MIXING AUDIO

This is the mixing method I learned many years ago from professional mixer
Kevin Ward (two time Gospel Dove award winner, the Grammy equivalent in
Gospel music). Kevin also mixed many albums for Nashville artists, including
Dolly Parton and Willie Nelson, and also big band mixes at Capitol records in
Los Angeles. We covered just about every style of music one can think of in
our mix lessons with Kevin. As I've gotten older my hearing has suffered, but
I never forgot this mix method he taught us.

(This is primarily for mixing audio tracks. You can still use many of the ideas
to mix MIDI tracks, but it will be obvious when sometimes this method won't
apply to mixing MIDI.)

1. Set up your track structure in your DAW. Configure buses for similar
instruments that you may need to treat as a group, for example like Strings,
Brass, Winds, Drums, Cymbals, Guitar, Bass, Vocals, Background Vocals, FX,
etc. Also setup FX buses, like Delay, Parallel Compression, Reverb, etc. Have
all these group buses going to a Mix bus. And then the Mix bus will go to the
final out, or usually Master bus.

The ideal way to use effects is to load them on their own separate bus and
then use your DAW's 'Send' feature from the individual tracks as needed.
This means one reverb loaded on a bus can be referenced from any of your
tracks via 'Send' and you keep the CPU usage lower. (I usually setup three
separate reverbs at different depths and early reflections. And then I refer
the instruments via Send to whichever one that fits its stereo placement.)

If you have a huge number of tracks, group them into separate stems and
mix them like that. For example, if you had a big band session with a
separate trumpet, sax, and trombone section each, you'd mix each section as
a group first, then the whole brass groups in final. This in turn would all go to
one group bus that would then go to the Mix bus. Break large projects down
into smaller pieces and start from there is the idea.

Group Buses Usage - one of the main uses of group buses of course is so you
can fine tune your mix. It may be that all the vocals are mixed together well,
but are too low or too high compared to the rest of the mix. It's much easier
to nudge the Vocal Group Bus fader than to go back to each individual vocal
track and adjust. With enough mix practice, you should get to the point
where you'll know just what kind of Group buses to create depending on the
song style and mix, and it will make it easier to fine tune the groups (or
stems).
2. For starters, put a good Limiter plugin on your Mix bus set at a maximum
threshold of -1 to -1.5 dB. This is just to catch the 'occasional' over. The idea
is not to compress the mix or raise the volume level at this point, but only to
catch the small occasional over (an 'over' is when the audio in digital goes
over 0.0 dBFS, which causes digital distortion, bad distortion).

3. Track Cleaning: preview all the tracks for noise, pops, clicks, digital
artifacts, low end 50 or 60 cycle electrical hum, etc. This is when you get rid
of unneeded low end with instruments that don't use the lower registers. One
track may not seem like it could affect the overall final mix, but several
tracks together with these artifacts in the low end will affect the final quality
of the mix.

Get in the habit of applying a High Pass filter on the low end of each track
and doing a sweep upward while listening. You'll know when the natural
sound of the instrument has changed, and know to back off from that point.

4. Vocal Riding: if your mix has vocals, this is the time to get the vocal
track dynamics under control.

Most DAW's today have a gain feature in the track's waveform. Pro Tools has
a line you pull up and down right at the point in the track where you'd need
to raise or lower the gain of the vocal to balance it.

You can also use track automation to 'ride' the fader of the vocal during
playback, and get a balance that way. This is how it was done in the old days
on a mixing board. (You can even buy a single fader control hook-up to USB
that will operate like a real 100mm fader on a mixing board.)

5. Static Mix: this is where you are setting the volume balance between the
tracks and panning, and those two things only at this stage.

It's important to not get sidetracked (excuse the pun) into adding EQ and
compressor and effects at this stage, nor automation, etc.

The idea is to balance the instruments with each other. Try to get a good
sounding mix at this point just with level balance and panning. Try also to
get all the track's levels in the mid to mid-upper range of the faders; not
over-peaking, nor hitting the red, but in the mid part of the yellow. This will
reveal which tracks will need compression and which ones will not (yes,
that's right; no need to compress everything if it already sounds good and
balanced).
6. EQ and Compression: after this stage, the mix will be about 80%
complete.

MONO LISTENING: Kevin would listen in Mono at this point when doing EQ
and compression. It takes some getting used to, but I highly recommend it.
It's easier to hear the difference between balances of the instruments, and
phase cancellation problems easily show up when monitoring in Mono. So it's
very important to at least check your mix in Mono every once in a while.

'Q' on an EQ plugin is about the width of the cut or boost. Use a wide Q for
boosts, and a narrow Q for cuts, in general. 3 dB boosts or cuts is a good
starting amount so you can 'hear' what the treatment did. Then go from
there to tweak it in to taste.

