The Art of Mixing

Audio Engineering -phase.1

THE ART OF MIXING.

Mixdown and Mastering, traditionally speaking, are two very separate processes. Mixdown is the art of levelling, equalizing and adding effects to all the various tracks, down to a stereo mix. Mastering is the process of taking the stereo mix and putting it in the final release-ready form. Recent software and hardware developments make these processes easier and less expensive than they ever have been in the history of making music. The following is intended as a rough guide to the art of production.

The Mix Process Average listener. There is no standard when it comes to mixing. You do whatever it takes to make it sound good. Mixing effectively requires some thought, and no engineer worth their weight would suggest “standard” production techniques. Figuring out what mixing technique to use for any project first requires that you hear the tracks through monitors that are trustworthy, and secondly depends upon what final outcome is desired. As a mastering engineer will say, “How do you want it to sound?” It could sound good many different ways. Flavour is what makes different foods taste the way they do – think about this when you’re mixing. Adding some spice can make it exciting, but don’t overdo it. Have a look at your ingredients and then decide on what you’re going for. The first step to understanding how to mix well has nothing to do with mixing - it has to do with listening, and training your ears. To this end, it is advisable to spend some quality time with CDs that are in the style you're aiming for. A good tool to have while doing this is a graphic EQ with metering for each band. Play with the graphic EQ, notching out bands to see how it changes the sound, and whether you can hide or accentuate individual instruments in the mix. You want to reach the point where you can pick out the characteristic frequency bands for each sound. Keep your reference CD's handy, so you can A/B them with your mix in progress. Often this is enough to guide you when you're getting stuck.

The next step is really getting to know the characteristic frequency ranges of individual instruments in the mix. This is of supreme importance because of a pervasive audio phenomenon called masking. Masking is, in terms of psycho-acoustics, the phenomenon where a louder sound in a particular frequency band is going to mask any softer sounds. Why is masking important? Because if one sound masks another, the masked sound can't be heard, yet it contributes to the overall amplitude of the mix. Since you only have a certain dynamic range to work with, sounds that you can't really hear waste dynamic range. What's worse, a masked signal interacts with the louder signal, muddying up the signal you CAN hear, without contributing anything useful to the mix. This leads to the first principle of mixing: Give each instrument a distinct frequency range in the mix. This has two results: 1. It allows every signal in the mix to be heard distinctly at a lower level. 2. It prevents different signals from interacting. The process of mixdown varies considerably depending on the session type and the equipment available. For example, if you are working on a budget session, you may take on the roles of engineer, tape-op and producer. While this tends to be harder work for less pay, the job itself can be more rewarding because you alone get to make all the creative decisions. If you are working with a producer, you may find that all creative decisions are taken away from you and that you end up simply as a technician who follows the producer’s instructions. However, should you wish to become a producer yourself, this can prove to be a good apprenticeship as you will pick up good production tips as you go. The equipment you use also makes a difference to the process. The more automation you have the easier mixing tends to become. With little or no automation, the mixdown process becomes much trickier and you may ultimately run off several mixes, take the best bits from each mix then edit them together to create the definitive mix. When you are mixing, you want to have as few members of the band present as possible and in fact on commercial sessions, it is not at all uncommon for none of the band to be present at mixdown. The reason for this is simple, if you have eight different people in the control room, there will be eight different opinions on how the final mix should sound. If you are working in a control room that you are not used to, it is a good idea to play a CD of a piece of music you know very well so that you can get an idea of how the monitors and control room acoustics behave. In particular, you should listen to the frequency content of the song. For example, if it sounds bassier than you are used to, it means that bass frequencies are exaggerated in this particular room so when you mix, you should add a little more bass than your ear tells you. To do this accurately requires the essential engineering skill of judging the frequency content of the material.

