| dafingaz
Total Posts: 3350
Joined 07-13-2004
status: Guru
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Hello Mo Folkers (LOL),
I am posting some techniques I use while mixing. This was in reponse to an e-mail I received from a Mo person. I am not an expert mix engineer, but below are just some methods I use:
I don’t mind giving you tips. LOL. Thanks for the message.
When I mix, I like to just start with everything up the middle. Sometimes, I do the initial mix in mono just to see if anything will clash as far as frequencies or rhythmic concerns. After the initial mix, I might then go back and do a mix in stereo. At that point, I might do some panning. After that, I could go into some plug-ins and adjust EQs on some things, or try out other elements (i.e. phaser on a string line at the end of the chorus, etc.). Finally, I automate changes (either record or written automation) and bounce to a track and burn that to CD.
I do my mixing in ProTools, so everything is visual and pretty much laid out how I like it. I often do parallel compression on a drum submix where I route all the drums to 2 aux tracks and one track I leave as a drum submix and the other track I would put in a compressor and blend that in with the original drum submix.
If vocals are involved, you should try to give the artist as many options as possible. For example, if the song is 5 minutes long, try to give them a 3 minute edited version for radio. Maybe mix an instrumental for them. Also give them a version with the vocals up a bout 3 dB just to have that option as well.
I also know of some mix engineers that actually play the song and mix each track individually. By this, I mean that the first pass may focus just on the kick drum and the engineer puts their finger on the fader for the kick and never takes it off. That is the first pass. The second pass might be the snare drum. As you can see this could take hours upon hours and sometimes it is well worth it.
I’m sure more experienced mixers have their professional methods and go to Plug-Ins. I am a fan of the Sci-Fi and Sans-Amp plug ins in ProTools. I also like the MC77 and other Bomb Factory compressors. I’m sure there are plenty of others, but these are pretty cheap (free for me, because my job has them).
Another thing that I do is this: record every track that uses a plug in onto another audio track. So if I use a reverb plug in on the piano track, I will route the piano track to another audio track and record that. I do this because if I want to take the session to another studio, what if they do not have the plug-ins I used? No problem, I have the original track and I also have the track recorded with the plug in. (Does that make sense?).
Not sure if this helps any, but I hope it does…
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