Hey Guys...
Just noticed this thread so I thought I'd post my 2p's worth.
I think for me it all started as a kid. My Dad was a big HiFi fan and as a six year old upwards would let me come downstairs at night and listen to his Quad system with the big electrostatic speakers. He would point out the difference in various LP's or new bits of hifi that friends may bring around. This would include stuff like change the cartridge on the turntable to hear the difference. At first I couldn't tell , then as I grew up I noticed how awful most of my friends parents systems would sound in comparison, and also how some albums sounded almost unlistenable on a good HiFi. So I think it taught me what good sound should be like and trained my ears somewhat.
When I got into music it was via computers, not any real musical ability in the traditional sense and I eventually hooked up with other musicians to work on songs whose parents on the whole listened to cheap nasty sounding hifi systems, so I was in an ideal position to play their stuff over better speakers to them and point out how rough it sounded. It was then I realised I had the better trained ears to do something about it and although my kit was limited to a 4 track cassette and a reverb , I made sure I used high quality interconnects ( borrowed off the HiFi gear ) and boosted the treble to counteract the noise reduction, it was just the natural thing to do for me. When I got into it more I upgraded to an Adat and an 8 buss desk. That's when I really learned how to mix. Each piece of gear I owned was expensive for me, so I chose carefully and learned how to use proerly, read magazines and books , listened to mixes I liked and tried to copy the style on my own stuff , or steal some of the production ideas. Eventually I had a seprate outboard for Reverb, Delay, Sampler, Exciter, Compressor , MultiFX, but I'd learned to use each one slowly and think that's made a big difference down the line with the amount of plugins etc. around.
So that's the history lesson outta the way !!!! On to the practicle stuff...
If I'm recording then try to get the source as good as possible. If it sounds a bit dodgy then it's quicker to re-record than try to fix it later....Rob can vouch for that with the number of tracks I asked him to re-record ! Just use your ears when mic'ing stuff up.
I always for for the shorest cleanest signal path I can and will use expensive cables if i have one, even if it means taking off the HiFi / AV system for a while, I find it makes a small but worthwhile difference.
I try to think of the mix as something that's kinda 3D...it has L/R ( panning ) and height (Lo to Hi Frequency ) .. and depth ( front back which can be achieved with both eq and reverb )
So to me a mix might typically have the bass and vocal in the foreground and guitars to the left and right set back a little and maybe some string further back still occupying a higher position.
I tend to mix drums then bass to get a solid foundation going before I add anything and like to set a mix up to feed a number of busses which I can use as stems ( or submixes ) to help with overall balancing later on. It also make it easier to spot when stuff is masking other tracks too much as it's easy to just mute a whole bunch of tracks i.e the guitars or backing vocals to play around.
In very general terms I do this: -
Drums - I eq and compress most if not all tracks to suit....take some low end out of the Oheads and blend them in. I've never used a Hihat mic'd track yet, they come through enough on the room or overheads mics. Make sure you pan it all correctly and don't get it out of phase.
Bass - quite a bit of compression generally...I find I put quite a bit of treble on to help it cut through as other tracks can mask it. I generally eq it quite heavily too cutting out muddy sounding freqencies
Vocal - I try not to compress too heavily maybe 4-5 db's gain reduction max and use automation more to keep it above the backing track. Eq wise I'll try to surgically cut nasty frequencies out and boost the nicer airy sounding ones.
Guitars - Yes Dave, as a rule I'll filter out the lower end depending on how busy the rest of the mix is...I'll pan them around and put delays on if it's that sort of song and generally try anything to make 'em sound a little different. I put them quite wide to leave space for the vocals. I like to put a transient enhancer on acoustics to bring out the attack.
Keys - I try to eq them to fit between the other instruments, so cut the stuff that might mask the guitars and boost the sounds above the vocal range. Again strange effects can help..try anything.
Bv's - I cut all the low end out of 'em and compress teh life out them mostly
I try not to use too much compression, and keep the dynamics. I remember having only one compressor I could ever use on a track and the mixes still came out good, I just had to ride more faders...and it's easier with automation now. I just finished ' it's my time ' for Ali , and that had alot of automation going on to make it more dynamic as the chorus just lost impact otherwise.
I too like to see my mix in Harbal as I know my room has poor acoustics and I need to work around it. It can show me where I'm missing stuff ( usually the bass ) and I can then go back and add it back in Sonar, though I do use it to shape the master track quite often, sometimes it won't improve it, so I figure I got it spot on originally ! But I like to try it each time.
Here's some screengrabs of Ali's song for you guys to look at. Hope that helps