Preparing To Mix Rule 1: Don’t mix on the same day that you track ANYTHING! By the time you have cranked the monitors to listen for those little nasties while tracking, your ears will have become fatigued, and objective listening is all but impossible. Also perspective is lost because you will have the tendency to want to turn up the very last thing that you recorded, because you want it to sound just like it did while monitoring for tracking purposes. Rule 2: Remove all of your preconceived ideas about how the mix should sound. When you finally get to the mix, you’ll find that you have to deal with what is there and make the best of it, and not try to make it something it is not. This is hard to do; let go of what you think the mix should sound like - it is okay to have a sort of general idea, but lose the idea of making your mix sound like some other mix. Unless you have all of the equipment available to you that the

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other mix had, and used the same tracking techniques right down to the same instruments, you will have little luck. Try to achieve a mix that suits the song, not a sorry attempt at copying your favourite band’s mix. Rule 3: Eat and sleep before you mix. Mixing is demanding work. It requires that you pay attention to many small details for extended periods of time. If you are tired and/or hungry, you will not perform as well. You will tend to drift off, and say “screw it” to little things that may well need serious attention. Rule 4: Don’t mix the day after a live performance. It is a well known fact that exposure to SPL’s over 80 dB for more than 30 minutes can not only cause ear damage, but it can take the ear up to 3 days (depending upon your general health and age) to recover from the shock. At least wait a full day before trying to mix after you have exposed your ears to extended high SPL’s. Rule 5: Arrange to have at least 2 hours to work without any interruptions. Mixing needs as much luck as it does skill...luck comes to those that give a dedicated effort to something without distractions to achieving the sought-after goals.

First Impressions You will often find that 90% of the coarse adjustments made in a mix happens in the first 3 or 4 times through the song. After that it is small details that take up the other 16 hrs! This is important to remember for a couple of different reasons: 1. Ear fatigue a few hours into a mix will have you changing things that sounded good at the beginning, but are annoying you now. 2. Preconceived ideas have a way of creeping in after awhile. There is something subconscious that makes you want to do things a certain way. Battling against this is the hell of mixing. But overcoming temptations to drastically change things in a mix after a few hours is a good step towards not messing it up. Your first impression of the mix is the best one you will have. Hopefully, you will hear all of the potential of the mix in the first pass. This is not a skill that comes easily. It will take a lot of practice to just know about how good you can make the mix sound. Where the recording may be thin and quiet, don’t try to make it bold and loud, and vice-versa. It is important to understand that tracks have a certain sound to them. If you are looking for natural sounding mixes that will hold up well on other playback systems, you will not be able to successfully alter any of the tracks very much. At best, you can accentuate their good qualities, and/or hide the bad ones. That is what mixing is really all about. It is not about making things sound totally different. If you want something in your mix to sound totally different, re-record it to sound the way you want it to sound. Remember: Mixing is always a compromise. There is no way to make everything sound killer in a mix.

Monitoring Volume How many times have you been working on a mix with the speakers cranked up, the bass is pounding and it sounds great, only to listen back to it later at a lower volume and to your dismay, most of your bass has disappeared and your mix now sounds limp and thin. This phenomenon is common and it has to do with how the human ear perceives sound at different volumes. Humans don't hear every frequency with the same intensity (the frequency response of our ears is commonly referred to as the Equal Loudness Contour). In a nutshell, it shows us that it takes

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far higher levels for very low and high frequencies to sound as loud as midrange frequencies, and that our hearing is most sensitive to frequencies from about 2kHz - 5kHz. How does this affect the quality of your mixdown? Just as the frequency response of you speakers plays an important role in how your mix sounds, so does the frequency response of your ears. For example: If you are mixing at 50dB SPL, a tone of 30Hz will need to be about 30dB louder than a 1kHz tone, in order for the two tones to sound the same perceived volume to you. Therefore you may want to turn up the bass frequencies in your mix. When you listen back to it later at a lower volume the bass will be overpowering. This also works if you monitor too loud. Since we hear low and high frequencies better at higher volumes, you might think that there is enough bass and treble when mixing, only to hear it disappear at lower volume settings. So how loud should you mix? Well, loud enough to be able to hear the lows and highs clearly, but not too loud so as to trick your mind into thinking that the bass is excessive.

