Accelerate me please!

[zackpennington]

I believe in natural talents. My 1st mix ever sounds leaps and bounds better than my old bass player's mix of the same song, and he went to recording school and has been working at a studio full time for almost a year.

And that's everyone's opinion, not just mine.

 

[cloy26]

I believe in natural talents. My 1st mix ever sounds leaps and bounds better than my old bass player's mix of the same song, and he went to recording school and has been working at a studio full time for almost a year.

And that's everyone's opinion, not just mine.

This.

I have friends in Full Sail. I think I said something about this story before.

We tracked 2 weekends ago for their other band that I'm not part of. A breakdown band that's been played out. OK, fine. I always love working on my recording and mixing so I told them to come down to my hour.

I heard previous attempts at recording the song by the graduate of full sail... It was bad. He sent me the multi tracks of another song that he wrote for teh other band that I am in and I saw the DIs... They were clipping so hard I told him I couldn't even stand to try and learn the song from it...

Anyways, to make this long drawn out story short, They came down, we tracked and they were astonished. They couldn't believe how it sounded so good. I laughed and thought they were joking. I didn't reamp anything or sample the drums or anything and they were blown away at how great it sounded.

Moral of the story: Even when you pay 60k dollars for a recording "degree", it doesn't mean you are going to have it. Obviously recording consists of a lot of black and white facts, but there is an entire portion of mixing and recording that is still creative, and schools can't teach you that. I think it all boils down to whether or not you can pay attention to details well enough. Because someone said it on here before, but what makes a great mix stand out from a decent mix could be like .1db on the vocal track, and if you aren't paying attention to the subtleties of the mix, you'll never address it.

 

[-J-]

embrace mediocrity. works for me!

 

[AerialThesis]

Correct tracking is what makes most of the songs sound kick ass. You have the right to mess it up with eq, but everything should be mostly done at the tracking. I suggest mixing in mono for mono is much more of a challenge then in stereo. You start by tracking the most important instrument or track of your mix with the sound you want it to have.

Then you track everything else in correlation to that track. You move the mics on each thing you track till you can clearly hear the instrument thru the monitor while everything else is playing. Then you solo that track and judge if you like the sound of it by muting and unmuting. Once everything is tracked, you allready know that every instruments as it's own sweet spot in the spectrum. You can now monitor in stereo, high pass everything you judge as a bit too much bass and maybe cut some unwanted frequencies in each sound, then pan everything and start mixing from there.

That is how I work. You might like it or not, I believe it makes the mixing stage much more easier for me. Oh and for fake cabs, midi bass and drum samples... I don't believe in that shit since tracking organic or should I say natural instruments is what I like the best. For mixing, I suggest listening to everything you do carefully. Am I compressing this instrument just for the hell of it or does that instrument really needs compression? Does that track sound dry compared to the rest of the mix? Do I feel a certain instrument lacks definition? on and on till you get your mix somewhere you judge is better than the raw tracks pre-mixed.

Than wait a day or two and try a second mix from scratch and A/B both your mixes. See what you like in both and make a 3rd mix with what youve heard in mind. Does that mix satisfy you? Then it's done. Do not compare it to something else for ears adapt to every musical tone with time and the main goal in mixing is getting everything to sound defined but homogenic. Boosting 16 db's on the high end of a vocal track won't make it sound as good as another mix's vocal track that didn't require any boost in the high end to sound defined. I simply believe it's all done in the tracking stage and that you can't force something to sound like another if you didn't use the exact same tracking chain.

 

[ahjteam]

Lets say that personally I think I've improved a lot in the past years... It mainly had to do with a) being a in-house engineer at a local club since 2005 b) being a trainee at studio harju in 2007 c) getting to study music technology to pirkanmaa university of applied sciences in the fall of 2008. If you compare 2004 to 2007 to 2008 to 2009, I would say that there is a huge difference between 2004 and 2009. It is a slow process, and I still have a long way to go.

 

[HandsOfDespair]

I've been doing this for around a year and 2 months maybe, and the thing I learned that helped me the most is to take your time. Plugins are facultative. Your mix should sound great even without plugins, just with a good volume balance and a good panning (assuming the tracking was good).

Put all the faders all the way down. Take an element and rise it but leave a lot of headroom. Than, take all the other elements one by one and rise them so they fit with the rest.

It's all just a matter of time. It pisses me off too that what sounds good to my ears now will sound like shit in a couple of months, but that's just normal. Don't obsess over that.

 

[cloy26]

I do that a lot ^

I'll get the drums to where I want with plenty of head room and then bring in the bass. then guitars then vocals. My mixes sound much more controlled that way.