Second, try and keep the volume at lower levels - too much volume will inevitably begin to affect your perception (for more info, do a web search for the “Fletcher-Munson Curve”).Īlso, when you’re mixing remember to change your perspective often. Starting a mix after you’ve been tracking for eight hours will pretty much assure you’ll be starting again the next day. One is to always try and mix with fresh ears. But there are a few points that are pretty much universal. Just as with any artistic endeavor, everyone has their own set of tricks and techniques, and what works for me might not do the trick for you. The hours you will add to your mixdown time will absolutely come back to bite you in the end. Particularly with the near limitless tracks offered by today’s DAW programs, it’s all too easy to just record another take and adopt a “fix it in the mix” attitude. And try to keep the number of takes of any given part to a minimum few things are more mentally exhausting than listening through dozens of takes of a vocal or solo to compile a single track.In fact, planning for your mix while you’re tracking is probably the number one most overlooked issue in recording. Only add what’s needed for the arrangement, rather than cluttering it with overdubs. It’s far more difficult to go back and re-record a part, or fix it in the mix, than it is to get it right the first time.It’s also a good idea to think in terms of the song and the arrangement from the very beginning. Be on the lookout not just for mistakes, but stray noises and other anomalies. Strive to achieve the cleanest tracks you can, with no excess noise or distortion.Most importantly, don’t forget to listen closely while you’re recording. It should go without saying that achieving the best mix starts with a good recording. Needless to say, these characteristics alone do not make for a perfect mix, but a mix that lacks any one of them will very likely end up being at least a little bit problematic. There should also be an element of natural ambience to each instrument, and the ambience for these different instruments should blend well with each other. Of course, this will vary depending on the genre of music. The music itself should have space – places between the notes where things breathe and dynamics develop. The mix should also be balanced between left and right channels.Īs with balance, this applies on many levels. A mix that’s too bottom heavy or too shrill will be unpleasant and exhausting to listen to. The mix should offer a good balance of frequencies. Sure, there’s nothing wrong with a “wall of sound” if that’s what you’re after, but even within those big, lush guitars, a great mix will be crisp and well-defined enough for the listener to pick out individual sounds. But most engineers will agree that a good mix should contain a few common characteristics:Įach sound in the mix should be clean and clear - no muddiness or blurring of the sounds or the stereo image, no excess noise or other anomalies.Įach instrument and part should be easily discernable. It’s probably safe to say that most modern recordings bear only a passing resemblance to the sound of a band playing live in front of the listener.Īs stated earlier, the definition of a good sounding mix is largely in the ears of the listener. In the studio, tracks tend to be recorded separately, in a relatively dry setting, enabling us to control their perceived ambience with the aid of technology.In actual practice, modern stereo mixing has less to do with replicating real world conditions than with creating a good sounding balance between the various musical elements in a recording. In a live performance, the acoustics of the venue itself play a prominent role in blending the sound sources and masking the localization of any particular instrument. Part of this is due to practical considerations. In a perfect world, a true stereo mix would create a sound that’s as close as possible to an organic, live performance.But in the real world, much of the process of creating a stereo mix is far from organic or natural. For example, the brain localizes a sound by measuring the time and tonal differences between the sound arriving at one ear and the other. “True” stereo mixing involves creating a sonic picture that replicates what our two ears hear - and our brains decode - in the real world. At its most basic, mixing in stereo means mixing for the human brain and physiology.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |