Mixing Flow

[Anonymous]

Lara, I do something similar, except I don't specifically separate subtractive EQ and additive EQ in stages. I usually try to cut before I boost, but often will boost here and there a little.

First, I do all the setup and routing before I ever listen to the song. Next, I push play to play though it once, then find the loudest part of the song and loop it while I try to find a static balance with faders and pan knobs. I will then take a break and rebalance again. Break again, rebalance for the third time. At this point I slap VCC on my stems and the master buss and treat the master with gentle EQ, multiband compression and usually Slate's Revival as well. Then I mute all stems except the drums usually and do any necessary cleanup and tone shaping with EQ and compression, then start unmuting core instruments first and work on them while the drums are playing. Just add (unmute) elements from that point and work on them fighting the urge to solo things as much as I can. Rebalance again if necessary, add effects and do automation last.

[Richard TorrieParticipant]

Brilliant advice, thanks for sharing.

[Andrew MckenzieParticipant]

Hi Lara, what I mean by "gain staging" is adjusting the levels of the tracks (either at individual track level or by using the gain knobs at the top of the virtual SSL mixer in Reason). I've seen other people use a trim plugin at the top of each track in pro tools to achieve a similar thing.

The idea is to control the levels at the top of the signal chain to prevent any clipping into plugins down the line. If I remember correctly, if you use the faders to adjust the track levels it doesn't adjust the incoming level at the top of the chain before the fader (i.e. it's still a potentially hot signal hitting the plugins)

If I have it wrong, then I hope someone will correct me. 🙂

Also I like to have all the faders around zero to give me more control when starting to mix....if a fader is pushed down to start with it gives me less room to push it down further if needed. The example below is where I have pulled the track down by about -9db to get the optimal level (around -10) with the fader at zero.

Cheers....Andrew

• This reply was modified 8 years ago by Andrew Mckenzie.
• This reply was modified 8 years ago by Andrew Mckenzie.

[Cris Sabater SabaterParticipant]

Hi there, I have a template set up in Studio One for mixing. I have all my tracks which are then sent to their own group bus and folder. Everything is colour coded and I use colours that I associate with the sound source, for e.g. Bass = Red for danger! And so on. This is my starting point and from there I will decide what is needed as I go through a mix. I don't always use EQ and Compression on tracks just for the sake of it but if needed I will usually go subtractive EQ then compression then additive EQ if needed. Quite a lot of the time instead of using additive EQ I will use saturation to bring out upper harmonics of an instrument. I always start with drums first and then I move onto Bass and will usually leave vocals until the end. I have a picture to demonstrate.

Cheers,

Cris

[Mike KrowiakParticipant]

Cris: Similar flow here. Question: How do you arrange folder and group tracks in your mixer? Groups inside folders or next to them?

I'm looking forward to experimenting with compression after additive EQ as in Warren's latest videos. I decided long ago that additive EQ usually belongs after compression--so they don't fight each other. This served me well since I did mostly jazz and acoustic music, but that was almost exclusively on old Neve boards with vintage tube mics. This might be just the thing to take some more of the edge off...

Thanks!

[Cris Sabater SabaterParticipant]

Hi Mike, sorry I can't remember whether I answered your question, I put groups inside folders in Studio One to keep everything neat and tidy and in Studio One you can assign a group bus to a folder too which is pretty handy.
Which D.A.W. do you use Mike? Or do you use a board and go to tape?

Cheers mate,

Cris

[Nick D.Participant]

I don't believe there is a right or wrong way as long as the results are what you were after. I am a big fan of getting it right before you hit record. Not everything needs eq and compression, so unless there's a reason for it I don't use it. The hardest part with a lot of the home/smaller studios is that we might not know how the band sounds. So at the tracking stage we are just guessing what the band is going for, most musicians don't know how to describe what they want properly and you have to be prepared for any circumstance. Do you know how many times I've heard they want a big ambient drum sound, to find out they really just wanted in your face drums with very little ambiance? Im just saying that a lot of times there is no producer, pre production, demos, or anything to go by.

These days almost every video online talks about mixing, which is good to know, but the reality is that tracking in most cases is where a majority of the deficiencies are. Mixing has become popular because home studios have been readily available for years, and everyone just sticks up a mic and hits record, and then try to mix without actually paying attention to what is coming in. So every one wants to know how to mix, instead of properly tracking. When I started I was the same way, even while I understood phase, I didn't realize how it applied to multi mic setups and room environments, etc. Learning how to track properly (...well better) has made my mixes better, not learning how to fix something. The other side of the coin is that not every band is good. some bands sound like a record right away while others barely can arrange a song and play their instrument, or don't know how to play with each other.

If i'm handed all the tracks to mix, I start by bringing everything up and do some general panning and get a mix going just by faders and give it a listen. Then I decide what are the most important things in the song. If it has vocals I start there since that is the most important part, and then move to drums or percussion and then bass. so I want the most important melody and the groove working together and then fill everything else around it.

If I am tracking and mixing, I mix as I go. starting with drums and usually vocal last, but this way is the least efficient in my opinion, because now you are making room for the most important part instead of building everything around it. Anyone that has ever done a rap vocal over a pre finished track that you get online sees the reality of a limited and smashed stereo track with no room for a vocals to sit, and struggle with trying to make it sound like part of the song vs. sitting on top of it.

[Mike KrowiakParticipant]

Cris: I'm using mostly Cubase 7.5 these days, although I sometimes go to Pro Tools for compatibility. Folders in Cubase seem to be a means of folding tracks out of the way; I wish they could somehow be synonymous with groups so I could at least have a level fader on the folder... instead of having to open the folder to get to the group track within... Can you do that in Studio One ? or is it that you can just use the tracks in an existing group to make a folder? Also useful...

[Cris Sabater SabaterParticipant]

Hi Mike, in Studio One you can add a group bus from with the folder and never have to open the folder if you don't need to as the faders are below. In Studio One everything is drag and drop and you can actually drag a plugin directly onto the folder to effect all tracks within that group.

https://youtu.be/nAxfPEqMp-I

This is a video by David Mood who is in this Academy and is also a user of Studio One, he is a top man and a great source of information for anything Studio One! Check out Studio One expert and he has other great videos on there as well as others by other engineers. Highly recommended!

Cheers mate,

Cris

[Mike KrowiakParticipant]

Cris: Yeah, this folder/group interfunctionality (?) is exactly what I'm talking about. I'm not ready to switch or add DAWs right now, but I will consider Studio One in the future...

[Nick D.Participant]

Mike: Im not sure if Cubase 7.5 has them (I jumped from 7 to 8.5), but Cubase 8.5 has VCA faders which will allow what I think you are wanting. The Folder Tracks do way more than getting tracks out of the way, you can use group editing with in folders to edit multiple tracks at once. You can also set up the mixer windows to only see certain channels (tracks in folders can be shown/hidden all at once), so if you wanted a mixer with only certain tracks to be shown its really easy to setup. My typical use is mixer 1 is just inputs, mixer 2 is tracks and auxes, and mixer 3 is groups and master fader. 8.5 also brings workspaces which allows savable screens with whatever settings you want and can recall them back. So now you can do multiple mixers on different workspaces and just recall the workspace. The one thing I notice about Cubase on a regular basis IMO is that they are so far ahead of the other DAWs in most aspects, but the function you want might not be right in front of you, 9 out 10 times Cubase has it or does what you want. So far Cubase 8.5 addressed all the issues I had with previous versions and things I wish I could do.

[Mike KrowiakParticipant]

Nick: I heard the Topic Police siren, so I continued in the Cubase forum. 🙂

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