Ways to assemble a mix There are two different methods of getting started when mixing, and it’s simply a question of personal preference. The following is a set of rough guidelines for the two different methods. 1 The Accumulative Mix. • Start with all faders down. • Raise drum faders one at a time (usual order is kick, snare, high hat, toms, overheads). • PFL each one and EQ individually (if absolutely necessary). • Add dynamic control if necessary. • Balance drums. • Raise bass faders. • Process as required (i.e. EQ and effects). • Balance bass with drums. • Add any effects to drum and bass and once you are happy, you should have a good foundation on which you can build the rest of the song. • Repeat the process bringing in a new layer at a time. The other layers are usually – rhythm instruments, pad sounds, miscellaneous lead instruments and finally vocals. • You can either set the pan positions at the end of each layer or you may prefer to do it after you’ve introduced all the instruments. 2 The Whole Mix. • Start with all faders at 0dB so that everything is more or less equally as loud. • Create the stereo picture using the pan controls. • Pull back faders that are too loud and raise those that are too quiet. • EQ instruments as necessary. • Add effects and dynamic control as necessary. In the first instance, without touching any dynamic processors, effects units, or EQ’s, turn up all the tracks and listen. Listen really closely. Make some crude volume adjustments during this first pass, but don’t go crazy; just listen to the tracks. Listen for places where there are dynamic problems, where there are holes to fill in, where things get too loud or fall very quiet. Then think about what you are going to do about these problems before you start doing anything. Does a very dynamic vocal part need some EQ to make it sit more stable in the mix, or a compressor? Does the dry snare drum need EQ or a certain kind of reverb to make it ambient? Does the bass guitar need some limiting to get it in check, etc. Think about these things, and think also about what should be a priority in the mix. On your next pass of the song, you should now try to see if changing volume levels would make things better. You have no way of knowing if the sonic qualities of a track are just right for the song, until you attempt to let effects like masking take place in the mix. By this time, you really should have a decent rough mix going on. Not a perfect mix, not even close to the final mix, but a very listenable mix. It should be relatively free of effects, EQ (for the most part), and dynamic processing. It should give you a pretty good idea of how the final mix is going to sound

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Technology and Mixing The way you mix is to some extent dictated by the technology available. At the top end of the scale, it may be that the entire mix process is automated and that every single desk setting and outboard setting can be stored and recalled in a matter of seconds. Under such circumstances, you can afford to be very fussy because you can make any amount of changes at any time with relative ease. The better the technology becomes, the more common the scenario will be. The complete other end of the scale is when nothing is automated (this is usually the case as it was 15 years ago) but is quite rare today. In these circumstances, you have to settle for the best mix out of a few attempts because if you do then notice something is wrong, the chances are when you try to correct it, you will forget something else that you previously had right.

Panning It may be helpful to set up a mix in mono to start with, so you can hear how well each track blends together. Don’t worry too much about panning the sounds until a reasonably good balance has been achieved. Once the mix starts to sound good in mono, you can work out the stereo panning. Kick drums and snares, bass guitars and vocals should generally be placed in the centre as these sounds carry most of the energy of the mix. Other instruments, backing vocals and effects can be spread out to create an illusion of space. Reverb should always be added in stereo as this gives the mix a sense of space and reality. Often pan positions are set up to correspond with the way a band might appear on stage, but don’t restrict yourself to conventions. Be aware of the effects of extreme panning though: panning hard left and hard right the low and high keys of a piano might give the impression of a 30foot keyboard! And also remember stereo keyboards for example can be placed with one side fully to the left and the other side placed just off centre to the right – this still achieves a stereo effect but will place the sound more towards the left. Try to imagine a stereo image with your sounds to help you with your placement.

The Wrong Sound Mixing can be a process of solving problems. The most obvious technical problems relate to things like noise (tape hiss, amplifier buzz), distortion, mic spillage, etc, while the artistic considerations include dealing with timing and tuning problems, masking sounds, and sometimes the wrong choice of sounds. Recognising these problem areas and dealing with them at the start of the mix will help you keep your sanity at a later stage when your concentration is being pushed to the limits. Sometimes you’ll find that you’ve made a technically good recording but that some sounds just don’t seem to work in the context of the mix. This is when EQ can help. If the problem is a guitar, keyboard or bass guitar, try sending the audio from the mixer back into the live room and into an amplifier. Then re-record the amplified signal back to tape with a more appropriate sound for the mix. Occasionally you may find you have a mix which defies all your attempts to balance it satisfactorily – perhaps because the song hasn’t been arranged in a way that leaves space for all of the important parts. If you find yourself in this situation, here are a few tricks you can try: • Set up a rough mono mix with no effects or EQ. If the mix sounds too busy, ask yourself if all the parts are necessary or if you can lose something. What matters most in pop music is the rhythm track and the vocals; the rest is decoration. If you can’t lose something try

