Mixing in analogue -- here we go again!

[TwilightOdyssey]

Re: Mixing in analogue -- here we go again!

O, glorious day! Got the song out of mono.

PART V. THE VERTICAL DIMENSION

With basic levels set, and everything still in mono, the first EQ pass is to get everything set into it's own frequency 'bracket'. The end goal is to have every instrument be audible without having to strain to hear any element. Of course, you may turn down certain instruments because you don't want everything to be the same volume, but this is about clarity, not aesthetic decisions.

Most of the EQ moves during this step will be subtractive, taking away mud and rumble. I like to add a few "colour" elements at this stage as well to really anchor each instrument into its sonic space once I have it's bracket defined. Most times the colour element will be a vintage effect of some kind; on this mix there seems to be a lot of Waves REDD console and JJP Strings instances adding harmonic information. I also use RBass to bring out the bass harmonics based on the fundamental notes of the key signature, and then CLA bass on the bass bus for final 'glue'.

My biggest concern on this song were the guitars; ALL of the guitars on this song were recorded using a Weber Alnico speaker, a mistake I will not make again. The speaker is great, but it turned out to be TOO chimey for what I was looking for in the end. Another part was the use of an MXR micro flange on most of the guitar parts, which also pushed the mids.

PART VI. THE HORIZONTAL DIMENSION

With the entire 20 minute opus sounding balanced and unified in mono, it's time to bring the song into the stereo domain! I usually start by panning any mono elements hard left or right to begin with, and their final resting place will be determined as the mix progresses.

The mix is now VERY close to being a 'static' mix; i.e., all of the elements are in place waiting for any potential dynamics processing.

Here is a quick mono v stereo comparison of the same song section to demonstrate how the spectral balance does not shift, but everything widens out to find it's own place within the horizontal dimension. It should be obvious when it switches from mono to stereo.

 

[LLL]

Re: Mixing in analogue -- here we go again!

Say whatever you like, but a direct guitar with impulse responses will always sound fake to me.

Agreed. Tried this type of setup once (line in) thinking I might have a tonal goldmine with different speaker iRs, but everything came out flat and lifeless.

OTOH, slapping a speaker iR on a clip that was recorded off a live, moving speaker cab... sounds great.

 

[TwilightOdyssey]

Re: Mixing in analogue -- here we go again!

Update: Drum tracks are now complete and awaiting download. Vocal tracks should be arriving soon.
Looks like I am still on target for a Memorial Day analogue mix date!

 

[AmirH]

Re: Mixing in analogue -- here we go again!

Y'know, I learned a thing or two from your description of gain staging + a soundonsound article on the topic. I've most certainly undermined myself by making mistakes on this front. Definitely gonna try to put this information into practice in my future recordings. Thanks for that.

 

[TwilightOdyssey]

Re: Mixing in analogue -- here we go again!

Y'know, I learned a thing or two from your description of gain staging + a soundonsound article on the topic. I've most certainly undermined myself by making mistakes on this front. Definitely gonna try to put this information into practice in my future recordings. Thanks for that.

You are most welcome! Communities like this one can be a great resource for transcendence.

 

[TwilightOdyssey]

Re: Mixing in analogue -- here we go again!

 

[AmirH]

Re: Mixing in analogue -- here we go again!

Interesting. In the soundonsound article the writer said he typically starts with all the faders at -6, then turns his monitors way up. Do you start with the faders set flat? I definitely notice that I've been allowing my individual tracks to peak a lot louder than yours though under the mistaken idea that I was doing myself a favor be getting good signal>noise ratio.

 

[TwilightOdyssey]

Re: Mixing in analogue -- here we go again!

Interesting. In the soundonsound article the writer said he typically starts with all the faders at -6, then turns his monitors way up. Do you start with the faders set flat?

I start with all faders at zero and all tracks peaking at -20dBFS. Once the balance is set with EQ and dynamics, I will RARELY go above zero, but often attenuate between zero and -6ish dB, depending on what is the main focus of a particular section.

That is quite different from my monitoring level, however. I have my monitors calibrated so that -20dBFS = 75dB in the room; that gives me a nice, balanced level without being crazy loud when it is full-up, but I usually monitor my mixes somewhere between 75-80dB and MIGHT turn it up for a minute to be louder, many times much LOWER, however. The best advice for pushing your mix is to monitor at as low a level as you can stand.

I definitely notice that I've been allowing my individual tracks to peak a lot louder than yours though under the mistaken idea that I was doing myself a favor be getting good signal>noise ratio.

If you are tracking in 24+ bit, signal to noise basically doesn't exist.

It is important to note that the faders at the bottom are my bus tracks, not the individual track faders. As you can see, I have the sub bass turned down quite a bit, as the bass sounds balanced on my small monitors this way, but I have plenty of room for when I switch to my big mains and can hear/feel what is going on better in the sub-50Hz region.

EDIT: As a side point, I will definitely be reviewing my monitor level setup when I get to calibrating the mixing desk...

 

[TwilightOdyssey]

Re: Mixing in analogue -- here we go again!

PART VII. FADER STABILIZATION & THE STATIC MIX.

With the drums now in place and their basic tonality set, it's time to add dynamics plugins and make sure there are no weak faders; i.e., that there isn't any element that cannot remain stable in the mix simply by raising or lowering its level by a couple of dB.

This is what I call 'plugin time'; it's where I start piling in the plugins to go beyond just balancing, but for tonal shaping and colourations that make each element pop. First among these is compression, and then saturation. For saturation I like to use Waves Kramer Tape, Wave NLS, and most times a combination of both.



