Mixing Tips
Mar. 18th, 2019 06:30 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thesnytheI had a friend ask me for music mixing tips recently because he was super frustrated with the process and his results (because it's a super frustrating process). The following lengthy diatribe is adapted from an email I sent him. I thought it would be useful to keep this stuff around for my own reference. I am, after all, staring down another mixing project here in a couple of months...
Wish I had a silver bullet for you, but all I have is a pile of techniques, some or none of which might work at any given time. Here goes:
1.) Take lots of breaks. Your ears get used to hearing things a certain way, and before long you've cranked up the reverb to idiotic levels and your brain is basically subtracting it out. Every so often, take a ten minute break, think about something else, then come back and listen.
2.) Here's a weird one: when you think your mix is really happening, turn it up a little bit, then leave the room and close the door behind you. How does the mix sound on the other side of the door? I realize that is weird as shit, but something magical happens, and it's oddly revealing of out-of-whack balances.
3.) When mixing bass, turn that shit up. Thanks to Fletcher-Munson, we can't really hear bass properly at conversational volume. So mix everything you can at low volume (better for preventing fatigue and keeping family/neighbor peace anyway), and then crank it up when you need to make sure your low end is doing what it's supposed to.
4.) For anything pop/rock/contemporary (basically anything that will get compressed, so everything but jazz or classical), mix with a compressor on your stereo buss. It doesn't have to be smashing the shit out of your signal. 2-3 dB of gain reduction at loud parts is probably about right, depending. It has the effect of "gluing" your mix together. I kind of hate that term, but it fits. Everything just seems to be a little bit tighter and realer, and I do not know why.
5.) Another tip for bass: One time I emailed Mike Kelsey to ask him why I couldn't get any freaking bass out of my guitar, whereas his always sounded huge. He told me stop boosting the bass and haul out a bunch of shit in the 1 kHz vicinity. It worked great! You might have to sweep the exact frequency--there's often a lot of undesirable shit in the 400-700 Hz region, for example, that clouds up the bass and sounds boxy and horrible.
6.) Another another tip for bass that is diametrically opposed to the previous one: If it's lacking clarity and hard to hear on small speakers, try figuring out where the fundamental is in general and boosting the 2nd and 3rd harmonics. Or maybe distorting it some.
7.) Don't be afraid of slapping an eq across your whole mix. Apparently, I find high treble frequencies painful and exhausting, because I mix everything in a way that sounds nice and full to me, but kind of like the '60s when I compare it to other recordings, especially modern ones. I could fuck around and make everything bright and painful to begin with, but I've found that I just need to mix it the way I hear it and then at the end, if it seems too dull in contrast to reference recordings, I just boost the highs across the whole mix.
8.) Related: There is some bullshit circulating on the internet about how you should always try to cut rather than boost when equalizing. That is some serious bullshit, originating in the days when boosting highs in particular would generate unconscionable amounts of program noise. Ignore that and boost or cut as needed.
9.) Further related: Regard anything you read on the internet as an idea of a thing to try rather than any kind of hard and fast rule. You probably know that already.
10.) A rule that applies to mixing but also to recording prior to mix: Keep shit as simple as you can. I've never needed to parallel compress anything. I've never needed more than one mic on a guitar cab. These days, I don't use more than twenty tracks on anything, and seldom that many.
11.) For that matter, maybe the single most important thing I've learned about recording and mixing over the last goddamn decade is this: RECORD IT LIKE YOU WANT THE FUCKING THING TO SOUND. Don't ever plan to "fix it in the mix." Make that shit sound as good as you know how to on the front end, play it as well as you can, and half your mixing work will be done for you. Editing the part to get it right when you could have just gone back and played it correctly is a pain in the ass and ends up with a less-compelling result, usually. If the part is to be played with effects, record it with effects (I make exceptions for reverb and sometimes delay). Never ever ever plan to "re-amp" your guitar tracks. In fact, tie your own hands there if you're not using an amp sim plugin, and record the part as it's intended to be, without keeping any sort of DI track lying around.
12.) Related: A good arrangement does another healthy percentage of the mixing for you. If you have five guitar parts fighting for the same frequency space as the vocal, a keyboard pad, and the goddamn string section, your mixing job is impossible until you throw some of that shit out.
13.) Oh, maybe you know this, but it was a revelation for me: The magic in drum sounds comes from the room mics. Everything else helps reinforce that and make certain bits more immediate or whatever, but the vibe is in the room mics. For a plugin, that's easy. For the kind of small room I record in, that means applying a really great room reverb.
Related: I have to admit I feel a little bit of dread about mixing my next project. My songwriting partner, D, is a great guy and I am extremely lucky to work with him. However, he has a) very specific ideas about how he wants things to sound, and b) the most peculiar set of vocabulary to describe them. Like when he told me he'd like to hear more clarity in the bass in our music. So I asked him to send me an example of a recording that sounded the way he wanted it to, and he sent me this track wherein the bass was all low subsonic rumble with the highs rolled off and no attack whatsoever--it sounded like a synth. Or the time he told me that he wished we could make a certain part more percussive but that he'd also like to take some of the attack out. Or the time he told me he wanted something to sound more compressed, and, after twenty minutes of wrangling, I figured out that by "more compressed" he meant "less compressed." One time I listened to some music in his car, and he's that asshole who always cranks the bass and the highs and leaves them that way in every rental car I get, so all I can hear is this sizzling shrieky hi-hat while the kick drum evacuates my bowels.
He is also the only person in history ever to say, "Can you make this sound more digital?"