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mixing it so low that it is only just audible, or ‘squeeze’ it with EQ so that it occupies a very narrow bandwidth. • Go back to your basic rhythm and vocal tracks, and mute everything else. If this doesn’t work then you’re in trouble. Is it too late to try a different bass or drum sound, or what about different parts? A different arrangement? • If mid range sounds are fighting with bass sounds, try using EQ to thin out the troublesome frequencies. Analyse and decide which sounds are clashing and work on these in solo. • Remember compression is the engineer’s best friend. Controlling the dynamic range of a few erratic instruments might be all you need to get the mix under control. • Don’t overdo effects. Reverb adds the illusion of space and distance, so if you want something to stand out, use less reverb. Effects can also add sparkle but try to get the mix as good as you can get it before relying on effects. • Try working with the pans to spread the mix out – this can also help in separating instruments that are similar. Using headphones at this stage can help. Headphones might also give you a different listening perspective which will help you pinpoint any trouble spots. • If the mix lacks cohesion or punch, try a little overall compression on the master inserts – but only a little. Try not to squeeze the life out of the mix. • Try sub-mixing. Sub-mixing all your drums and percussion into one group and then adding a little compression can make a great difference. Similarly, sub-mixing keyboards, or backing vocals can be a great help in controlling your mix.

FX in Mixing One of the best ways to get perspective and separation within your mix is to put everyone in their own space. You can achieve this through the use of reverb and effects. Some engineers like to have one reverb unit dedicated to the drums. No other instruments are sent to this effect, only the drums, which will place them in their own space. The choice of reverb for drums depends entirely on the track but start by putting reverb on the snare and going through the presets to find the one that works best for the track. If you haven’t recorded any ambience wit h your drums, it’s also a good idea to use two separate reverbs just for the drums alone: a small amount of short room reverb added to the whole kit will add much needed ambience, while a larger reverb for the snare will add dynamics. Next dedicate a reverb unit to act as the overall reverb effect. Look for the best (not necessarily most expensive) unit in the studio for this will be the master reverb for vocals etc. If for example, there are 6 aux sends, you can use Aux 1 for drums and Aux 2 for the master reverb. Then you can assign the others for effects. If you do this you can always add master reverb as well as effects, if necessary. Make sure that if there are switchable auxiliaries that you use less important effects for these or an effect that might only be used alone and not in conjunction with others. Should you use a stereo or mono send to the effects? To be honest, most times it doesn't really matter. Most stereo input reverb units have a mock stereo input, not a true stereo. If you use two sends it really doesn't make a difference unless you are working with the more expensive units like the Lexicon, and even then you have to question the validity of two inputs especially if you are limited in the number of sends. Remember that most channels on the desk deal with one instrument or voice, so the send to the effect will be mono – only the return from the effects should be in stereo. Assign the sends 3 - 6 to additional effects like delay, other reverbs, chorus, etc. The idea is to add these perspective effects so you only just hear them when in solo and they appear to disappear when mixed into the track. Make sure that all your effects are returned through the effect returns and assigned to the master stereo output, OR if you are fortunate enough to have spare channels on your desk

