Reply To: Pre-Mixing

[Mark WarnerParticipant]

Gosh, that is a huge question. For me it very much depends on where the journey started and what the destination is. With my own songs the recording process is hand in hand with writing process. At some point writing and recording stops and mixing starts. Usually gain staging, phase alignment, pitch correction, editing etc are in there somewhere. It's different if I am working on someone else's track as these would be the setup tasks. Although the boundaries blur again with a full modern remix where I might only keep the vocals and write/record entirely new music to go with them. I don't sum stereo tracks to mono though. In my DAW I can change the pan law on a track so I can treat a stereo track as two mono tracks even though they are in a stereo WAV. With my own songs I might leave mixing a month, go work on something else and then come back with new ears for the mix. A normal remix setup usually takes 30 mins to an hour. I still might take 2 or 3 days or more to keep the ears fresh. I tend not to rush the process. One thing I do is plan the mix. I listen to the track to plan and changes to arrangement and orchestration . I write down ideas I get while listening for reference tracks, target sounds or styles for instruments, changes or enhancements to transitions. I listen for things that clash or sound wrong, like a clashing note a dropped beat and change them as well. Listening also gives me an idea if things sound thin and need layering to fills gaps in frequencies. On the other hand sometimes I start with no set idea and just follow my ears until I get something I like. Cheers Mark