Mixing Albums or Multiple Tracks

[Luuk MeijssenParticipant]

Hi Guys,

I'm kind of new here, and I don't know if this topic already passed by, but here it goes.

Currently, I'm mixing an album of an artist. The first track is already finished (if you're interested to check it out: Spotify).
Due to the Covid-19 virus, every band member is recording their own tracks and then they send it to me.

As I'm about to start mixing the second track, I stumbled on a question, which I haven't really thought about before, and I would really like to have some insights from the community here. (yay for PLAP ^^)

If you're mixing multiple tracks from the same artist, do you start every track from scratch?
How much plugin-settings from previously mixed tracks do you use in the new song?
Of course I understand that you always have to check and approach every song on it's own, and of course I'm going to do so.
But if you're happy with the mix you've already made, than how much time does it really cost (or save!) to just copy some plugin-settings?

I hope to hear from you guys on this matter.

• This topic was modified 3 years ago by Luuk Meijssen.

[Rune BuckParticipant]

Hey Luuk!

Great question, that for some reason is never addressed in the large ocean of mixing lessons out there.

I have been struggling with this myself. Even if it's band I have recorded myself, where the drums, bass and guitars are recorded at the same time, the sound is different from song to song, even though I I copy the exact setting for the rhythm instruments. If it's a 3 song ep, I usually prefer to mix en one pro tools session, but for more songs than that I usually make separate sessions for each song. I used to worry about this a lot, but listening to some of my favourite albums today, I can hear that the dynamics of the different songs is different. I never noticed this before, so likely neither will the client.

 

[Grant YoungParticipant]

I think it would depend somewhat on the diversity within the material itself. If all of the tracks are similar in sounds and feel, there’s possibly something to be gained from re-using some settings across tracks, at least as a starting point, and then tweaking/varying from there. However, if all the tracks sound that much the same, it might become a bit boring for the listener? Perhaps that’s an opportunity to use your mix to create some differentiation and dynamic variation across the tracks?

I’m currently working on a collection of three songs, and every song requires a different approach. The guitar arrangements and sounds are quite different. The vocal delivery is different. The sound of the kick/snare that the vibe of the track calls for is different, with different levels of parallel compression being called for to match the variation in vibe and dynamics across the songs. So I haven’t found much benefit in copying outright the settings from one track to the next. Because it is from the same artist, it still sounds coherent, and thus the overall sound of the mixes are not wildly different—they’re still recognizably the same artist and feel like they’re related—but there’s still sufficient variation to keep it interesting...

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