Ten tip on live sound mix by Paul white 1. Put the mixer into neutral (EQ flat, aux sends down, routing to Left/Right only and so on), before you start work and pull down the faders on any channels not in use. Make sure all unused aux sends are set to zero and that unused mixer channels are unrouted as well as muted, as this will further reduce the level of background noise. If you dont do this, you may find effects on tracks that dont need effects, or unwanted tracks creeping into a bounce due to a routing button being left down. You should also have a track sheet for your recording from which you can label the mixer channels. The time-honoured way to do this is to use masking tape and felt pen, so that you can peel the whole lot off when the job is finished. 2. Optimise the gain settings not only for the multitrack returns, but also for all effects sends and returns and for your external effect units. Also ensure that your master recorder is being driven as hard as possible, without overloading on signal peaks. These simple measures can significantly improve the clarity of your mix. If your recording is going to be digitally edited, leave any fade- outs until the edit stage, and dont try to chop off the noise that precedes or follows the mix -- you may need this when setting up a digital denoiser that requires a bare noise fingerprint for calibration purposes. 3. Subgroup logical sections of your mix, such as the drum kit or the backing vocals, so that you can control the overall level of the subgrouped elements from a single fader or stereo pair of faders. This allows you to control the mix using fewer faders, and fewer fingers! Be aware that any channels subgrouped this way must also have their effects routed to the same groups(s), otherwise the effects level wont change as you adjust the group fader. 4. Where level adjustments need to be made, mark the fader settings with a chinagraph wax pencil and, if necessary, take note of the tape counter or timecode locations at which the level changes occur. This way you can solicit help from other musicians in the studio if the mix gets too busy. If youre lucky and are using mix automation, listen to the whole mix through without watching the levels, so that you can concentrate on the balance of the instruments. 5. Dont assume that your ears always tell you the truth. Rest them before mixing and constantly refer to commercial recordings played over your monitor system, so that you have some form of reference to aim for. This is particularly important if you use harmonic enhancers, as your ears can grow used to the effects of over-enhancement very quickly. 6. Dont overdo the effects, especially reverb, as this can clutter your recording and take away the contrast that is needed to give your mix punch. As a rule, the drier the sound, the more up-front it will sound, while heavily reverbed sounds tend to move into the background. If you need strong reverb on lead vocals, try to add some pre- delay to the reverb effect and adjust both the vocal level and reverb level so that the vocal sits comfortably over the backing. 7. Dont pan bass sounds such as kick drums or bass instruments to the sides of the stereo soundstage, as these high energy sounds need to be shared equally between the two stereo speakers for best results. As a rule, very bassy sounds contain little or no directional information anyway, although bass sounds that also contain a lot of harmonics can sound more directional. 8. Leave any final EQ and effect adjustments until the full mix is playing. If you work on any single instrument in isolation, its likely to sound different when everything else is added. If you can avoid using any heavy EQ, the result is more likely to sound more natural. 9. Try not to have too many instruments competing for the same part of the audio spectrum. The mid-range is particularly vulnerable, so try to choose the best sounds at source. You can improve the separation when mixing by using EQ to narrow the spectrum of the sound youre working with. Try rolling off some low end and occasionally taking out any excessive top end. This is sometimes known as spectral mixing, where each sound or instrument is given its own space in the audio spectrum. A good example of this is the acoustic guitar which, in a rock mix, can muddle the low mid. If you roll off the low end, you still get plenty of definition, but the mix will seem far cleaner. Sidechain filters on noise gates (set to Key Listen mode) are often very good tools for trimming the high and low ends of sounds without unduly changing the section you want to keep. 0. Dont over EQ sounds as theyre likely to sound unnatural, especially when boosting. As a rule, good external equalisers will sound better than your console channel EQ when youre trying to make significant tonal changes. If you can confine your EQ to gentle shelving cut or boost rather than using heavy sweep mid, youre less likely to end up with nasal, harsh or phasey sounds
Posted on: Wed, 28 May 2014 09:35:52 +0000
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