WWMBD: What would Michael Brauer do?

[pauli]

I've done a lot of reading lately about Michael Brauer's multi-bus compression technique, and after a few experiments to get a grip on it, I adapted the technique to my workflow/taste and gave this mix a whirl.

It was impressive how quickly a decent sound came together... I'd encourage anyone who hasn't tried this to give it a go. I think I might be a convert.

[thedon]

Hi Pauli
I like your mix sounds pretty well balanced ,a little light in the bottom end with the bass and kick punch on my monitors like less 200-250 and on the bass and more just bottom on the bass and kick probably a personal taste thing for me for this genere
Michael Brauer's multi-Bus Compression Techniques sounds great would love to have a look and learn more ,would be great if you have some time share some ideas or any links to have a look at !

Thanks

Don

[pauli]

Hey Don, long time. Bass can be kinda tricky for me because me room needs more absorption than I can manage right now.... with all the crazy double bass rolls I played it safe and maybe undercooked it a bit.

I tried out the multibuss compression because of a conversation I had with Blitzzz on another thread. From what I understand, Michael Brauer has his entire system on standby, set up on an analog desk, and leaves everything plugged in and doesn't really mess with the settings unless he has to. The general idea is that sets up 4 stereo busses and routes instruments that are related in musical function together. He had a problem mixing an Aretha Record... the producer wanted more bass but loved the rest of the mix. The snag is, pushing up the bass was causing the compressor on the main stereo buss to push back harder and messed up the rest of the mix. So he devised his multibuss method to get the mix glue that you'd get from master buss compression without backing yourself into a corner.

So for this one I have a buss going for kicks and drums, one for guitars/midrange instruments, one for vocals, and one for instruments with really high harmonics. After I get the rough balance together, I start auditioning different compressors/equalizers on each buss until I find one that sounds good and I commit to my settings.... then I'll try feeding small amounts of instruments into other busses. In this case I fed a bit of the vocal into the mids buss to introduce a level interaction between the guitars and the vocals that wouldn't be nearly as controllable with master buss compression, and put a little bit of the kick into the air buss so that the cymbals would pump with the kick, but not the mix as a whole.

What's cool about it is that the balance comes together through the busses and the processing necessary for balancing on the individual tracks lessens a great deal, so you can focus more on processing for enhancement... and the mix balance seems to automatically adjust to it through the buss compressors! And on top of that, since most of your processing is going on through the busses, you can afford to use really CPU-intense plugins... the kind that seem to make things sound better even when all the knobs are set to zero but love to crash your computer

It hasn't worked on every mix I've tried it, maybe due to lack of practice, but I highly recommend giving it a go... this was a really positive experience. Michael Brauer's website has a really detailed Q&A section where he lists his exact default specifications and also explains his method of routing the vocal to five(!!!) parallel compressors. I personally didn't try to mimic his setup, I just found a way to take the general concept and adapt it to the way I mix.

[The_Metallurgist]

now all you need is decent materials at Goods Inwards and a well set-up studio to hear the benefits of it, including key ingredients in the Process in order to assess and reliably judge the level of Quality - education primarily, in both its widest and narrowest sense. it's education that informs us of the inadequate bits in our Process and sets about addressing it's shortcomings...another is talent...the gift at birth.

unfortunately, this is fundamentally what most are deprived of in this increasingly large and burdensome era of bedroom producers and bedroom studios. they might be well equipped with the latest and greatest pirateware (low market-entry costs which means they have nothing to risk), running on an insane processor which runs hot and fast during a gaming session, but we need to spend a significant amount of time trying to address fundamental inadequacies stemming from ignorance of those "musicians" who supply the materials. and in this process, we also have to address our own [relative] ignorances while doing so. neither of these two key factors are involved in MB's strategy and i personally, for what it's worth, would find his technique to be totally inadequate for the needs of most mixes that arrive at my DAW. indeed, simply considering the issues of poor arrangements which would benefit from some tweaking in the mix, isn't even on his To-Do list. this guy doesn't even have to mute instruments because of over-produced enthusiasm (read "Ignorance" of arranging and composing skills). what he does is ADD POLISH, which is actually THE DEFINITION OF MIXING. our definition of mixing is tainted by the fact that most of what we mere mortals have to do is - "Fix it in the mix". or at least try to! is the act of trying to make a silk purse from a sows ear mixing? not in my book. but it's not the techniques that are important so much as it is the way we think about what is REALLY important, from that which isn't.

