly panned a little bit. except for strings, chords and what ever the instrument structure is in the track, which are in stereo - i mean the "second most important instrument" which usually is somekind of a chord. the most important instrument usually in mono and dead center, so its easy to listen to.

[interferron]

oh, and don't underestimate the power of the bypass-button when mixing, especially with compression. you can tweak the compression levels forever and your ear gets used to hearing what you're doing ("hey, this -25dB and 1:20 ratio sounds good!"). bypass it and notice that the original signal without compression actually sounds better :) best compression settings are usually the ones you wouldn't notice without bypass, it just tightens the signal.

[The Divide]

I must admit, some of the drum/source sounds i have used in the past can be made to sound realy good even when they sound shit to start of with. I know what you mean about what you put in is what comes out but I also think sometimes low quality stuff can work well with small amounts on certain sounds. I think the main problem I have is processing/e.qing the life out of my tracks. The sounds I sometimes put in can also cause me problems. Like having a hard kick n bass thats sucking away all the power from the mix. I like what you can do with F.x esp pitching and lowpassing sounds. Sometimes its worth boucing some of the main percusion and pitching them around and having them layered up somewhere in the back with reverb/delay. It helps fill out the bandwidth of the mix. Oh, and try gates on kick drums too!! :) :) :)

[interferron]

I must admit, some of the drum/source sounds i have used in the past can be made to sound realy good even when they sound shit to start of with.

Yeah, of course. And it's still techno, so you should experiment with sounds.. perhaps my point was more like: before mixdown, when you're sequencing, you generally should tweak the sounds as good as you can. Pitch, filter, heavy fx, etc the individual sounds. You can do all of it when mixing and try to turn shit into gold, but your chances are a lot higher if it's already "ok" when you start mixing :)

My mixing tip of the week :), just discovered it myself: use a low shelfing filter to remove really low frequencies from your kick and bass, something like -6.0dB below 30-40Hz. surprisingly it makes the kick and bass a lot clearer without really sounding any less "bass". everything else i generally hi pass filter at 160-320Hz or low shelf filter, so that any harmonics or distorted sound won't be there to mess with the bass.

[djTequila]

This is a really good technique - it also gives you more headroom to play with, so you can get your mix sounding louder!

:D

Tequila