Mixing in the analogue domain -- blogging about my experiences

[TwilightOdyssey]

Started mixing side 2 of my upcoming album and am documenting the process on my Facebook and Wordpress pages. Feel free to take a gander.

https://www.facebook.com/as.follows.9

www.asfollowsmusic.com

 

[ginormous]

Re: Mixing in the analogue domain -- blogging about my experiences

Been there, done that, wove the cloth, hand-sewed and silk-screened the T-shirt, beat it down by the river with a rock when it got dirty.

Try bouncing tracks between 2 ghettoblasters... or using your dad's mics in the living room, and having until he gets home to get a good vocal track with no mistakes.
(BTW, no punch-ins.)

 

[TwilightOdyssey]

Re: Mixing in the analogue domain -- blogging about my experiences

That was how I started, exactly!
Recording into a boom box and then bouncing from deck A to deck B whilst playing life. I did that for 2 years when my cousin hipped me to the idea of 4 track. Got a Porta 02 and never looked back!

 

[ginormous]

Re: Mixing in the analogue domain -- blogging about my experiences

^Oh, yeah. The Sanyo and the Panasonic box radios always had AGC (automatic gain control, a super-squishy limiter). Drums were OK, but vocals sounded like butt.

I was also using an old Concord (importer of private-label mid-60s Japanese electronics) stereo open-reel, with the left channel blown out.

Any-hoo... great blog! Got any tracks from the album?

 

[TwilightOdyssey]

Re: Mixing in the analogue domain -- blogging about my experiences

Thanks! And, yes ... this thread has more detail ... https://forum.seymourduncan.com/sho...-Eye-Of-Fire-And-Fear-side-1-final-mix-master

 

[NecroPolo]

Re: Mixing in the analogue domain -- blogging about my experiences

Analogue mixing is lovely. Great blog man.

Damn time / efficiency man. It keeps me working in-the-box. I used analogue stuff before but recalling made me mad. One band came mixing one song in the afternoon, an another one came in the evening mixing an another song with total different setup, next day morning came a third and in the afternoon came the first band and so on... Aaargh.

I ended up sunk in recall hell and nothing sounded exactly like yesterday. I gave up and started keeping mixes in the digital domain with analogue final stage occassionally. It brought much better efficiency and consistency to me. But analogue mixing is fun and it is what things should be.

 

[TwilightOdyssey]

Re: Mixing in the analogue domain -- blogging about my experiences

Thanks, man!

When I do freelance work, I mix ITB; it's way too complex to mix in analog with someone else's stuff, and some people are so used to digital mixes they are like, 'what is that hiss?!'? Er, you mean that bit of noise you can barely hear at the head and tail? That's the self noise of all the analog gear ... ... I think they want 'analog' without it being analog lol. So I strap a Kramer Master Tape across the master buss and turn the noise all the way down. =p

For my own stuff, I can invest the additional 20 hours it takes to get a good take in analog; I have no recall and don't comp mixes so, if I make a mistake ... it's back to the beginning. It wouldn't bother me at all if my songs were of normal length, but when you are 14 minutes into a 17 minute long track and make a mistake -- it's enough to make you wanna kick something lol

 

[NecroPolo]

Re: Mixing in the analogue domain -- blogging about my experiences

When I do freelance work, I mix ITB; it's way too complex to mix in analog with someone else's stuff, and some people are so used to digital mixes they are like, 'what is that hiss?!'? Er, you mean that bit of noise you can barely hear at the head and tail? That's the self noise of all the analog gear ... ... I think they want 'analog' without it being analog lol. So I strap a Kramer Master Tape across the master buss and turn the noise all the way down. =p

Very true man I can remember a picky client who rejected an analogue mix as it had low quality (it was okay just, well, organic with a tiny noise around the head and tail) and accepted a full digital when I sent him a mix online, then rejected the very same mix at the moment when he saw in the studio that all the analogue gear was bypassed. Then he accepted the very same mix when I accidentally routed the mix to the outboard units (meters waving, LEDs flashing - showtime baby!) without returning it to the DAW and the monitors, just for some sort of blind test. 'okay now that sounds excellent' he said. I almost failed to keep my laughing when I realised that the outboard is completely bypassed. Well, I told him to set the ratio of the (bypassed) compressor to the sweet spot. He found it between around ratio 2.0:1 and 2.1:1 and he swore that it is good there without noise and absolutely wrong here with noise and it needed that little bit of change... while the whole unit was out of the chain. So what could I do? I admitted he was right and finalised the track in an hour then finished the project. Misleading? Sure. Evil? Maybe. But man that was the 33th master mix version and it was already complete and ready to release around the 3rd mix by all means

Human psychology is a weird thing man.

 

[TwilightOdyssey]

Re: Mixing in the analogue domain -- blogging about my experiences

Ha! Great story ...

 

[TwilightOdyssey]

Re: Mixing in the analogue domain -- blogging about my experiences

Just a quick bump/update to let those who are interested know that I have posted 4 articles on the subject of mixing in analog thus far, with another going up tonight or tomorrow. Subjects covered thus far:

1/Basic connections
2/Calibrating the mixing desk
3/Mixing with real-time effects
4/Mixing vs summing

The next article will be about overall level in the final mix.