The mix is now reaching the point of what I call a static mix; i.e., the mix is pretty much set, but there is no movement yet from automation. Before I apply automation I like to listen to the static mix for a few days and make sure that I am happy with the overall balance first.

This is also the point in the mix where if there IS a problem, it's easier to just zero everything out and start over than try to sift through all of the geologic layers of the mix in an attempt to retcon a fix.

Here are the first couple of minutes as it stands now with final drums.

 

[TwilightOdyssey]

Re: Mixing in analogue -- here we go again!

Listening back to the rough... it is close, really close, to being ready for prime time.
A couple of synth bits need some level adjustment, and the toms need some love (taking out mud and adding a transient designer) and then I think we can start automating some faders!!

 

[TwilightOdyssey]

Re: Mixing in analogue -- here we go again!

Update: getting the toms and kick to cut the way I wanted them to was a pretty simple process:

1. Mult the track
2. Apply EQ and compression to the track; cut out all the bass and low-midrange, added a lot of high freqs; applied VERY heavy compression w the Kramer PiE
3. Apply harmonic distortion from nonlinear summing
3a. For the toms, I added mid-side processing to get the stereo spread wider
4. Blend to taste

 

[TwilightOdyssey]

Re: Mixing in analogue -- here we go again!

The mix as it stands thus far:



My CPU practically exploded with all of the plugins I was running, so I had to make an executive decision: either start chopping out plugins or bounce down the song to a more manageable size. I chose the latter because you HAVE to commit when mixing; if it goes t!ts up, I can always go back to an earlier rev and start over.

I bounced down the busses as I had them and then imported them into a fresh session; that now allows me a lot more processing room for any automation (minimal) and additional ear candy. I was able to add a nice reverse cymbal crash at the very end of the intro to add some drama to the transition from orchestration to the full band.

 

[ginormous]

Re: Mixing in analogue -- here we go again!

My CPU practically exploded with all of the plugins I was running, so I had to make an executive decision: either start chopping out plugins or bounce down the song to a more manageable size.

I've had to do that on individual tracks. For my sad little WallyWorld HP desktop, it's easier to bounce down channels with plugins, instead of having crashes before I save the project.

 

[TwilightOdyssey]

Re: Mixing in analogue -- here we go again!

I've had to do that on individual tracks. For my sad little WallyWorld HP desktop, it's easier to bounce down channels with plugins, instead of having crashes before I save the project.

I would love to have a rig that would allow 200 tracks w plugins a-blazing, but at the end of the day, I will only have 18 channels of output anyway when this goes analogue, so there is little advantage in belaying the decision-making.

My Mac was stressing so hard it was sounding like a jet engine taking off!

There ia a growing movement of mix engineers bouncing down to just 8 tracks, and I can see the appeal of the old school approach. While not going that extreme, I did get 105 tracks down to 17!

Using sub-busses > busses can save you a lot of CPU, and then either solo each bus (or mute all busses except for one) and bounce down from there.

 

[TwilightOdyssey]

Re: Mixing in analogue -- here we go again!

Well, TODAY IS THE DAY --

I am switching from the 2i2 setup in the dining room and setting up the 'big' rig in the Flower Shoppe (my daughters' room) using the 18i20, big monitors, and mixing desk.

This is a multi-day process, so I am not expecting the hybride setup to be ready before next weekend.

First setp is to get the acoustic treatment moved, then tune the Flower Shoppe using the ARC2, install LPX onto my wife's Mac so I have a writing station with the 2i2 and small monitors, and then I can start moving gear in. Fun times!!

 

[TwilightOdyssey]

Re: Mixing in analogue -- here we go again!

Most of the physical connections are made; surprised I got this far!
66 connection points, and still a few to go ...

 

[Vasshu the humanoid typhoon]

Re: Mixing in analogue -- here we go again!

Uh love that sound of it!
Fat and clear!

 

[TwilightOdyssey]

Re: Mixing in analogue -- here we go again!

Thanks!

 

[TwilightOdyssey]

Re: Mixing in analogue -- here we go again!

SIDE QUEST: ANALOGUE SETUP

Before I can begin actual mixing with the analogue equipment, several things have to happen:
- everything has to be connected
- wire paths need to be verified
- mixing desk needs to be calibrated
- monitors need to calibrated
- room correction needs to be applied

So, we are not out of the woods yet; in fact, we have barely begun to enter them!

Fortunately, I took full advatage of the intervening months and made meticulous notes for all connections. These were revised many times so the connections and workflow would be as intuitive as possible.

In short:
16 channels of audio from interface > desk
(These correspond to the 16 channels on the desk)

2 channels of audio from desk > interface for recording the mixdown

2 additional channelss of audio from interface > monitor controller/monitors
(This way we are hearing the mix post-mixdown track)

1 channel (bass) is using a channel insert to its own compressor

6 mono aux sends are running to reverb 1-2 and compressor 1-4
(The reverb returns are stereo; the rest are mono)

The entire mix is run through a bus insert through the strymon DECO.

+++++

And that is everything in a nutshell.

 

[LLL]

Re: Mixing in analogue -- here we go again!

Cool stuff going on here.

You mentioned having tons of tracks and this bringing your computer to its knees with all the processing.

Adobe Audition (for ex) allows you to "pre-render" a track (applying all track VSTs and essentially writing the results to the HDD) which frees up computing cycles.

Does your DAW allow for something like this? If so that could be a handy thing.