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Archive for November, 2009
Thursday, November 12th, 2009
After writing the last article on getting ready to mix, which covered editing and organizing, I started thinking about what else goes into mixing. Besides the techniques to use the tools effectively there’s a lot more that goes into it. This article will go over the physical and psychological concerns when it comes to preparing yourself to mix.
Brush your teeth – I’ve found something as simple as brushing my teeth before doing work from home can make a big difference. Its little rituals like this that help freelancers get motivated to work.
Get comfortable but not cozy – put clothes on. Something comfortable, something you’d wear if you went to mix at a pro studio. Doesn’t have to be suit and tie, but something more than boxers and a bathrobe.
Reduce background noise - Sit and listen to the room for a few seconds. See if there is any distracting noises or anything that will prevent you from listening at very low levels. It could be heat and Air Conditioning vents, open windows, computer fans or ticking clocks. Unfortunately you’ll have to live with some noise, in my home studio I have to deal with my fridge running in the other room and there’s really nothing I can do to reduce it.
Remove clutter – I always feel like I focus best when there is no clutter on the desk, I clear everything off and put it in a box then Windex the glass top.
Remove distractions – Sometimes motivation isn’t enough to keep you working. Sometimes the distractions keep you from even getting started. Get rid of possible distractions like the Internet and cellphone.
Prepare your workspace - After you’ve cleared the clutter you may not have to do any thing else. I like to restart the computer, close the curtains and get a glass of water.
This might seem like a lot of stuff, but really this takes only 5-10 minutes and gets you ready to put all your focus on mixing for the next few hours.
Remember that at some point you’ll need to have a break. Give yourself at least 15 minutes to make a cup of coffee, have a snack or whatever you need to continue the mix to the end. Don’t take too long away or you might not be able to get back into work mode again.
I hope this helps get you started on your way to making great mixes. Let me know if there are any things you like to do to get yourself motivated for work.
Posted in Commentary; Rants and Jokes, Tutorial | 6 Comments »
Wednesday, November 11th, 2009
Ever since watching the shootout and favorable review of the True Systems P-Solo single channel mic preamp on Ronan’s Recording Show, I can’ stop thinking about the P-Solo. In the shootout it beat FMR Audio RNP and Black Lion Auteur preamps on any source. I shot straight to the top of my gear wish list, and partly because of it’s reasonable price around $500 US. I may even own one by the end of the year.
There’s lots to like about the P-Solo:
- Sturdy construction
- Large gain knob
- Lots of clean gain
- Simple Metering
- Full size IEC power supply
- Dual balanced output
- Instrument Input
- It’s shiny red!
If you’re a regular reader of AGZ you’ll know my interface is a Profire 2626, I’ve already got 8 decent preamps, from Ronan’s review and shootout it doesn’t seem like going with the RNP or Auteur would be much of a step up in quality, different colors but not universally better. The P-Solo seems to be a well built, all-around quality piece of gear, a nice upgrade for my home studio.
More Info on the True Systems P-Solo
One problem…I can’t find any in Canada!
Posted in Gear, Gear Lust, Preamps | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, November 10th, 2009
Free Sound Of The Week is a new weekly series here on AGZ, once a week I’m going to share a couple sound samples I’ve recorded or created and manipulated.
These samples are short hits on a disposable aluminum tray. Doesn’t seem too useful at first, but try dropping them into a step sequencer and making random patterns. Distort them, add FX, go nuts!
Some example loops (what I came up with in 2 minutes) MP3s are below. Download all 12 16bit, 44.1kHz Wav files here: Free Sound 03 RAR
Example loop 1
[LISTEN]
Example loop 2
[LISTEN]
Example loop 3
[LISTEN]
I hope you like these and find them useful. If you do find them useful let me know.
More samples next week!
Posted in Free Sound Of The Week, Samples | 5 Comments »
Monday, November 9th, 2009
Every Monday I highlight free plugins new and old that are worth checking out. See all posts in the Free Plugin Of The Week Series.
