Where to Begin?

BrentOnTheSynth

BrentOnTheSynth

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Jul 18, 2012
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Hello everyone! I am really new to the world of producing and mixing. and by really new I mean I don't really know anything... but! I am really adamant to begin learning!

I was just wondering how everyone began. I really want to begin working on mixing but I wanted to learn a lot before buying a bunch of equipment and so I bought Bobby Oswinski's Mixing Engineering Handbook (It hasn't came in yet, so I haven't began reading it) I don't really know where to begin because since there is so much to learn it's really overwhelming. I wanted to download some raw mixes and play around with them to learn stuff but whenever I mess with VSTs and stuff I have no idea what all the knobs and terms mean. I play synth a little and used to play bass (neither of which am I really good at) but I know a little about music terms but when I go to mix something a little bit I get so confused. I have no idea the properties and parameters of Reverb, Compressors and EQ or any essintials to mixing.

Please don't mistake this for me wanting any handouts or anything I was just wanting to know if I could get some pointers to where I should start or how to grasp how to use things and learn the parameters and things.

P.S. I spend a lot of time on the forums and on the internet reading up but with out the basic knowledge of how to use different knobs and the parameters and what they do/mean in mixes I cant learn much. If that makes since?

Thank You for any insight or tips anyone can give me it will be much appreciated! :)
 
Start recording with whatever knowledge/gear you have. If you wait until you're "ready" to start recording bands, you'll never start. Learn from your mistakes, read as much as you can and find someone in town who's further along the path than you are to help mentor you. Never stop learning.
 
Get an interface, get some mics and ask a band to record one or two songs for free at their place. You wont know nothing until you try it by yourself and usually online raw tracks already sound half decent, unless you're very talented and have lots of money to spend in gear, your first tracks are going to be harder to mix than online raw tracks.
 
I figured out i had to record and mix myself my band's first demo. So we just got a sound card, a daw, monitors and i literally spent the next 3/4 months searching, going through the entire forum and doing some test recordings to get the hang of it. In the end i'm pretty happy how the demo sounds. I know i'm not a pro or anything and there's some things i realize now that i should have corrected at the time but it's all about experimenting and learning from your mistakes :)
 
Ok thanks for all the tips guys! I guess I'll try to mix my friends band after I get a little gear and see how that turns out.
 
Machinated said:
And never underestimate how good the performance has to be.
Click to expand...

I agree, one thing to realize, is that now matter how good the engineer is, if the raw file sounds like shit, the final thing is probably going to sound like shit. make sure you've got good tones going into the tracking process, and make sure the band can actually play their damns songs well.

But as far as learning and getting the hang of things, i agree with what everyone else says. Shadow someone who knows what they're doing, and practice, practice, practice. Experience is your friend. you can read about how to do anything, but it's almost meaningless till you do it yourself. now that being said, there is still a LOT of reading and concept learning to be done before you will get anywhere, but putting those ideas and that knowledge to work, and applying them to different situations is what is going to make you a better engineer.
 
To be honest guys i think he could really do with getting to grips on the very very VERY basics before he starts recording bands, even if they are his friends.

Brent, you were right in thinking that you need to start off by learning what all the controls on plugins etc do. There's no sense in recording stuff and turning knobs without having a clue what you're doing so your first step is to READ READ READ READ READ. Then read some more.

Google is your friend here there's LOADS of information out there. Sound On Sound in particular tends to have very beginner friendly articles. For getting started try typing in "beginners guide to..." and fill the blank with whatever topic you need information on. Here's some to get you started:

Equalisation
Compression
^These two are really your bread and butter and the most important things to get your head round. After that move onto other stuff like:

Gates/expanders
Reverb
Delay
Digital Audio (particularly proper recording levels and gain staging)

The important part is when you're reading make sure to have a session open in front of you (there's plenty of raw tracks on here that will do the job) so you can try any techniques mentioned and understand what's being taught on a practical level. So when you're reading about equalization open up a track and mess with the eq as the article talks about different concepts.

Don't move onto another topic until you have a decent grasp of the one you're currently looking up, there's no point in filling your head with new information if you don't understand the stuff you've already read!

Once you've got an idea of what parameter does what and what certain phrases mean, and a loose understanding of how digital audio works THEN start actually recording stuff, otherwise you're just flying blind right from the start.

And most importantly, be prepared for your recordings to suck, I mean really, really suck. It's something we all go through in the beginning and there's no shortcut, it will take time to develop your ears and learn what sounds good and what doesn't, if you stick at it you'll get there though!
 
BrentOnTheSynth hey dude. I'm a music teacher and the first step i take with my students is to run through a 101 course of the the choice of DAW, this includes navigation functions, importing/exporting, working with MIDI and waveforms, basic editing, balancing and finally bouncing. Once they're comfortable with these concepts i move onto processing, This includes dynamic processors and FX. I then explain practical routing through desks along with bussing, inserting vs sending etc. I belief that these topics are the basic foundations necessary before moving onto actual recording and the various techniques involved. The logic T1 course is not expensive, extremely informative and should help you with alot of your questions. After that i reccomend you contact a local studio and ask kindly if they'll allow you to sit in on sessions and observe, they're mostly cool about it as long as you are not a dick and that you are willing to help out with small things such as coffee and cabling duties. You'll pick up some great advice along the way, I have learnt more from practical (reading while applying) exercise than i have ever from a book (This game is largely based on experience from mistakes) Hope it helps

Kind regards

Michiel

Kind regards

Michiel
 
Thanks for all the information guys everyone on these forums are really helpful! I'm gonna try to take every ones advice and hopefully eventually everyone will be hearing good mixes from me sometime.

I figure things will get easier eventually I mean I'm only 17 and haven't been able to snag a job yet so I don't really have an income. haha

and I saw Ermz's book when I was on here earlier and I am hoping to buy that soon.

I would really like to do like you guys said and try to sorta apprentice with an audio engineer but in Fayettville, NC I don't really know how to make that happen, Ill keep searching though.

BUT THANKS FOR ALL THE ADVICE GUYS ITS ALL BEEN VERY USEFUL! :worship: :)
 
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