the quality of the decisions we make affect the quality of the outcome. simply taking another's methodology which has been designed with needs that are well beyond, in stellar proportions, our situations would seem a backward step. i think most people in the forum would benefit significantly more by grasping the concepts of "sound", for example....and even what constitutes "Audio" in a Qualitative sense.....not simply capturing the "Performance" of the musician. here in the forum, we apply what should be "critical" listening skills, but nobody can critically listen to an mp3.......so already that part of the process is significantly crippled. yeah, some mixes are so bad that we don't need the other 80 percent of stuff that the mp3 has stripped out by the encoder to be able to make a rough assessment. but rough it can only be.....for some that's fine. is previewing mp3's part of MB's process? does he use mp3 for benchmarking his mixes against other studios? i mention this only as a thought-provoker.

yes, we learn from others, but first we have to learn fundamentals so we can make the right decisions in how we go about our tasks. this sentence should be read in a global, macro sense, not micro, yaaaah?

in the Dojo, the karateka spends endless hours doing nothing other than understanding and repeating the same "basic" moves (that is, repeating them with the attitude of perfecting the RIGHT MOVE, not perfecting the WRONG ONES!!!!). looking ahead at what the Grand Master is doing might fill us with admiration, but it won't help a white belt one iota. the Archers of the Samurai actually don't get to sit on a real horse for years....many years, but engage in the simple concepts until they can master them with sufficient proficiency before they move on. without embracing the fundamentals, we are nothing.........

there's one regular thread starter in the forum who's productivity is insane. i won't mention names out of courtesy. however, i note that he's still mixing the same way, and with the same issues today, as he was when i joined the forum. but that's a bit of a digression to the main point i wanted to make, but it is relative regarding the "Practise makes Perfect" brigade who believe that simply mixing and doing as much of it as possible, is the only way to improve. knowledge comes from outside the DAW, not so much from within it. but it's how we shape this knowledge and filter information, that sorts the men out from the boys, and the people with mixing potential from the also-rans. this is what has made MB the engineer that he is, coupled with a genetic inheritance....a natural gift which he's built on - everyone forgets how important "The Gift at Birth" is in this game! indeed, simply having the gift of being able to play an instrument competently doesn't necessarily imply they will make a decent engineer. yep, MB's had mentors, but crucially those mentors have implanted the "attitudes and concepts" required of a decent engineer, and even more crucially, those mentors spotted a latent talent in the coffee boy....and it's not just how he makes the coffee. MB has understood his own needs based on those attitudes and concepts, primarily.

In Sound on Sound magazine, they have a section entitled "Secrets of the Mixing Engineers". their biggest secret is that they have a gift and have built upon it...but that doesn't make good journalism nor sell copy.

only my opinion...FWIW.

if i may say, to get back to the subject of your mix, my feedback would be along the lines that i feel your mixes are over-processed - physically and academically. you need to fundamentally find how to make the instruments present their emotional elements in the best way possible (e.g. within the constraints of poor recording quality). i'm hearing some fundamental issues, and it's not because of your room and it's inherent acoustics translating though to me. my headphones too are supporting the [consumer-grade] speakers in that regard also and i'd expect your headphones to do like-wise. i keep coming back to the feeling that your monitors are your weakest link so far, irrespective of the self-declared room issues.

what monitors are you using??????????????????? it's truth and consequences time, mate. spill the beans then we can perhaps better help you. to again reiterate this thing about the "quality of our decisions affecting the quality of the outcomes"? this could be your biggest obstacle to furthering your improvement. one guy in the forum was repeatedly going around in circles making the same mistakes. everyone overlooked his REAL issues. i made a recommendation based on his circumstances, and i have to say that he's now producing some of the best mixes in this forum to-date....and furthermore, he's not adopting another's mix buss strategy to achieve it.

