03-11-2014, 12:31 AM
(This post was last modified: 03-11-2014, 12:39 AM by UprightJoe.)
I just read Mix Secrets - great book Mike! I'm still working on my monitoring environment. The low end in my existing space is a train wreck. I didn't want to wait until everything was perfect though so I used a variety of speakers and headphones to try and compensate. Here are my notes:
Mix Prep: I did a bunch of multing on the guitar, vocals, and percussion tracks. I separated the guitar and vocals by verse/chorus. I separated the percussion track by instrument. I also removed the empty spaces where there was no singing and playing on these tracks.
Vocals: The amount of bleed from other instruments was disconcerting. At first I thought about using an expander to reduce the bleed but stylistically, I feel like the vocals need a lot of breath and grit which calls for compression. In the end, I decided I'd rather intensify the vocal performance and deal with the increased bleed so I ran the vocals through two compressors and tried to be careful about phase issues and such as I added the rest of the instruments.
Bass: I don't have a noise reduction plugin so I used a spectrum analyzer and multiple EQ plugins to do absolutely unforgivable things to the bass sound and notch out as much of the noise as possible.
Stereo Image: In the end, I had a mix that sounded pretty balanced to me but was effectively mono so I used a stereo delay on the guitar and a stereo chorus effect on the vocals to enhance the stereo image. I also did a little panning on the drums and percussion.
Percussion: The vibraslap and chimes cut through really well but I didn't really manage to give the bongos any presence.
Feedback appreciated!
Mix Prep: I did a bunch of multing on the guitar, vocals, and percussion tracks. I separated the guitar and vocals by verse/chorus. I separated the percussion track by instrument. I also removed the empty spaces where there was no singing and playing on these tracks.
Vocals: The amount of bleed from other instruments was disconcerting. At first I thought about using an expander to reduce the bleed but stylistically, I feel like the vocals need a lot of breath and grit which calls for compression. In the end, I decided I'd rather intensify the vocal performance and deal with the increased bleed so I ran the vocals through two compressors and tried to be careful about phase issues and such as I added the rest of the instruments.
Bass: I don't have a noise reduction plugin so I used a spectrum analyzer and multiple EQ plugins to do absolutely unforgivable things to the bass sound and notch out as much of the noise as possible.
Stereo Image: In the end, I had a mix that sounded pretty balanced to me but was effectively mono so I used a stereo delay on the guitar and a stereo chorus effect on the vocals to enhance the stereo image. I also did a little panning on the drums and percussion.
Percussion: The vibraslap and chimes cut through really well but I didn't really manage to give the bongos any presence.
Feedback appreciated!