Last week Brainworx released their second free plugin bx_cleansweep and since I actually use their other free plugin bx_solo quite often I figured I’ll talk about them both. 1 is new, 1 is not, both are helpful tools. PC: VST & RTAS; Mac: VST, RTAS & AU
bx_solo is a simple MS tool. It allows you to swap Left and Right, solo Left/Right/Mid/Side as well as a handy stereo width control. Once in a while I’ll have something in a mix that I want über wide and in the background so I’ll set the stereo width control to 400%. More info on bx_solo
bx_cleansweep is a hi-pass and low-pass filter (aka bandpass) but goes about it in an interesting way with a joystick to adjust HP and LP cutoff simultaneously. Additionally there is a knob for each filter for finer/more traditional adjustment. More info on bx_cleansweep
Get both of these on the Brainworx Free downloads page, the TT Dynamic Range Meter is also available for download on that page.
Posted in Free Plugin Of The Week, Mac, Plugins, Software, Virtual Effect, Windows | 2 Comments »
Sunday, November 8th, 2009
It’s time for another recap of @theaudiogeek on twitter.
theaudiogeek
Posted in Site News, Tweetdump | No Comments »
Thursday, November 5th, 2009
Recently I’ve been working on some songs that were recorded by another engineer. I’ve been hired to mix the songs but before I can mix I need to spend some time getting the songs ready to mix.
Mixing is a creative process, but there are any aspects of a multi-track recording that are more technical in nature and it can be very difficult to jump back and forth between technical editing and creative mixing actions.
A song that is ready to mix will have much of the technical concerns already taken care of, there’s nothing worse than having to stop mixing to tighten up percussion parts or line up backing vocals.
Some of these technical things would be: correcting the timing of instruments, trimming the audio, vocal comping and tuning, removing extra tracks and unused takes, organizing the session, and creating buses and groups.
Before you start, make a copy of the session and name it “songname_mix_prep”
Correcting Timing– Ideally this is all done way before you start thinking of mixing. The drum performance should be made as tight as required before adding any additional instruments. If you’re not quantizing the performance completely, at least make sure the start of each section has all the instruments hitting at the same time. I like beat detective for correcting drums, and elastic audio for everything else.
Trimming The Audio – This is a really simple editing task that makes a big difference. Go through all the tracks and chop out all the bits of the regions where the instrument isn’t played and put in fades in and out.
Vocal Comping And Tuning – Vocal comping is going through all the vocal takes and choosing the best parts to combine into a best of the best composite vocal. Ryan talked about Vocal Comping a few weeks ago on The Home Recording Show # 52. Key Of Grey and Home Studio Corner both recently posted about Vocal Comping so check those out for more on that topic. Vocal tuning should be done next and ideally the vocal comp and tuning should be done before you record any other backing vocals. In any case, this stuff shouldn’t be left for mixing.
Removing Extra Tracks And Unused Takes – I think that’s pretty self explanatory, if it’s not meant to be in the final mix, get rid of it.
Organizing The Session – The bigger the mix the more important organizing it is. Organizing consists of Naming all the tracks, arranging the order of the tracks in a way that makes sense to you, and coloring the regions and tracks so you can quickly find whatever you need when you have 40 or more tracks in the session this is really important. The last part of organizing is to put in labelled markers for each section of the song.
Creating Buses And Groups – Usually you have a general idea of what you need for buses and automation groups. For buses I usually have stereo sub-mixes for vocals, drums, and guitars. A stereo reverb for instruments and another for vocals. I might also have a bus for chorus and delay depending on the song. I’ll have another bus for parallel compression on the drums. I’ll create those buses, name them and route the tracks as necessary. For automation groups I know I’ll need one for vocals, guitars, and drums at the very least. Setting up these things ahead of time means I can just open the session later and start mixing.
Now that the session is ready to mix, save this session as a copy called “songname_mix”
In professional studios all these things are taken care of behind the scenes by the assistants. I wish I had an assistant to do all this boring stuff.
I guess the point I’m trying to make with this would be: Take the time get your song ready to mix, it’s totally worth it.
Part 2 is here
Posted in Tutorial | 7 Comments »