i/we can only do so much....but if you keep doing what you are doing, you will keep getting what you are getting. simply looking outside for improvement opportunities to your mixes is all well and good, but sometimes the problems are within our own mind-sets. education changes mind-set. another metaphor..."We can lead a horse to water, but we can't make it drink".

i don't normally subscribe to threads, but i'll tag this one

[londonmatt]

Pauli, thanks for the link to Michael Brauer's multiple-mix buss theory, I've read a couple of articles now and I like the idea. I guess it boils down to the fact that if you have just one mix buss compressor, every time you tweak your mix it's going to affect how the compressor is responding to other things - so he's simply dividing the load up between multiple compressors and summing them. Which isn't really that controversial, is it? I've kind of done the same myself by grouping vocals and compressing them, doing the same with guitars, drums, etc. Anyway, always good to try new things.

Re your mix, it sounded pretty good to me, though this is not a style of music I have much familiarity with. Kick and snare are punchy, though hi-hat and cymbals sounded a bit weighted towards 4-6kHz with not so much real high "air". Could you try cutting some high-mid harshness and adding a little bit of excitation to add some high-end sparkle?

I'd also agree with Don about the bottom end, you need more bottom octave growl on the bass and maybe some more weight on the kick to balance the nice click you've got on it.

One other point to the poster above, the idea that "talent... the gift at birth.... genetic inheritance" determines success in any field is a total myth. It has (almost) no bearing at all on any kind of learning outcome versus persistence, effort and practice. If that sounds completely implausible, which it does to many people who aren't aware of educational psychology, I encourage you to read Carol Dweck's book Mindset: How you can fulfil your potential. Speaking of which, I should probably get back to the essay I'm meant to be writing about her work at the moment

[pauli]

Thanks for listening, Dave, though I think you misunderstand me from time to time. The whole point of of trying to execute a mix with this strategy was to step outside of my comfort zone as far as how I conduct a mix.

Generally I don't macro-mix like this and focus on the individual tracks, but as you've mentioned, that sometimes leads to overprocessing on my part. So I was trying a strategy deliberately geared toward processing less in a manner that forced me to focus on the big picture.

So is this mix overprocessed? Maybe... but the only processing on individual tracks is simple high/low filtering. After that, there are four compressors at maybe 5 dB GR max, four saturators set to about 10 to 20 percent, and four channel strip style EQs that are there mainly for color... two of them haven't even had knobs twisted. In comparison to some of my other mixes, this one is significantly less processed.

Since you're interested in my monitoring, I'll admit I'm reluctant to say anything at all because I'm quite sure nothing within my financial means is going to be good enough for many readers on the forum, but they're the 5 inch Alesis Elevates. Not stellar, probably not found in many pro studios, but they're reasonably accurate across the frequency spectrum and I've not had any serious, unfixable translation issues to my other speakers. Unfortunately, though, I have to work with what I can afford, and sometimes shaking down my strategy by trying something new is the only way to make a meaningful improvement.

[pauli]

Well... The more I read through this thread, the more deflated I feel... Considering that this was an experiment aimed not necessarily at faithfully recreating Brauer's technique, but to examine whether or not a similar strategy might help me avoid the myopic thinking I often succumb to, it was a success in that respect. There was definitely a positive takeaway for me here, even if the resultant mix isn't so great... And I think I stumbled upon a few more pitfalls to avoid. Learning what not to do is crucial...

What's bothering me is that in some ways it feels almost like you're trying to discourage me (?) when I'm making a sincere effort under what we both agree are compromised circumstances, both in terms of the source material and my monitoring system/environment. I certainly don't want to feel that way, given my admiration for your knowledge and also how hugely I Appreciate and have improved directly from your feedback... But I'm picking up on indirect references toward a possible lack of talent without any really concrete feedback as to what, in this mix, has prompted you to feel that way. It almost feels a little deliberately discouraging to make a suggestion like that without describing what qualities of my mix are lacking... While instead throwing a hazy metaphor that I'm sure took a lot more effort.

