Indie musician burn out will creep up on you if you forget that you do the music because you love to do it. Money is important - it pays the bills - but it should never be your god.
Today's featured video (on the top): How to mix fast
Graham Cochrane's video above teaches us how to mix and master fast (of course he has edited and comped all the tracks before. Theses are his tips. This is the next video after his four steps to a great mix video. (See my earlier post, "chit chat in the studio" from yesterday).
Why mix fast? Save time and money. Get more done. Don't get caught in a rut (like I have been the past few songs.)
1. Focus on the mixed buss - the master fader (10 minutes)
Once everything is balanced in a static mix and routed properly, go to the mix bus and add plugins. He used these three on this mix: Greg Wells' Mixcentric; the SSL Master-buss compressor, and Ozone 8 (EQ) added at the very end of the mix. So turn your last EQ off to begin with.
He starts at the end in order to make some changes that affect the whole mix and limit the need to fix these issues on the individual tracks, bogging them down with plugins - making the whole file larger and using more CPU.
He plays around with Mixcentric and the SSL with the ambient effects aux turned off for now. Mixcentric adds a little bit of saturation, EQ, compression all at once.
Then use your mix buss compressor with a slow attack & a fast release to get the most natural sound as possible. You are at the end of the chain and want a natural compression effect. Do one to 3 dB of gain reduction, watching the needle. You want a little more pump than without it.
What you want to do with those three types of plugins is to create a mix that is a little bit more forward, a little deeper and a bit clearer.
2. Add EQ&compression on individual tracks statically (30 minutes, move quickly)
He uses the SSL channel (a plugin including both EQ and compression) on many tracks but only where EQ and compression is needed. Overheads, bass, electric guitars, vocals. Only where needed. THE IDEA IS ONLY ADDRESS THINGS WHEN YOU CAN'T HEAR THEM. Make it pop in mono. Make sure you can hear everything.
PUT THE WHOLE MIX ON MONO. Then do EQ and compression on the individual tracks so they pop out in the mix.
Roll off the low end where you can, and keep in mind that each instrument should have its place (frequency-wise in the mix). I.e. kick at the lowest then bass, and so on.
If you don't know where the frequency slot is for a particular instrument you can take the EQ and boost it on that instrument 6 or more dB and then sweep across w a narrow bandwidth and try to find its sweet spot where the instrument pops out in the mix. (Banjo 1.1 K) then dial the EQ down.
He added compression to the banjo. Some of the notes didn't get plucked that hard and you couldn't hear between the ones that do. Adjust make up gain.
If you don't need compression or EQ, don't add it. Saves you time, plugin adjustment time and CPU.
3. Focus on ambient effects like reverb and delays (10 more minutes)
He has one room reverb, "VERB", one short slap delay, "SLAP", and one long effect delay he puts them on three auxes.
4. Automation - ride the lead vocal until everything sounds clear and even. If you don't do anything else, do that. You can also need to do bass guitar rides, drum rides etc. But don't waste your time on background vocals (Hm... I do that!).
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An Indie Musician's Diary VOL. 1
Non-FictionThis is how I go forward with my music - the real story from November 2017 and towards the album release but it took Volume 2 to get the whole way there. Creating, editing and mixing music is a complicated effort but loads of fun. For all you who wa...
Scotland & Mixing/Mastering Faster
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