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you can return your effects back through console channels as this gives you the option of adding master reverb to them and using the channel EQ. Delays can be softened if master reverb is added to their returns, plus you can attain your feedback from the console instead of using the control on the effect unit. Say you are using Aux 3 to send to a delay unit; you can feed back to the delay by sending on the return channels, the signal back through Aux 3 to return back into the unit. NOTE: Make sure that the dry/wet or mix controls on your effect units are set to wet as you want only the effect from the units and won't need any of the dry sound. The returns from effects are usually panned full stereo L/R, but you may wish to bring different reverbs back half L/R to separate them. Effects can be a blessing or a hindrance to your mix. Overuse of effects will numb the listener to them, making the effect not an effect anymore - it will just become part of the sound. But well used and placed effects can provide some very nice sparkle. You can use effects to really emphasize a particular part. Reverbs can provide a welcome ambiance to a track that otherwise lacks it, but overuse of it will give the mix a washed-out sound. Too much reverb will make it hard to hear any distinction between the tracks. As a general rule, if your song is fast you probably don’t want to use a 3 second reverb on the vocal, unless you like a distant vocal sound and want to obscure some of the backing track. Although if your track is more ambient, short percussive reverbs may sound a bit out of place. Think about it and choose wisely. Using a chorus on backing vocals can really make them stand out from the lead, especially if the backing and lead part are singing harmonies. Distortion can sound great on analogue synths, and also on drums and vocals to give them that dirty feel. Also bass guitars become evil monsters when run through a distortion unit. Don’t be afraid to experiment. And remember: rules are made to be broken.

Applying EQ Having a mixer with good parametric EQ is essential to applying this principle. There is really no substitute for a good analogue EQ for this application, however many software sequencers and virtual studios have excellent EQ sections, and will do a good job. Here are some guidelines to help with the use of EQ: Step 1: Solo the sound, and use the high and low shelves on the EQ to cut energy on each end of the spectrum. Start with bass (unless the signal in question is a bass signal) dialling down the low shelf until you notice the sound quality changing. Then raise the low shelf until you find the point where adding more bass becomes noticeable. The sweet spot is about halfway between those two points. You'll notice that some sounds are affected very little by cutting bass, because they have no bass energy to speak of. This is fine - don't be afraid to jack the low shelf down all the way in that case. Do the same thing with the high shelf - cut until it sounds different, then dial it up until it gets noticeably louder on the high end. Then pick a midway setting. Step 2: Use a sweep mid band, and jack up the Q for that band almost all the way up (i.e. narrow the bandwidth). Sweep the frequency until you find the point at which that signal is loudest. This is the characteristic frequency for this signal. Back off on the Q to zero, and then notch the signal up or down just enough until you hear the sound you want. Step 3: For signals that are primarily bass or treble (bass guitar and high-hats for example) the process is similar, but you can be more aggressive about trimming the far end of the frequency spectrum. Once you've done this for every channel in the mix, you're ready to listen again to the mix with all instruments present. If you've done things right the mix should already be a lot tighter. Now listen to the track without moving any faders and make some notes on how the mix works. Which signals stick out in the mix? Which ones seem buried? What is the overall sound like?

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Here you can apply some simple guidelines: 1. If a signal sticks out, lower its level in small steps until it fits in the mix. 2. If a signal sounds buried, raise its level until it sticks out, and then apply 1, above. 3. If the mix sounds boomy in the bass, pull back the levels on all instruments that are bassy. 4. If the mix sounds harsh on the high end, pull back the levels on all instruments that are characteristically trebly. 5. If the mix sounds 'midrangey' (boxy, nasal, harsh) pull back the signals that are characteristically midrangey. If this all sounds rather obvious, take note of the rule that applies overall here: if something sounds bassy – reduce the bass, don’t push the high frequencies to compensate! These guidelines need to be applied a little bit at a time, because you'll need to go through the process a few times to get the sound you want. If you do too much at any one step, you'll obscure the effects of all the previous adjustments. You will get the best results if at every stage of the game you change things only as much as you have to, to notice a change in the sound. With practice you'll get to the point where you can hear very small changes, and will generally do less tweaking than you do the first few times through the process. EQ is wonderful stuff. But don’t overdo it. If there were going to be a rule about using EQ, it would be that 19 times out of 20, you should use subtractive, or cut EQ instead of boosting. Boosting a frequency has a nice way of showing off the phase distortion it causes. In a few cases this sounds good, but as a rule it seldom works for the best in your mix. If you think of EQ as a way to add a subtle colour to your track, you will be on target. If you were thinking of it as a way to make the track sound the way you intended, you have to ask yourself why you didn’t just record it to sound the way you wanted in the first place. EQ will not make a track sound drastically different without the danger of making it sound worse! Of course there are always exceptions to rules. Even this one.