Have I plateaued and stagnated for a time? I most definitely have and I recognize that with no difficulty whatsoever. I find myself continually forced to make severe EQ and compression moves that compromise the source material to find a stable balance using my typical mix strategies... So I've Been trying a lot of alternative mixing strategies and have been forcing myself to work in very uncomfortable musical situations, such as a genre for which I have no taste... And trying to reduce the amount of processing while I'm at it.

Forgive me if I feel a slight lack of respect, especially if that's not what's intended. But allow me to say that I've been forcing myself under serious duress to make the improvements you've suggested over the past year: looking at the big picture, improving my monitoring system/environment, reducing the tendency to overprocess... All of that is present on this mix... And then I'm confronted with a lack of talent/work ethic, and the indirect suggestion that I've been dishonest about what I'm monitoring through?

I'm not offended, not upset... And I could easily get a better mix/balance with a more comfortable workflow. But I've forced myself to try a new, uncomfortable approach that might help me focus on the mix as a whole rather than myopically adjusting individual tracks until I've completely lost objectivity and creative impulse. You suggest an improvement mindset, but that's exactly what this mix was all about. Whether or not it has borne fruit on this mix in particular... Well, I've conducted better mixes. This wasn't, however, an attempt to avoid fundamentals or dazzle the forum with a new, fancy gimmick... just trying a new method that seemed consistent with mixing toward a vision for the big picture, which I acknowledge as my biggest weakness. I wasn't improving doing the same old thing, but I also can't afford top of the line equipment upgrades every time I plateau with a family to support on a crappy grocery store job... but considering that most of the classic records that most people compare favorably to modern records were mixed on aura tones and ns-10s... the latter of which is INSANELY nonlinear, both in terms of frequency distribution and resonance times across the spectrum...

So I talk and ramble a lot, but maybe that helps give a better perspective of what I'm trying to do. I've not ignored your advice, nor will I ever... But at the same time, the "advice" herein almost seems like "give up, you don't have the talent or finances to mix." If you think so, that's fine and understandable... Just don't think I'm not working my ass off, because you'd be dead wrong.

[londonmatt]

Hi Pauli,

Apologies, I know I'm interrupting a conversation between you and Dave, but I just wanted to make a few points.

- The idea of innate talent being the main or even a major cause of achievement is a complete myth. It really is. Have a look at Carol Dweck's TED talk here http://www.ted.com/talks/carol_dweck_the...en#t-18729 or read either of her books on Mindset, or her book Self-theories: Their Role in Motivation, Personality, and Development. Or read Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers: The Story of Success; Matthew Syed's Bounce: The Myth of Talent and the Power of Practice, or Gordon Stobart: The Expert Learner: Challenging the myth of ability. FWIW, I'm currently writing a Masters level essay on this exact subject, so I know a little about it.

- I'm pretty new to mixing, but I think I have a reasonable ear (my first degree was in Music) and I thought the balance you'd achieved on this song was fundamentally sound. Sure, there are some tweaks that would make it better, but that's always the case.

- If you're trying a completely new approach to mixing, why would you expect it to work perfectly first time? Like everything in life, adopting the multi-buss approach will take practice over a few songs before you can realistically assess whether it's working for you or not.

- I find the implication "you need this or that bit of gear before you can *really* mix" a bit patronising, to be honest. Who decides? Would a £200 pair of speakers do? No? £500? £1000? £2000 + £1000 on acoustic treatment? What's the (completely arbitrary) cutoff point? Not saying that better monitors wouldn't help, but knowing your monitors extremely well and constantly using reference tracks is enough to get quality results.


Your signature quote from Edison is classic "growth mindset", which is what has driven pretty much every pioneer in their field to achieve great things. Don't give up on that.

(Sorry if this is a bit of a weird personal rant from a complete stranger, but having studied this in some depth I feel quite strongly about it, as you can probably tell!!)

