When mixing.....where do you start?

What's Hot
I foolishly always start with the intro meaning I run out of headroom and have to go abck and redo parts because the intro is rarely the loudest part.

When mixing where do you start?

Do you get close to a full mix on one section first and then work from there, or do you get a whole instrument working throughout the whole song and work it from there?

My current method feels like it's probably not the most efficient.
ဈǝᴉʇsɐoʇǝsǝǝɥɔဪቌ
0reaction image LOL 0reaction image Wow! 0reaction image Wisdom

Comments

  • octatonicoctatonic Frets: 33725
    Learn how to gain stage.
    Aim to have the track peak at -5db (to leave room for a mastering engineer)

    Depends on the genre but with hard rock and metal I start with drums- you can get away with a lot more if the drums sound right.
    With everything else I start with vocal or the lead instrument(s) (if instrumental).

    I get a basic drum sound happening, then add in bass and guitars, working in verse/chorus chunks, usually.
    Post an example of where you are at and I can critique, if you like.
    0reaction image LOL 0reaction image Wow! 0reaction image Wisdom
  • CirrusCirrus Frets: 8481
    edited November 2013
    I have opinions about this, at least the psychology and general process of mixing... 

    Firstly, agreed about gain staging. It's important to get the individual tracks sensibly set - aim for -15db or so on peaks, and you won't go far wrong. It'll most likely improve the tone of your converters too! When I'm recording stuff I try to set recording levels that mean that when it comes to mix time, setting all the faders at 0db gives me everything at least in the right ballpark volume wise. That helps a lot because the mix is always the product of the performances and the arrangement, if you get them right the mix is usually fun. Get them wrong and you'll be fighting it every step of the way. Recording with a rough mix in mind as you go helps you maintain perspective here. 

    Step one is to do the boring stuff. Label the tracks, arrange them sensibly, tidy up errors in timing, clean up bum notes and if you need to comp vocal takes. Then start mixing. 

    Perspective is the key word. With DAW mixing it's easy to concentrate on minutia, miss the forest for the trees, or spent way too long tweaking something and forget what you were trying to achieve in the first place. So at every stage you need to act decisively and boldly. I start with all the faders down. I bring up each one in turn , quickly set a level + pan position and move on with the intention of creating a very basic static mix. The aim at this stage is to work out what the song's about, what the strengths are and weaknesses if any. I'll instinctively decide to maybe emphasise the drums, or push the bass up, or try a few different blends and see what works best. I try to do this quickly so as not to get attached to one particular blend. In particular, the bass and kick balance is vital. 

    Once I've got a fader and pan pot mix sorted, I put on the master buss compressor. Since I've been doing that my mixes have improved but there's definitely a learning curve for mixing into one. I just use it to take 1 or 2 db off the drum transients, but the result is a punchier mix that is more likely to survive mastering intact (assuming you set the attack and release right!) 

    After that, It's basically about doing whatever it occurs to me to do next. Usually I add some individual compression where needed, typically bass, drum buss and vocals but it's totally down to the song. The better the arrangement and performances you've recorded the less eq you'll need, but eq is something I adjust at all stages to get the sounds I want. I don't really believe in carving eq shapes for the sake of it or automatically high/low pass filtering unless there's a problem somewhere, but sometimes a bit of tweaking will make things sit better. 

    Don't process for the sake of processing. It's very easy to get into the mindset that every channel NEEDS compression, eq and reverb to work right. It doesn't. It's fine to leave something if it already sounds fine, and you should only process when your ears tell you you should. 

    I tend to add delay and reverb during recording if that's the production style I want, but at mix time I quiet often set up delay and reverb sends so they're handy if the mood takes me. I find a band passed analogue delay can be a better reverb than actual reverb in a lot of cases without muddying the mix the same way reverb does. 

    Once I think the static mix with processing sounds exciting, together and pretty much the way I want it, I start automating. I'll typically go from the beginning and just keep doing passes - bumping drums in choruses, creating dynamics and contrast and trying to make the mix exciting. When you get it right it'll pull the listener in and propel the song from section to section. Always remember you're mixing into the master buss compressor and use that to your advantage. 

    The automation stage is the tricky one, and you might find you've mixed yourself into a corner and need to go back and undo some stages. That's why I like to go from the beginning and 'sign off' each section as I'm happy with it. Once you get to where you think you might be finished, bounce it down before you start endlessly tweaking! You can easily unmix something that's basically there. Listen to it on a few systems, make tweaks with fresh ears and a fresh head and call it done.
    0reaction image LOL 0reaction image Wow! 2reaction image Wisdom
  • DeijavooDeijavoo Frets: 3298
    I'm no genius but don't mix instruments in isolation and flip to mono mix. If it sounds good there,  it'll sound great in stereo. 
    0reaction image LOL 0reaction image Wow! 1reaction image Wisdom
  • CirrusCirrus Frets: 8481
    Truth. You should try being a genius though, the trick is to drink a glass of whiskey then write a small essay on a guitar forum. >:D<
    5reaction image LOL 0reaction image Wow! 0reaction image Wisdom
  • Drew_TNBDDrew_TNBD Frets: 22445
    Drums. I find the phattest most agro section, and I mix that to sound epic, then I do minor adjustments to cater for some of the calmer stuff.

