Mixing Tips

Danny1969

Have you got an iLok ?  cos it will need that as well 

guitarfishbay

Have you explored the drum replacement tool in Logic yet? Trigger is great and is miles faster, but if you're skint you should give the Logic stuff a go first, you might get something decent out of the drummer samples. You use it to get the midi, trigger works on audio tracks, but the end result is changing the snare sound either way.

Deijavoo

No iLok and i didn't realise Logic had drum replacement. Do you just basically run a track of Drummer?

guitarfishbay

No, you use the tool to scan for transients, then it converts those to midi which you can use with drummer if you want to.

http://support.apple.com/kb/PH12927

You will probably find that you'll want to edit midi velocities after you've got the data to get the right dynamics with the samples you're using.  The other thing is that sometimes depending on the amount of bleed you can't get the threshold to an optimum level so in my experience if that happens the best plan is to have it set to let too much through, click ok, then start muting the unnecessary notes.

I've not used it since Logic 9 - but I remember if you edited for the unnecessary notes before clicking 'ok' you then lost your edits after you clicked ok.

I've got Slate Trigger now, which is much faster and more advanced. It does cost money though, and if you just want to use some samples you already have via midi the Logic tool will get you to the same place it just takes longer.

ChrisMusic

Bear in mind that if you are just using the snare track, or whatever else is needed for replacement or reinforcement, that you can EQ the hell out of it to isolate the appropriate transients.

You are not looking for "tone", just removing as many redundant hits as possible, a lot of which will depend on your drummers consistency.  By drastically reducing the energy in other parts of the frequency spectrum in the rest of the spill, you may end up with a much cleaner trigger track to start off with.  Mixing that approach with gating and manual muting and finally editing/cleaning the midi trigger track should get you there.

Depending on the gear available, and how you like working, you can either split the drum track and the EQ the trigger track (etc) on separate channels so you can hear, and work on, both live, or just create the triggers and then go back to introducing the live drums afterwards.

If you have access to parametric EQ, and can get your head around it, it is a very powerful tool for helping with this.

Personally I much prefer the sound and feel of well recorded live drums, but you need to do whatever serves the track the best IMHO.

Cirrus

For fear of adding a pile-on of redundant opinions/ suggestions...  B-)

My process is basically;

-Tidy up performances and route to busses.

-Levels

-Panning (Usually LCR)

-Mix Bus Compressor

-Drum Bus Compressor

-Vocal Compression

-Bass Compression

-Completely random chaotic "whatever pops into my head next" things re individual and group track processing

-Automating the resulting static mix once it's where I want it

I like to do editing some time before the mix session so I can approach it fresh. Then it maybe takes me 45-90 minutes to get to the automating stage, then automating can take anywhere from 5 minutes to 3 hours. It just depends what needs doing to create some drama/ flow.

As far as washy cymbals, weak snare etc goes... I've found that sometimes you need surprisingly little overheads to get the cymbals coming through nicely. And I say this as a proponent of the "get most of the sound from the overheads/ room mics" method. I'm not above automating the overheads down actually if there are certain sections of the song where cymbal washes get overbearing. Or as an alternative, Cymbals are usually at their most annoying in the 2-6K region and this is very mic dependent, so maybe automate some cuts there in problematic sections or even use a dynamic EQ/ multiband compressor if it's not too severe.

As for the snare, obviously it totally depends on the actual recorded sound but I quite often find that a little narrow boost right at the fundamental frequency, coupled with a narrow cut at the next most resonant harmonic (usually somewhere around 300hz rather than the 5 or 600hz harmonics that give the snare its metallic "boing" sound -I LOVE those!) gives it more apparent weight and impact, coupled with a boost around 3k and some generous high end boost and/or undersnare mic. Also, I like to jack it up loud enough in the drum mix that it's the primary factor in causing the drum bus compressor to do some gain reduction - get some transients through then have the snare duck cymbal wash etc and it sounds like the snare has authority.

Bleed is important to be aware of. I dislike gates quite a lot because they can leave you with a situation where bleed isn't an issue UNTIL THE DRUM IS HIT at which point a big gob of horribly EQ'd, processed, off axis bleed pours through the channel for a few hundred milliseconds and it's more distracting than if you'd not gated in the first place. For that reason I like to find a balance of the drum tracks that takes into account bleed and results in a good overall picture, then for the most part work within that picture. Some gentle expansion with look ahead can help things if it's an issue at that point.

Anyway I could go on forever and bore the tits off you with thoughts that are probably unhelpful at best or plain wrong at worst.

Do try mix bus compression if you haven't already though. And never process in Solo.

Deijavoo

Thanks mate. I really appreciate all the advice and time taken here from everyone to help a borderline production moron such as myself.

PolarityMan

I always pan first and tend to EQ before compression. But my mixes certainly aren;t the best in the world so perhaps that's not really an effective way to approach things.

@cirrus It's interesting that you put your mix bus compression on first, is this basically just a limiter? How do you accurately hear what the other compressors are doing if everything is going into the mix bus compressor?

Cirrus

I put it on first because I want to mix through it - it'll be set to a gentle ratio and between 1 and 4db gain reduction on the peaks, short attack and a release time that compliments the groove of the song. Then once I'm reasonably happy with what it's doing I basically forget about it and carry on mixing as normal.

It means I don't need to compress individual elements quite as much, and the whole mix reacts to the groove of the kick and snare and whatever else I chose to move to the front - basically adding cohesion as a result. It also gives a tighter mix with built-in transients as long as I set it right - the attack envelope helps percussion pop out of the steady-state body of the sound. Since it's a constant from that point on it does interact with other compression, but I always adjust settings by ear anyway so whatever processing I add is (in theory, I fuck it up all the time) done to the betterment of the mix bus compressed track - if I didn't have that overall compression my individual settings would surely be more severe.