Cheers

Matt

[The_Metallurgist]

One other point to the poster above, the idea that "talent... the gift at birth.... genetic inheritance" determines success in any field is a total myth. It has (almost) no bearing at all on any kind of learning outcome versus persistence, effort and practice. If that sounds completely implausible, which it does to many people who aren't aware of educational psychology, I encourage you to read Carol Dweck's book Mindset: How you can fulfil your potential. Speaking of which, I should probably get back to the essay I'm meant to be writing about her work at the moment

academic debate can offer supporting arguments from both camps and i'd caution about taking one persons view...mine included. personal psychology is an area i've had a lot to do with, both academically (i hold a degree in Business and Finance, and a Post Grad in Management and i'm also a corporate member of the Chartered Quality Institute and have been for some 26 years) and professionally in Business where my roots were manufacturing, on both finance and technical levels.

i had an interesting exposure in mentoring a teenager who's out and out passion was, and still is music, from performing in his own band(s), composing, arranging, to recording. i mentored him for about 6 years and did so pretty extensively. he also went on a formal training course (SAE) and still failed miserably at grasping concepts and applying them at the mixing level. however, he found his strengths lay in working with artists (names you will have come across) in the studio, and setting up the gear. his determination was exemplary, being the first to rock up on site as an engineer for a gig, and the last to leave it. and trust me, he was taken advantage of by vultures but he took it like a man for the sake of gaining experience. he's now assistant engineer in one of the top studios in his place of residence, but he still can't mix to save his butt (academic question here: who defines when someone can mix....how, or who makes that judgement call? what is the criteria that helps define a competent mixer?). will he ever be competent? time will tell....but he's had 10 years so far.

there are many, many, many books on motivation. why is this so? because EVERYONE has a basic need to succeed (whatever success is at the end of the day - and that's subjective) so there's no shortage of buyers with aspirations. so, if you want to make money, write a book on motivation and market it well through a good publisher. i'd suggest the principle behind this forum is based on Mike's needs to help market his books and indeed his services to musicians.......even though i have a problem fundamentally, with a place where the blind are all to often leading the blind. a novice cannot teach another novice....only so far as their own knowledge and experiences go...but is that knowledge correct and was the experience applicable and appropriate? i am a firm believer in the "Continual Improvement" ethos whether it's a commercial enterprise, a charity or a sole trader, or someone with a passion in a hobby. it may take one individual a lifetime in striving to achieve a satisfactory level of competence (as they themselves define it), where as another will get to the same performance marker in only a couple of years, say. and it's got nothing to do with the stuff in Dweck's et al pages, but i would agree that having motivation is a key ingredient to POTENTIALLY moving forwards.....even if it's at a snail's pace. but i'd suggest that someone would give up, if their pace of learning outstripped the benefit gained in the struggle. businesses fail, governments fail, students fail, and i can assure you, it's not because of lack of motivation and mind-set. sidestepping slightly, may i point you towards the Economist's approach to inputs, namely that of "OPPORTUNITY COST". i recommend you research it. It's a tangential leap in direction, but i think you and other readers of the post will make the connection.

i'd assume that the essay demands that you look at both the legitimacy of the author's approach, as well as the contra?

we are all individuals. the human psyche is way bigger than Dweck's pretty narrow delivery, and you'd be advised to look at the big picture. but with time, i'm sure you will, of that i have no doubt....it's a complicated field and one that is still the subject of significant research and discovery, as Floyd himself would likely concur.

to close, mind-set hasn't got a darn thing to do with sitting a room that has a dreadful frequency response (the smaller the room, the bigger the acoustic catastrophe), nor has it anything to do with one's choice of listening device employed within that environment, i'd suggest. one can have the mind-set to mix, but lack the intelligence (what is intelligence?) to comprehend the issues that are getting in the way of "hearing" the mix and the effects of parameter changes in the DAW. most people in the forum, i'd bet, don't have a clue how much they are actually listening to their room rather than the mix. and when they affect parameter changes like a compressor's attack and release time, they are simply hearing the consequences it's having on the room and less so their actual mix. headphones offer different challenges also.....i hasten to add. the plight facing many youths and young adults is the sheer time it takes to learn all this stuff before we can actually engage in mixing per se. i'd ask a fundamental question: could the musician's time be better and more profitably spent pursuing the alternatives of "opportunity cost" factors rather than trying to avoid shelling out for someone else to do their mixing for them? indeed, i don't know ANY musician, for example, who's capable of being IMPARTIAL when it comes to making mixing decisions on their own recordings. that's another discussion, hey.