Pick a track start point to begin - EQ it as needed. Then the next track, and
this time keep the first track playing. The idea is to compare the 2nd track
with the 1st, and then EQ balance the 2nd track so it works with the 1st
track. You continue to do this throughout the mix. Some instruments won't
need any EQing because they're in separate registers and don't create a
conflict, or 'masking' (masking is when two or more instruments are in the
same register, and overlap each other).

6.A. Phase Cancellation -- since I mentioned it I need to cover it a bit. This is

mainly an audio problem, not with MIDI. It happens mostly with live
recording. Microphone bleed is where it shows up the most.

Simply, if you have two signals of the exact same recording, and they are
'OUT OF PHASE' from each other, they will cancel each other out. The sound
will drop in power and audibility. Two signals of the same exact recording
that are IN PHASE with each other will amplify the sound (and thus the
volume).

The way you can check this in your DAW is to zoom your track's waveform
out until you see a small wavy line. Then whichever track you're comparing it
to, do the same, zoom it out. Look at both of them and compare. Pick a point
on the meter bar. At that point, is the wavy line going in the same direction
in both tracks? If they are, then both tracks are IN PHASE with each other;
good, no problem.

If the wavy line is going in opposite directions between the two tracks, then
problem, you may need to correct it. Often if it's a small difference, just use
your ears. If it's not obvious, then it's probably OK, nothing to worry about.
If it's an obvious problem, like you can really hear a loss of clarity between
the two instrument tracks, or you can really hear the difference when you
play either track by itself and the clarity and power of the instrument
suddenly shows up, then simply nudge one track or the other a few samples
until their wavy lines match the same direction as much as you can. (All
DAWs have a 'nudge' feature you can set the amount of samples to move).
Test the sound again; good, done.
Stay away from SOLOing the track while applying EQ. It's not about making
each instrument sound good on their own. It's about making all the
instruments work together to create a balanced mix. The song is what's
important, not how good that grunge guitar sounds by itself. This is why you
EQ while listening to each additional track.

LEVELS AGAIN - applying EQ (boosting) can raise the volume level of the
track. So you will probably have to do little tweaks of the volume levels
again, and again while doing EQ. If you noticed what volume level an
individual track was before you began EQ treatment, then you can simply
adjust the EQ plugin's output level to match the original track level (this also
works when doing compression).

A/B Comparisons - there's an effect produced by audio with volume boosts

which the Fletcher-Munson curve reveals about our hearing. Volume boosts
almost always sound better to our ears. We hear a certain way in the low
range, and a certain way in the high ranges. And volume boosts can fool your
ears into thinking an EQ treatment, or any added FX makes the audio sound
better. To counter this there's a simple method for comparison. You simply
compare the audio before, and the audio after, but with 'both' set to the
same volume levels. That way you will hear the actual difference which the
treatment did. If you watch Grammy award winning mixer Dave Pensado
mix, you'll see him making these kind of comparisons all the time when he's
looking for a certain treatment of the audio.

7. Compression - this you do along with the time of EQing the tracks. Some
tracks will naturally be too low in balance with the others, and will need
boosting. Other tracks may be too 'strong' or powerful, and need controlling.
Not every instrument will need compression. Some tracks will sit in the mix
as they are, and may only need a little EQ tweak.

One of the secrets of compression is... "compress often, but only a little".

Two compressors in line with each other, each one compressing only a little,
is better than one compressor being hit hard.

You should try experimenting with your plugins to see what happens when
you overuse them. You need to hear the bad effects so you'll recognize it;
that way you'll know what not... to do with them.

Over-compression is one of the bad effects of compressors. The majority of

music still does not use over-compression pumping while some EDM styles
may. I have used three compressors on a strong female vocal performance
just to control her powerful voice while not causing compressor artifacts like
pumping or squashing. And that was done in order to keep as much of the
vocal dynamics intact also.
8. FX and Balancing: if you were monitoring in MONO, this is where you
switch back to STEREO monitoring, and apply reverbs to the various tracks.

Think - foreground, middleground, background, then go from there to create

the kind of stereo field you want.

Parallel Compression - this is known as New York style compression. You

setup a group bus with a compressor on it, set it at a high ratio with a high
threshold. Then you send instruments like a snare drum or kick to it and
blend it in with the original drum tracks to give them an added 'punch' in
order to cut through the mix. Some folks use it on other type instruments
too, which I'd be very careful doing that, as it can make a natural instrument
sound fake. But if that's what you want... go to.

9. Automation - this should be one of the final things you do in a mix. Ride
the individual faders as needed to fine tweak your mix at this point.

With Pop, Rock, etc., you might consider using automation to boost certain
sections of the song, but only a little, like 1 or 2 dB. You don't want the
change to be obvious, but felt.

10. At this point the mix should still have at least 3 dB of headroom for the
mastering stage which is next (I try to have around -14 dB RMS on my
mixes, higher if it's a Rock or Pop mix). I regularly use a 2-bus compressor
(like UAD Fairchild, or SSL G Bus compressor, or a Neve 33609 to gel the mix
together and get the level up.)