Compression Compression, while essential, is frequently overused and abused. Like anything else, a light touch is better, especially if you're using the more inexpensive units on the market. Any instrument that is struck or plucked is a prime candidate for compression. This includes drums, guitars, and pianos. Also, analogue synths can use a bit of compression, especially if you’re doing crazy filter sweeps! And compression also helps with any wind or brass instruments, not only to control their dynamics but also to ass a little punch. The easiest way to do compression is visually - most compressors have metering to help you out here. Your ears aren't really very helpful, because the best compression is largely inaudible. Ideally you will have a compressor on every track, because if you tame the peaks in each signal, you can raise its level without overloading the mix. Most high-end desks have compression as a built-in insert on each channel. Compressing before equalizing can also give you some headroom to work with when doing EQ - since changing EQ changes signal volume, you can do more with EQ before overloading, if the dynamic range of the signal is reduced beforehand. Ideally, you should let a song “breathe”, meaning it should have some dynamics. Trying to make everything stay even just makes the track sound dull and lifeless. But this doesn’t mean that tracks should not be controlled to some extent. Overly dynamic tracks can really make mixing a pain. Sometimes, you just have to squash the hell out of a track to make it behave in the mix, regardless of the sonic sacrifices you will be making to do this. Remember that a dynamic processor is a troubleshooting tool. If there is no trouble, why use it? Deciding when and how to use a dynamic processor is a trial and error thing. After using them for a time, you will get a good idea on when to use one and how to set it up to accomplish what you are after by using it.

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Adding the vocal Mixing the vocal can be done at any stage – it’s a matter of choice. Some engineers prefer to work on the whole backing track before adding the vocal; some engineers start with the vocal and mix everything up to it. Some prefer to get the basic rhythm track mixed and then add the vocal, before the rest of the instrumentation. It’s up to you. The vocal should sit just above the bass and drums, and ideally be panned straight down the centre. The vocal always benefits from a little compression, but it will have to change with the dynamic of the track, and so for the whole vocal to remain intelligible throughout, you might need to ride the faders and if possible automate the changes. Don’t forget also that you can change the level of the Aux send to your vocal reverb – changing the amount of send to the reverb can make the use of the effect more exciting to listen to. Try this: Take a feed from the direct out of the vocal channel and bring it up on another channel on the desk. Then deselect the stereo mix output so it has no output, but use the aux send to apply reverb. This way, you can use and automate the channel fader as a send to the reverb. Try pulling back on quieter sections and increasing the send on the screaming high notes. Getting the right level for the vocal is something that can only be achieved with practise and experience. But here are a few tricks: 1. Play the mix as quietly as you possibly can, so that it is barely audible – you should still be able to hear the vocal, (as well as the main instrumentation). If everything disappears apart from the vocal, it’s too loud. If you can’t make out the words, it’s too quiet. 2. Play the mix at a regular volume and leave the room – listen to it from outside the control room door. 3. Check the vocal in the headphones. 4. Listen to the mix, while switching the vocal reverb on and off. Is the vocal too up front, or too distant. 5. Check you mix against a commercial CD of similar music style.

Referencing your Mix It is very easy to lose your way when starting out in mixing. Your attention is continually being drawn in different directions, concentrating on the different instruments and voices. This makes it very easy to become bogged down in the detail of the mix, rather than its overall balance. You also have to consider the general tonal balance of the mix and how it compares to commercial tracks of the same genre. One way to create and maintain a reference on which to base your mixing decisions is to listen to examples of similar music released commercially. Playing suitable music CDs through the same monitors in the same listening environment will help establish the allimportant sonic reference with which you can judge your own mix. Listen critically, and form opinions about both the spectral balance and the relative levels of different instruments. You may also be able to come up with some good ideas for reverb and effects settings, and maybe even a few production ideas! The trick is to run both at the same time and A/B the outputs. Find some way of switching between your chosen CD and the mix you’re working on and while they are playing, switch between both. This is a great method for checking your frequency range, as well as checking if the vocal is loud enough. Another trap to be wary of is that of ever-escalating listening levels. In general, the louder your monitoring level, the less accurate your perception of balance will be. This is because it is easier to hear detail in quiet elements of the mix when the whole thing is very loud. Turn the volume down to a more normal domestic listening level and the quiet bits will be completely lost. Far better to set a comfortable listening level with your reference music sources (which may be a little louder than a domestic level, but not too much), and then try to balance your mix at the same level. It is a little harder to do, but you will get better results with less ear fatigue.

