It's very complex, difficult, expensive, interesting and fun to be an independent music producer. Volume three covers my attempts to: make acoustic improvements to the studio; cut down my production times; learn the art of mastering in-house ad muc...
Bilingual Homepage: I spent a whole working day yesterday creating a Swedish language version of my homepage because I hope to be able to sing publicly and speak about making music and books here where i live. It is easy to create a bilingual page if you follow Wix.com's steps. It is easier for me to get into the graphic design stuff than it is to mix. I know that every little thing I do on my homepage leads to results I can see. I know when I am done on a specific task. Not so with mixing. That is what makes me procrastinate with mixing. I guess I feel like I am shooting bubbles into the wind - I never know when a song is good enough to send to mastering. That takes years of experience! With time I will get the hang of it.
Christmas is quickly approaching and I am still trying to fulfil my goal to get six songs sent to Australia for mastering before the 24th hits. (Good luck - it doesn't seem possible.) If I keep getting distracted by everything I will not be able to do it. Therefore, I will keep these posts as short as possible.
During Christmas I usually pack down the studio and host my family and guests for about two weeks. So I only have 28 working days left until I have to pack down everything. UGH!
JUST SO YOU KNOW: So, I won't be writing much until after Christmas - about a post a week (this is the first "week post") from now on and then I will only add short notices about what I am learning and doing.
Mixing vocals
The video above was about layering compressors to get pop vocals to stand out. A good one from Graham Cochrane.
First, add an SSl Channel with some EQ and a little compression:
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Then add a de-esser
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Then Graham slams on a CLA-2A compressor - both compressors reducing between 3 and 5 dB but stacked after each other. This is the secret to getting vocals to be upfront and every syllable clear. So, today I am going to adjust that too in my song the Vine.
I am mixing still mixing vocals and trying to balance them. It is taking forever. I will send it to Australia asap. The guy just got a new baby so I guess he is backlogged anyway....
