How do you start your mixes?

[EmilDelaRosa]

I know that it's going to be different for everyone and I'm looking for interesting stuff that you guys do. I personally start with drums then bass then guitars then vocals. This is because everytime I mix I reference Ermz's book, and somehow I think i've developed a bad habit. I think i've read his book for more than 15 times now lol.

I've also read and watched a lot of interviews recently from pro-mixers and it seems that they all mix in a non-linear way. What's your take on this when mixing itb?

Lastly, how often do you solo?

 

[plisken]

What tracks I start with I would say depends... If it was just a straight up band with no keyboards or orchestrations or anything like that. Then I would do it drums, bass, guitars, vocals.

But if there is keyboards and orchestration's especially. Then I will do those first. Then go on to bass guitar. Then Drums. Then guitars, vocals.

Developing a habit in terms of mixing is usually not a good thing :S. You want to be very flexible. You don't wanna get into the mind set of doing things a certain way because you have always done it that way. BUT if that way happens to work well then you go for it.

As far as soloing. Not often. You always wanna hear things in terms of the overall mix. The only times I solo is when I'm doing something that involves changing the tone of something or trying to pin point what ever it is that might be bothering me in the mix.

 

[RedDog]

I'll start by gain staging everything to my taste, and begin a mix in mono. then set up my submixes. check for phase issues and correct them. stripping out unneeded audio (tom spill, spot mic bleed. etc.) and shaping the drums. basic mixing, compression where needed, and subtractive eq first, and bus fx. then I'll pan drums out, see how they behave, if I like it, onto my bass. That treatment process usually comes quicker with a riding program. Onto guitars, get em juicy and defizz em. insert vocals and it all goes apeshit from there.

 

[DavePiatek]

Pans, Faders, Filters

 

[Mago]

With the thing that I feel is most important for that song
(after gainstaging/filtering and a rough fader/pan mix)

 

[greyskull]

Rough Balance from Drums up to get the feel of the song, Check phase relationship of drum mics, inverting polarity of snare mics is fairly common. Then I start delving into Eq, soloing things here and there to hear where the junk I want to cut out is, but may do some overall tone shaping in solo. Then unsolo tracks and continue to shape sounds around each other. SOmetimes I solo just the kick and bass guitar to try to get them to mesh together a little better, and sometimes bass and guitars together to check they're working as a unit.

Turn On Bus Compressor

Compress Tracks where needed,
Pan stuff
Automate Oh's and room mics on choruses and Hats and Ride when not playing
Look at other automation to give the song movement,
Automate Delay throws where wanted and reverbs in and out.

 

[Bay Studio]

Rough Balance from Drums up to get the feel of the song, Check phase relationship of drum mics, inverting polarity of snare mics is fairly common. Then I start delving into Eq, soloing things here and there to hear where the junk I want to cut out is, but may do some overall tone shaping in solo. Then unsolo tracks and continue to shape sounds around each other. SOmetimes I solo just the kick and bass guitar to try to get them to mesh together a little better, and sometimes bass and guitars together to check they're working as a unit.

Turn On Bus Compressor

Compress Tracks where needed,
Pan stuff
Automate Oh's and room mics on choruses and Hats and Ride when not playing
Look at other automation to give the song movement,
Automate Delay throws where wanted and reverbs in and out.

Exactly what greyskull said! After i´ve got a decent sounding mix where i´m not going to change all toooo much, i group all audio tracks and set my master level at -18dbfs.

 

[Nuno Filipe]

If you have a band that the music shines around the singer it´s a bad option to leave the vocals to the end, because they will be the most important part of the mix.

I start with drum and the bass, I solo the kick and the bass to get the low end flowing, then the rest of the drums, except the toms, I always leave the toms to the very end. After bass and drum, I eq what I think to be a good guitar sound but nothing fancy, then I jump to the vocals because it´s important to mix the vocals before the guitars. They share a lot of the same frequencies and When the guitars are sounding like a beast and too dominant, it´s where you see that you didnt leave space for vocals, so I try to avoid that.

 

[drew_drummer]

Drums.

 

[Mm1066]

Drums.

+1

 

[LBTM]

1. Mute monitors
2. Set the levels based on the meters
3. Turn off the screen
4. Listening to the song with a notepad writing down notes on what's wrong and how I want the mix to sound
5. Drums (Replacing Kick, Replacing Snare, OHs, Etc, Replacing Toms, Room)
6. Bass
7. Guitars
8. Vocals
9. Others
10. Big Break
11. Volume Adjustment (+Automations)
12. Repeat step (1-4)-{2}
13. Repeat step (10-12)
14. Exporting
15. Mastering
16. Long break.
17. Listening again. If it sounds good then OK, if it needs slight adjustments I make them. If it sounds bad I start over.

Something like that.
While tracking I just set the levels to the monitors and don't really thinking anything about mixing.
For albums I mix 3 songs a day if it's just drums/guitars/bass/vocals and it don't require a lot of editing.

 

[Mashreef]

Drums-Bass-Guitar-Keyboard-Vocals-Guitar solo-Fx

 

[plisken]

Is it just me? I end up replacing a kick with a sample like 90% of the time. Whats it like with you guys?

Also that 10% that I don't replace with a sample, are usually good enough to use AS a sample in the future.

 

[jeid]

Is it just me? I end up replacing a kick with a sample like 90% of the time. Whats it like with you guys?

Also that 10% that I don't replace with a sample, are usually good enough to use AS a sample in the future.

I pretty much always replace with a sample as well, only recently have I had a couple of good drummers with good sounding kits that I've just augmented the kick, usually with more of the natural kick than sample.

 

[JeffTD]

Gainstaging as I bring in each additional track, but I generally go Drums, bass, guitar, vocals, keys when I'm starting up and getting a feel for the song/rough tones, eq/character compression

When I actually get to levels, balancing, automation, etc... (the real 'mixing'), it's drums, vocals, bass, keys, guitars.

 

[LBTM]

Is it just me? I end up replacing a kick with a sample like 90% of the time. Whats it like with you guys?

If the mic is inside the drum:
If the drummer is tight enough I just replace the bad hits in the grid.
If he isn't tight enough I convert it to midi and fix everything.

If I go for an outside mic, deep sound, I put the mic inside the drum and replace it.

 

[thefalloftheheretic]

Standard mix: Drums, Bass, Guitars, Vocals, Other.
More strings intensive mixes get the strings mixed in after the bass.

 

[lanky noob]

Generally, gain staging, drums, bass (make sure it sits nicely with the kick), add in guitars and revisit bass to see it's all meshing properly, then vox, take a break, rinse and repeat until i'm happy, automate, master, bounce, check to see if any tweaks need to be made, rinse and repeat

 

[Mikaël-ange]

Organisation, layout, color coding and gain staging are done during session prep stage for me.
So after that I listen to the ruff, write down my first impression about what is important on this ruff.
I also write what element is the vocal point in each section (could be vocal, could be a gtr...etc).

Once I figured out all that I start to loop the section I want to treat as my peak, do my rough balance for that section. And I start to work on the lead vocal. Next are element that connect to those vocal.
Once done I jump to drum, then gtr/synth/whatever, and bass.

 

[jarrysopa1984]

Drums.

For me also, drums first. I my opinion the most important thing is the snare, because it has to kind of "carry" the beat through the song.