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The Final Touch The Mix is a Dynamic, Moving Process Don't just sit there while your mix goes to tape, or disc, or DAT. Assign the faders to subgroups. For example, you can send all of the vocal tracks to groups 1 & 2, and everything else to 3 & 4. This way you can slightly alter the balance between the vocals and the backing track at any point in the mix. This technique can yield outstanding results. You can give the vocalist a touch more edge just when they need that oomph and when the vocalist takes a break you can subtly boost the band a bit. You could dedicate a stereo group just to drums and one for effects, nudging each when appropriate. If you have automation, which most software sequencers nowadays do, this is when to use it. Automation is great! It really goes a long way towards improving the mix when you have the ability to do what would normally take many sets of hands working perfectly together to do. Volume automation will sometimes negate the use of a compressor. If the track for the most part is even dynamically, but in a few spots the either drops or rises beyond an acceptable level, a fader move can be executed and saved in the automation and you will not need to insert a compressor to even out the part. A fader move will preserve the fidelity of the part while a compressor will add phase distortion to it. Which would you prefer? EQ automation can be fun too. EQ automation can be used for artistic applications such as changing the EQ on a vocal line in a certain part to give it a "telephone" sound. If you don’t have the luxury of automation on your desk, any adjustments to be made to faders during the mix will have to be accurately on the console itself. Use a white chinagraph pencil for this.

Leave the Room Before things start going bad, take a break, have a cuppa. Mixing can be exhausting work – for your ears if nothing else. If you feel you want to have a different perspective on the mix, then leave the room – listen to it from the adjacent room with the door ajar. Try listening on headphones. The final touch is never easy. You are always fighting with "the audience in your head" on how something should sound. Also, you may have been working on it so long you might NOT be hearing what it really is, as your brain is conditioned to filter what you want to hear. If you can't nail the basics by the 3rd or maybe 4th play in a session, leave it for the rest of the day. Bring everything up to spec as close as you can and come back tomorrow. Try also listening on different systems if you can before committing yourself to the mix. Make a copy and listen to it on your home stereo, your car stereo, on your walkman, on your ghettoblaster. This is a great way of checking levels and balance of the mix, both tonally and in overall mix.

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Different Mixes So you’ve completed your final mix. Hopefully this time tomorrow, you’ll still be happy with it. But what if next week you decide that the guitar solo is too quiet? The main vocal is too loud? To reconstruct the whole mix at this stage would mean setting up the desk and patch bay and all the outboard gear, exactly as it was just to alter one thing. Wouldn’t it have been a good idea to make a few different mixes at the time? Making different mixes is a great failsafe device. Once you have completed your final mix, just as you think you want it, do another mix with the vocal down slightly. Then another one with the vocal slightly higher than the original. If you have concerns about the guitar solo, run off another mix with the solo adjusted. What about instrumental and a capella versions? The beauty of this system is that not only are you covering all bases, but you can reconstruct different mixes with careful editing. For instance, if the vocal in the original was too loud in the verses only, you can edit in the verses from the ‘vocal down’ mix. Is the vocal level just completely wrong? – then make a composite mix from the instrumental and a capella, and adjust the vocal level all you like. Record companies also will require different mixes. Any mix that you perform for a record company will have to have alternate versions on the same DAT/CD. The usual list of requirements are: Original mix Vocal up 1dB Vocal down 1dB Instrumental – this is the backing track only, without any vocals TV backing track - this is the backing track and backing vocals, but without lead vocal A Cappella Radio friendly version - without swearing etc

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