We laugh about this shit together, and I give him a hard time, but he really does have a great ear and the music comes out better. It sure is rough getting there, though. Divided by a common language and all that.
Wish I had a silver bullet for you, but all I have is a pile of techniques, some or none of which might work at any given time. Here goes:
1.) Take lots of breaks. Your ears get used to hearing things a certain way, and before long you've cranked up the reverb to idiotic levels and your brain is basically subtracting it out. Every so often, take a ten minute break, think about something else, then come back and listen.
2.) Here's a weird one: when you think your mix is really happening, turn it up a little bit, then leave the room and close the door behind you. How does the mix sound on the other side of the door? I realize that is weird as shit, but something magical happens, and it's oddly revealing of out-of-whack balances.
3.) When mixing bass, turn that shit up. Thanks to Fletcher-Munson, we can't really hear bass properly at conversational volume. So mix everything you can at low volume (better for preventing fatigue and keeping family/neighbor peace anyway), and then crank it up when you need to make sure your low end is doing what it's supposed to.
4.) For anything pop/rock/contemporary (basically anything that will get compressed, so everything but jazz or classical), mix with a compressor on your stereo buss. It doesn't have to be smashing the shit out of your signal. 2-3 dB of gain reduction at loud parts is probably about right, depending. It has the effect of "gluing" your mix together. I kind of hate that term, but it fits. Everything just seems to be a little bit tighter and realer, and I do not know why.
5.) Another tip for bass: One time I emailed Mike Kelsey to ask him why I couldn't get any freaking bass out of my guitar, whereas his always sounded huge. He told me stop boosting the bass and haul out a bunch of shit in the 1 kHz vicinity. It worked great! You might have to sweep the exact frequency--there's often a lot of undesirable shit in the 400-700 Hz region, for example, that clouds up the bass and sounds boxy and horrible.
6.) Another another tip for bass that is diametrically opposed to the previous one: If it's lacking clarity and hard to hear on small speakers, try figuring out where the fundamental is in general and boosting the 2nd and 3rd harmonics. Or maybe distorting it some.
7.) Don't be afraid of slapping an eq across your whole mix. Apparently, I find high treble frequencies painful and exhausting, because I mix everything in a way that sounds nice and full to me, but kind of like the '60s when I compare it to other recordings, especially modern ones. I could fuck around and make everything bright and painful to begin with, but I've found that I just need to mix it the way I hear it and then at the end, if it seems too dull in contrast to reference recordings, I just boost the highs across the whole mix.
8.) Related: There is some bullshit circulating on the internet about how you should always try to cut rather than boost when equalizing. That is some serious bullshit, originating in the days when boosting highs in particular would generate unconscionable amounts of program noise. Ignore that and boost or cut as needed.
9.) Further related: Regard anything you read on the internet as an idea of a thing to try rather than any kind of hard and fast rule. You probably know that already.
10.) A rule that applies to mixing but also to recording prior to mix: Keep shit as simple as you can. I've never needed to parallel compress anything. I've never needed more than one mic on a guitar cab. These days, I don't use more than twenty tracks on anything, and seldom that many.
11.) For that matter, maybe the single most important thing I've learned about recording and mixing over the last goddamn decade is this: RECORD IT LIKE YOU WANT THE FUCKING THING TO SOUND. Don't ever plan to "fix it in the mix." Make that shit sound as good as you know how to on the front end, play it as well as you can, and half your mixing work will be done for you. Editing the part to get it right when you could have just gone back and played it correctly is a pain in the ass and ends up with a less-compelling result, usually. If the part is to be played with effects, record it with effects (I make exceptions for reverb and sometimes delay). Never ever ever plan to "re-amp" your guitar tracks. In fact, tie your own hands there if you're not using an amp sim plugin, and record the part as it's intended to be, without keeping any sort of DI track lying around.
12.) Related: A good arrangement does another healthy percentage of the mixing for you. If you have five guitar parts fighting for the same frequency space as the vocal, a keyboard pad, and the goddamn string section, your mixing job is impossible until you throw some of that shit out.
13.) Oh, maybe you know this, but it was a revelation for me: The magic in drum sounds comes from the room mics. Everything else helps reinforce that and make certain bits more immediate or whatever, but the vibe is in the room mics. For a plugin, that's easy. For the kind of small room I record in, that means applying a really great room reverb.
Related: I have to admit I feel a little bit of dread about mixing my next project. My songwriting partner, D, is a great guy and I am extremely lucky to work with him. However, he has a) very specific ideas about how he wants things to sound, and b) the most peculiar set of vocabulary to describe them. Like when he told me he'd like to hear more clarity in the bass in our music. So I asked him to send me an example of a recording that sounded the way he wanted it to, and he sent me this track wherein the bass was all low subsonic rumble with the highs rolled off and no attack whatsoever--it sounded like a synth. Or the time he told me that he wished we could make a certain part more percussive but that he'd also like to take some of the attack out. Or the time he told me he wanted something to sound more compressed, and, after twenty minutes of wrangling, I figured out that by "more compressed" he meant "less compressed." One time I listened to some music in his car, and he's that asshole who always cranks the bass and the highs and leaves them that way in every rental car I get, so all I can hear is this sizzling shrieky hi-hat while the kick drum evacuates my bowels.
He is also the only person in history ever to say, "Can you make this sound more digital?"
We laugh about this shit together, and I give him a hard time, but he really does have a great ear and the music comes out better. It sure is rough getting there, though. Divided by a common language and all that.