As an aside, it also equals less surprises when the track is mastered and the transients are all lopped off with a hatchet. |)

Deijavoo

Yeah, I should maybe just send the tracks on....

Cirrus

@Deijavoo don't give up! Post clips.

Deijavoo

To be honest that's me just being maudlin. I can't afford to get it done anywhere.

I just figured my ears and basic understanding of Logic would get me through. One second I think "it's a tool to get gigs", the next one I think "how can I make this sound like Tool?"

:-) 

PolarityMan

Deijavoo said:

 "how can I make this sound like Tool?"

Not release it until 2019?

Deijavoo

No need to rush these things mate

Cirrus

Get free mixes by making a thefretboard mix event. Sorted.

Deijavoo

Biggest Wisdom of 2015!

Deijavoo

Fuck sake. Spent all week on this again and was moderately happy so I stuck a preset master strip on my output channel, tweaked that a bit and thought it sounded good.

Just tried it in my car and it's awful. No balls, the bass disappears, the kit is too loud but to be fair I've only roughly done the vocals for now and they sound ok. Even with this fake master on it's very very quiet too. 

Honestly my guitars are paper thin. Gutted. 

Danny1969

Well these things can take time, my early mixes sucked too. It's all about having a go, listening back, referencing it on other systems and in time you get better

Although you have a compressor \ limiter on the master bus you still won't get near commercial level unless the individual tracks are well under control ...... especially things with big transients like kick drum, bass guitar and snare. So you need to make sure nothings varying too wildly before it hits the master bus

A very good free limiter which will enable you to get a very hot level is the Massey 2007 limiter, it sound great, much more transparent the the Waves stuff. 

Don't be tempted to EQ and process stuff for the sake of it. From your pictures it looks like it was tracked in a proper studio. So generally there shouldn't be much to do guitar wise  as you generally track the sound you want rather than rely a lot of post processing in the mix. If the guitars are well recorded they should pretty much be there on their own

guitarfishbay

Are you mixing on speakers? If your room has big issues then you're flying semi blind and will have unexpected low end issues - you can't mix what you can't hear properly. It might be worth using headphones you're familiar with and seeing if you get a better result. Also a preset master strip could be doing any number of things to the mix. Especially if it includes a multiband compressor - that can very quickly unbalance your mix and wreck your balance unless you're careful with it. Likewise any preset mastering EQ is no more than a guess. Keep at it dude, the only way to get better is to keep trying.

ChrisMusic

Welcome to the wacky world of engineering, mixing and production  

It may help to have a reference.

Much like a photographer uses a colour chart in a photograph, so you can tell if the whole spectrum, and the densities from black to white, are correct, or at least controlled to produce the effect or product you want.

You can follow the analogy of light and dark to be dynamics, and spectrum to refer to frequency spectrum, or choose your own interpretation if you prefer.

Your car play-back experience sounds like the photographic equivalent of putting a strongly coloured filter over the lens, and printing soft focus and without enough contrast, it just looks wrong in the real world.

I used to (way back in my past life) have a couple of tracks which I used for that purpose.  Excellently arranged, engineered, mixed, and mastered (not brick-walled).  They were appropriate to the music styles I was working with, but were also a great reference way beyond that.

If you are working in different studios and different acoustic environments, it is very useful to get a quick understanding of how the equipment and the acoustics behave.

The same applies to replay equipment and acoustic environments.  Your comment about the car is a perfect example of the massive variability of listening environments, and the challenge of producing a robust product that works acceptably wherever anyone wants to listen.

In the same way that your eyes quickly adapt to the change in lighting from outdoor daylight to a dimmer interior space lit by warm tungsten bulbs, your ears quickly become accustomed to the sounds you are listening to, and make up for any inadequacies.

The normalising of lighting over an incredibly wide dynamic range from dark to sunlight shows the amazing nature of our sense organs, and perception, and the ability to correct colour under massively different lighting conditions, so that a white shirt still looks white, and a red dress still looks red, and sexy, is a testimony to the success of evolution.

You only have to look at photographs where the colour balance was set wrongly to see what is really visible, orange interior shots, or blue looking outdoor ones are obvious, and are the truth, but when we move from one to the other, it just takes seconds for the brain to adjust.

I used to find it very useful to use my favourite reference track to check that a mix was indeed working to my requirements.  This is less important to RHC and Danny as they have worked in the same environment for long enough to gain an innate understanding of it, but if you are new to production or are working in different studios etc, it can really help.  Maybe not to be done in front of clients mind.

As your ears get fatigued from intense listening and the same material, and you get used to the "colours" and dynamics, your brain adapts to tell you that's right.  Take a break, walk, lunch, whatever, or even a couple of days or weeks if you can for an important mix, and come back to it, and your auditory senses have recalibrated to the real world and you hear the material fresh.  That can be a bit of a shock sometimes, as you found out.

Mixing on a selection different monitors (maybe 2 or 3 types) to represent the differing listening equipment that people use in the real world is useful.  i.e. car to living room studio.  As is taking it into the real world to listen to.

Putting on a reference track during the process can be a sobering reminder of how quickly our ears adapt, and a good way to get back "on track", and meet the production values which we admired so much to choose that track as reference material in the first place.

If you choose a beautifully crafted reference track, it sets the bar pretty high, and gives you a challenge to meet, or at least approach, remember it has probably cost thousands to produce it. and probably a lifetime of enhancing their own skills to be able do that.

But you seem like someone who appreciates a challenge.  Good luck...

I hope that makes some sense, a bit of an essay, but I hope it helps, production should be exciting and fun IMHO.