For my recent Mixing Masterclass event I remixed a song I did for the band Cardinal Chase just before I moved to Vancouver. I was kind of surprised how quickly the mix came together this time and how few plugins (compared to the first mix) I used. Last night I compared the two unmastered versions, one from May 2010 and the latest from Jan 2011. A dramatic difference! Perhaps still not a great mix but the band and I were happy with the one back in May.
Have a listen.
May 2010 Mix *unmastered* ~11 hrs to mix
Jan 2011 Mix *unmastered* ~6 hrs to mix
Both mixes have the same peak level but the latest is clearly denser. Both were done using Pro Tools 8. The latest used primarily stock digidesign/AIR plugins with only a couple of 3rd party processors; a mix bus comp, and a multiband comp.
A Very interesting experiment, I encourage you to try remixing one of your old projects from scratch, maybe even once a year to track your progress.
I uploaded one of my old industrial songs to the Recording Review forum for people to mix and remix. I know multi-track projects to practice on can be hard to find, so I share them whenever I can. The best way to learn mixing is by mixing. So go do it.
Over at HSC Joe is offering massive discounts on his fantastic educational products (including Home Recording Tactics which I was a part of) until the year end.
If you’ve followed HSC since the beginning, you know that I have
never done a “sale” on any of my products. However, I’ve been busy
over the last year creating a lot of new tutorial videos and
products to help you take your recordings to the next level, and
now’s your chance to get some great training at a GREAT price.
This isn’t some silly 10% off sale. This is really valuable.
It’s a “buy one get one (or more) free” sale.
You buy one of my products (listed below), and I’ll give you the
full purchase price towards another product (or products).
Spend $30, get $30 in additional products for free.
It’s that easy.
Here are a few examples of what you can do:
Buy Understanding EQ for $29.95, get Understanding
Compression ($29.95 value) for free.
Buy Understanding Editing for $47, get Understanding EQ
and Home Recording Tactics ($46.95 value) for free.
(This is my favorite) Buy Understanding Your Room for $77,
get Understanding EQ, Understanding Compression, AND
Home Recording Tactics ($76.90 value) for FREE.
This offer expires at the end of the year. Don’t miss out on this
deal.
This offer expires at the end of the year. Don’t miss out on this
deal. Here’s how it works:
1. Break out the calculator.
2. Mix and match to your hearts desire.
3. Place your order using one of the links above.
4. Email me a copy of your receipt, and I’ll send you your free
stuff!
Yesterday Protooler blog linked to this great interview with Joe Barresi. You can’t not like this guy. He’s honest and hard working and makes great records without being a dick about it.
A while ago I found this page on the Waves site explaining the concept of the Chris Lord-Alge Signature series effects. On that page there are some signal chain diagrams showing what’s going on, if you can’t afford the collection, these may come in handy coming up with similar results. In any event, you may find them interesting. Because I’m feeling lazy today, I’m going to paste his comments on each plugin too.
Click to enlarge images.
Let’s talk about each plugin, starting with CLA Guitars.
The unique thing about CLA Guitars is that I made it for the guitar player that wants to sit late at night, plug in his direct box, and instantly have three choices of sound. Especially with so many people recording DI signals now, there’s that instant gratification, to take a DI signal and automatically get a sound. And the re-amping makes it completely unique, and the EQ I picked is really conducive to guitar. The EQ, compression, and the way the delays are setup, it’s like, the perfect guitar setup. read a whole lot more inside
When working with a multi-miked drumkit recording you need to be aware of phase issues and how to correct them.
Recognizing the phase issues will take some practice but if you go step by step you shouldn’t have problems.
Before doing any processing or even setting levels, go through one mic at a time and check the polarity.
What you’re listening for is improved punch and low end.
Starting with the overhead mics check, that those 2 mics are in phase. It’s rare but not unheard of.
Next add the snare top mic. Bring up the volume and then try inverting the polarity, listen if the low frequencies change, decide which way it sounds best, with the most low end or punch and continue to the next mic.
If you have a mic on the bottom of the snare pointing up it’s very likely it will need the opposite of the snare top mic.
Add the kick mic, toms, room mics and close miked cymbals.
Then you can move on to panning, balance and processing.
Here is an example of the kit before and after checking the polarity of each mic using this process. Drums Example 1 Drums Example 2
In this case one of the kick drum mics and the snare top needed to be flipped.
There is no preset for this, every time you record or mix drums you’ll need to check this and compensate. You’re going to have to use your ears!
If you layer and blend samples you should check they’re all working together in phase as well.
Changing the timing of individual mics like you might do with multi-miked guitar amps is not something that I mess with when it comes to drums. It’s not something that you should need to do.