    Then I get the kick drum and bass sitting well together.

    From there, it pretty much mixes itself.
    0reaction image LOL 0reaction image Wow! 0reaction image Wisdom
  • I prob wasnt being clear, i always start with the drums too. What I mean is where in the song do you start? As in structurally?
    ဈǝᴉʇsɐoʇǝsǝǝɥɔဪቌ
    0reaction image LOL 0reaction image Wow! 0reaction image Wisdom
  • I start with the parts with distorted guitar - just guitar and drums. I get those to clarity (so they're not interfering with each other) then add the bass and make sure the kick drum's coming through OK. Adding vocals and any extras tends to be a case of just fitting them around the other bits.

    Once that's done, the clean bits often just fall into place (with a bit of automation to bring the levels and overall dynamics to an appropriate level).

    Caveat: I also have absolutely no idea what I'm doing, so this is just an approach which works for me.
    <space for hire>
    0reaction image LOL 0reaction image Wow! 0reaction image Wisdom
  • octatonicoctatonic Frets: 33725
    I prob wasnt being clear, i always start with the drums too. What I mean is where in the song do you start? As in structurally?
    Depends on the song.
    I tend to mix from the loudest section first though, as it helps with gain staging.
    0reaction image LOL 0reaction image Wow! 0reaction image Wisdom
  • Danny1969Danny1969 Frets: 10357

    A good trick with gain staging is to put a trim plugin on every track, that way if you run out of headroom you can fix it without overwriting any automation. Also helps when something comes in that's been tracked too loud to begin with. 

    For rock \ pop songs most meat is verse and chorus so most of the time it's getting the vocal there right and building the base of drums and guitars underneath. You put the vocal where you want it and everything is mixed to that .... rather than building up drums bass and guitars and then putting the vocal on top. I got that trick from Bob Clearmountains website, before that I always used to start with the drums, then add the bass and guitars etc

    Another track I've learned is turn off the computer monitor if you have some kind of Hui controller and use only your ears. I find myself looking for visual clues if the computer monitors on and it should purely be an audible thing. Obviously if you gotta use a mouse to mix then that won't work

    Regarding gain and volume as James has said the industry has backed itself into a corner mastering wise. The mix's have to be loud otherwise  Johnny X's new single won't have the impact volume wise of the Foo Fighters or whatever. Trouble is you can't get a loud master if the track is mixed with more than a few dB of dynamics to begin with, so you gotta mix with a loud master in mind. The more compressed and flat the individual tracks are the easier it is to get a loud master.  Now you can spend hours achieving this with automation and rightly so but the projects I do don't have the budget so I use a lot of compression, 
    www.2020studios.co.uk 
    0reaction image LOL 0reaction image Wow! 0reaction image Wisdom
  • Several of you have mentioned gain staging. Im fairly familiar with the idea when tracking but havent really consdidered it with mixing, this may actually be part of my problem as i end up essentially going back and remixing sections i've done because ive run out of headroom. Any good resources on gains taging while mixing?
    ဈǝᴉʇsɐoʇǝsǝǝɥɔဪቌ
    0reaction image LOL 0reaction image Wow! 0reaction image Wisdom
  • Danny1969Danny1969 Frets: 10357

    To be honest the term Gain staging is more relevant to matching signals in the analog world, where noise levels and impendence make a difference. We generally shoot for 0dB when setting mic gain on an analoq desk for example because that's the optimum level of signal to noise ratio .... too low a voltage will mean the noise of the opamps and resistors etc is a problem and too high a voltage will mean clipping of the power supply rails. 
    With digital mixing inside the daw  most of these problems go away as it's not voltage amplification but math ..... the signal to noise ratio is the same as when it went in. It's quite hard to clip any DAW internally as the dynamic range of  32 bit or 48 bit processing is immense. But the file has to hit a converter on the way out and maximum level there is 0dBFS so the combined sum of every track obviously can't add up to over that. From a theory point of view that's it. 

    There are other things to consider though, you could internally clip some plugins .. So I keep everything low, track around -18 0dBdfs
    and set around  -16 0dBdfs for pre plug mixing. As far as I can tell there's no advantage in having things too digitally hot as you can always use the master fader for overall level. It's just maths to the computer


    www.2020studios.co.uk 
    0reaction image LOL 0reaction image Wow! 2reaction image Wisdom
Sign In or Register to comment.