Joseph Hearn

Mixing analysis

Importance of mixing

Say you’ve finished a recording of a live performance and are happy with the performance and vocals; this would be prime time to start mixing the piece. Proper mixing is needed in order to have a professional sounding song. A song will never sound its best without the use of mixing. A good and professional mix will not only make the song sound professional but can add dynamic, emotion and life to the song.

What is mixing?

Mixing is the technical and creative process of combining all the individual tracks i.e. instruments, vocals, etc and "mixing" them down to one stereo track. For each instrument or vocal mixing allows you to change how loud a track is compared to any other tracks in the mix, what space the track occupies in the mix, i.e. left, right, centre, back or front and how the tracks sound in comparison to others e.g. clear, thin, bright etc. Each track can be changed in a mix by using four basic tools:

Volume- volume determines the balance between all the tracks in the mix, for example how loud the vocals are compared to the volume of the guitars or how loud the piano is compared to drums etc. The volume of a track can be changed using tools such as, compressors that control the dynamics of a track or the volume difference between the softest and loudest parts of the track.

Panning- Panning determines where an instrument is placed in the stereo field, from hard left to hard right or anywhere in between. The reason panning takes place is because if all of the instruments in the mix were placed in the centre, then it would be nearly impossible to work out which instrument is which and as well as this the mix would sound really cluttered. Spreading out the instruments through the use of panning makes the mix sound clearer and less compact.

Equalization (EQ) - EQ can emphasis or de-emphasis certain frequencies or an instrument or vocals. For example, using EQ to boost the lower frequencies of a bass

Joseph Hearn

guitar or kick drum will make them sound bigger and fatter. If air and shimmer where needed to be added to vocals them you would need to boost the higher frequencies. If the acoustic guitar in a mix is sounding too strident then cutting the mi range frequencies may smooth the sounding of the guitar. EQ is often used to define certain instruments so that they are not fighting within the same frequency range.

Effects- effects can be time based i.e. reverb, delay and echo or modulation based i.e. chorus, flange etc. Time based effects like reverb and echo are used to add depth to the mix. Effects are also used to change the original sound of an instrument so that it stands out in the mix or make the mix sound more exciting.

Mixing tools

The best assets a technician has when producing a mix are his ears, but as well as this there are a number of audio tools that are used when creating a mix, these include; a good set of monitors, a good listening environment that can handle acoustics well, high quality equalizers and compressors, effects such as reverb and delay and a digital or analog mixing consol. Most mixing that takes place in this day and age is done on computers using a digital audio workstation e.g. ProTools, Logic Pro X etc, with digital automation and plugins.

Reverb

Reverb is an effect in which reflections of sound bounce back at you off an array of surfaces. Unlike echo where you can clearly work out that the original sound is being repeated, the reflections in a reverb situation create a long decay meaning the sound continues to ring out once the initial attack of the sound has been played the reflections then eventually blend together and fade away in the end. Reverb is easy to hear in a large open room with high ceilings i.e. a church. When creating music you use reverb to give your sounds a sense of space. By doing this you can make the sounds seem richer, more powerful and more likely to be distinctive.

Joseph Hearn

Decay/Echo

Delay also known as Echo is an audio effect which records an input signal to an audio storage medium, and then plays it back after a period of time. The delayed signal may either be played back multiple times, or played back into the recording again, to create the sound of a repeating, decaying echo.

Compression/ Compressors

Compression is often used to make music sound louder without increasing its peak amplitude. By compressing the loudest signals, it then becomes possible to increase the overall gain (volume) of a signal, without exceeding the dynamic range of a reproductive device or medium. In other words, compression is the process of lessening the dynamic range between the loudest and quietest parts of an audio signal. This is done by boosting the quieter signals and attenuating the louder signals. The controls you are given to set up a compressor are usually:

Threshold- this is how loud the signal has to be before compression is applied to it.

Ratio- the ratio means how much compression is actually applied to the track. For example if the compression ratio is 6:1, the input signal will have to cross the threshold by 6dB in order for the output level to increase by 1dB.

Attack- this is how quickly the compressor starts to work.

Release- how soon after the signal drops below the threshold the compressor stops.

Knee- Knee - sets how the compressor reacts to signals once the threshold is passed. Hard Knee settings mean it clamps the signal straight away, and Soft Knee means the compression kicks in more gently as the signal goes further past the threshold.

Make up gain- this allows you to boost the compressed signal

Output- this will enable you to boost or attenuate the level of the signal output from the compressor.

How I did my mix of my multi-track recording

Joseph Hearn

Once I had completed my recording and was happy with the drums and guitar that I recorded into my composition I then needed to mix my final recording.

The first step I took in my mix was to make sure that I didn’t have any clipping on any of my tracks. To do this I opened the mixer on Logic Pro X and played my recording, I then looked at the volume levels for each of my tracks and checked that none of the instruments volume levels were going into the red zone at any point in my recording. I found that some of my instruments did go into the red zone, so to stop this from happening I moved the faders down on the instrument track that was clipping, until it was out of the red zone. By doing this it made my track sound softer, and decreased the risk of damaging the speakers, by having too higher output levels.

Once this was done, I then had to add some compression to the drums; this is because when the track was playing the drums were hard to hear over the other instruments. By adding compression to my drums this meant their volume was increased, so I was able to hear them over the other instruments. I had to make sure I didn’t add to much compression because I didn’t want the drums to overpower the other instruments, I wanted them to sit nicely in the middle. As well as compression, I also added reverb to the drums. I added reverb to the drums as I felt it would give my composition more atmosphere, and make the overall piece have more life to it.

The last thing I did was make sure that the left and right overheads were panned. The left overhead I panned to the left and the right overhead I panned to the right. The reason I panned these overheads is because without the panning of the overheads my mix sounded cramped and cluttered. So by panning the overheads it made my track sound clearer and less compact. As well as the overheads I also panned the guitar audio to the left and the acoustic guitar midi to the right, this is because it meant that I could hear what the guitars were playing, as they were playing two different melodies and if I didn’t pan them then I wouldn’t of been able to distinguish between the two melodies.

How I mixed the Africa recording

The first thing I did when I was given the Africa recording to mix was, to make sure all the levels for all audio tracks were not clipping. To make sure they weren’t clipping I opened the mixer in Logic Pro X. Once this was open I then lowered the levels of some of the tracks that were either clipping or overwhelming the other instruments by using the faders. Once I lowered the levels of the tracks, I then used eq on the drums this is because there was a lot of dead space in the drums that made them sound fuzzy, so by using eq the drums then sounded a lot clearer and less fuzzy. After using eq I then put reverb on the snare, this gave the snare more life and atmosphere as well as improving the overall track. I then panned the left and right overheads to make the track sound

Joseph Hearn

clearer and less cluttered. The next part I did was to eq the guitars (electric and acoustic), this is so that they don’t sound distorted on the track as this would not sound good. Once this was done I then used eq and compressors on the shakes and the congo. This is so that if there were hits played unevenly then they would be evened out and leveled. When this was completed I then eq and compressed the bass guitar. This is because I saw that the bass was a bit quiet in the mix so I compressed it to make it louder by didn’t compress it too much as I didn’t want it to be too overpowering. The final stage was to mix the vocals. This included adding eq, compression, reverb and panning to the lead vocals and four harmony tracks. I added some automation to the vocals in the chorus as the instruments were drowning out the vocals so they needed to be brought up so that they could be heard.