as an audiophile of 4 decades, i can testify that most people, and i include musicians, haven't had the benefits of listening critically to "Quality" audio over "Quality" equipment to help develop their Terms of Reference and have therefore missed the development opportunities of both the academic understanding of the concepts of acoustics and indeed the technical aspects of the hardware. who in the forum knows about the limitations of speaker technology and how this impinges on the process of critical listening, for example? perhaps one should be embracing the concepts surrounding how our Terms of Reference helps, or even hinders, such as when people spend their time listening to mp3's and making this establish their Terms of Reference, say. if one's mind-set is based/shaped on being brought up listening to mp3 and it's artifacts along with distorted audio that most encodings suffer with, AND while being presented over equipment that is equally quality compromised, then consider how this impinges on one's assessment of not only our own mixes and outputs, but those of others....furthermore, bring in the dynamics of poor room acoustics and it doesn't take much to conclude why many mixes are a problem even before they are loaded into the user's DAW. but the user can still be highly motivated and have a determined mind-set along with all the passion in the world.

QED?

i do sincerely wish you all the best with pursuing your ambitions and progressing your studies and indeed swapping relevant discussion in the forum. looking forward to catching you later.

apologies to Pauli for the [relative] off-topic nature of this post.

[The_Metallurgist]

Matt, i just spotted your post only after i'd posted my reply to your previous....so note i'm referring to your earlier one

the word Quality means different things to different people. there's no reason why we can't mix on a pair of computer speakers if our brain is able to make up for the errors and limitations in the box and how the final output translates. but there is a point where price and performance are relative in addressing how far away we are from hearing the mix and affecting it's translation (not forgetting the Mastering engineer has a large say in that process, of course).

- I'm pretty new to mixing, but I think I have a reasonable ear (my first degree was in Music) and I thought the balance you'd achieved on this song was fundamentally sound. Sure, there are some tweaks that would make it better, but that's always the case.

our ear for hearing a mix is hindered by the totality of the listening environment. you are perhaps aware that 60 percent of what we hear isn't the characteristics of the mix itself, but the room. and i might add too, that playback SPL is a major factor in your perception of the spectral delivery. so, what SPL are you using as the basis of your subjective assessment?

and you're comments are based on listening to a crippled media - you are only hearing 20 percent of what he's mixed, and in addition, you are hearing the artifacts of what he didn't mix.

i'd argue that holding a degree in music is irrelevant in your assessment.

- If you're trying a completely new approach to mixing, why would you expect it to work perfectly first time? Like everything in life, adopting the multi-buss approach will take practice over a few songs before you can realistically assess whether it's working for you or not.

fully. but how about getting some fundamentals sorted first, then we can accurately deduce whether or not a new methodology is effective. my notes about acoustics refers

- I find the implication "you need this or that bit of gear before you can *really* mix" a bit patronising, to be honest. Who decides? Would a £200 pair of speakers do? No? £500? £1000? £2000 + £1000 on acoustic treatment? What's the (completely arbitrary) cutoff point? Not saying that better monitors wouldn't help, but knowing your monitors extremely well and constantly using reference tracks is enough to get quality results.

this feels to me that you don't understand the problems of acoustics. some rooms are impossible to treat no matter what the budget nor the mind-set of the individual. but most of us would employ the Law of Diminishing Returns...and of course, the constraints imposed by the family budget and personal income category. this will automatically impose limits, and this will manifest itself in how well we can potentially mix.

Your signature quote from Edison is classic "growth mindset", which is what has driven pretty much every pioneer in their field to achieve great things. Don't give up on that.

i'd agree, in essence. i think my previous post covers the issues of potential failure to achieve, and some of the reasons that get in the way regarding the mixing process.

(Sorry if this is a bit of a weird personal rant from a complete stranger, but having studied this in some depth I feel quite strongly about it, as you can probably tell!!)

nothing wrong with passion but you've not studied acoustics nor the science of sound nor do you understand the technical constraints imposed in the equipment and how price can affect that - nor do you understand the limits/constraints of science in it's design. this is the challenge which hinders many. Matt, and indeed Pauli also, i say this with the utmost respect.

back to the thread....