mixing from recording question

franksnbeans · November 21, 2011, 02:31:25 AM

We just recorded some music a few weeks ago, and it's taking a long time to mix. The recording sounded really good. How long should it take to mix? What does mixing entail?

Mike_Sims · November 21, 2011, 02:53:26 AM

Unfortunately, there's no magic answer for your question.
It can take either a few hours, or a few months. It's all up to you and how much work you want to/already have put into it. Take your time with it. It will open your mind up to more/new possibilities within mixing. It also depends on what you're using to mix, how many tracks/channels are recorded, what kind of mix you want, etc. I can go on and on forever about it, but I'll let someone who has more energy chime in. Congrats on the recording and good luck with the mixing.
As a friend of mine once put it: "Recording is an illusion".

franksnbeans · November 21, 2011, 03:17:28 AM

Thanks Mike.

The recording came out kick-ass sounding, and I don't really know what mixing is supposed to do. Are we supposed to make it sound different than it really sounds? It actually sound much clearer than it's supposed to. So far, i think we may just need minimal mixing, but I aint sure what all the possibilities are. I was wondering if we should do it ourselves or hand it to someone who knows the style of music and let them take care of it from there?

Isabellacat · November 21, 2011, 03:40:42 AM

Just don't let the mixing meters hit the red lights, or else it would sound like crap.

Harm · November 21, 2011, 03:49:20 AM

If you can't mix ask somebody who can to do it for you, because it takes years before you get it right. But one thing to keep in mind is to go easy one the effect, or rather not to use any at all and keep it as dry as possible.

At_Giza · November 21, 2011, 04:34:21 AM

Let me put it this way:

I've been mixing something I laid down for about three years now.

And my buddies can mix shit in hours.

As already stated, there is no answer. It's just wizardry that I do not have the tome for.

spookstrickland · November 21, 2011, 05:44:19 AM

Watch out for "Bass Build up" Some times there are overlaps in the Kick Drum, Bass and Guitar where they are all hitting in the same frequency range so what you want to do is employ a lowcut filter on the Bass guitar usually between 60 and 100Hz and on the Guitar at 80 to 150 Hz. This will keep your low end nice and tight and enable you to get a much louder clearer sounding mix.

cat shepard · November 21, 2011, 09:06:30 AM

Roughly between a few hours to a few years.

RAGER · November 21, 2011, 09:58:16 AM

however you do it, there is one thing that everyone does. You take the mix and listen to it on several different systems from a boombox to your car stereo and your home system to your kids fisher price radio. if it sounds good on all mediums then it's good. anything can sound good through studio monitors. But if you really don't know how, have somebody else do it but always listen to the mix through different shit. it can be telling.

Chovie D · November 21, 2011, 11:31:39 AM

you sent it out of house to be mixed? or to be mastered?
Typically the musicians are present for a mix, or at minimum, the bands leader.
mastering is usually done without any of the band present.

If you sent it off to be mastered and its taking a long time, its not because the process is particularly labor intensive. Its more likely because its in a long list of projects waiting for its turn to be mastered.

Mixing involves alot of things, editing of parts, initial EQ, effects, panning, and of cousrse volume levels of each track. You can spend years twiddling around, or you can spend a couple hours..hard pan the guitars etc.

who recorded it? you guys? or an engineer?

your the drummer right? your job is to say upon hearing the final mix "drums are not loud enough!"

justinhedrick · November 21, 2011, 11:39:10 AM

Quote from: RAGER on November 21, 2011, 09:58:16 AM
however you do it, there is one thing that everyone does. You take the mix and listen to it on several different systems from a boombox to your car stereo and your home system to your kids fisher price radio. if it sounds good on all mediums then it's good. anything can sound good through studio monitors. But if you really don't know how, have somebody else do it but always listen to the mix through different shit. it can be telling.

i think bob clearmountian checks mixes on old ass apple computer speakers for this very reason.

franksnbeans · November 21, 2011, 12:37:53 PM

Quote from: Chovie D on November 21, 2011, 11:31:39 AM
you sent it out of house to be mixed? or to be mastered?
Typically the musicians are present for a mix, or at minimum, the bands leader.
mastering is usually done without any of the band present.

If you sent it off to be mastered and its taking a long time, its not because the process is particularly labor intensive. Its more likely because its in a long list of projects waiting for its turn to be mastered.

Mixing involves alot of things, editing of parts, initial EQ, effects, panning, and of cousrse volume levels of each track. You can spend years twiddling around, or you can spend a couple hours..hard pan the guitars etc.

who recorded it? you guys? or an engineer?

your the drummer right? your job is to say upon hearing the final mix "drums are not loud enough!"

Yeah, I'm the drummer. The initial recording sounds awesome, but the mixing is sounding lame. We recorded it on 2"tape and dropped it into pro-tools. There are 24 tracks, and I am afraid the dude mixing now is not able to handle that. It was recorded by a good recording engineer at the New Improved Studios in Emeryville. I am contemplating paying someone else who understands our style to help with the mixing.

What is panning?

justinhedrick · November 21, 2011, 12:48:14 PM

Quote from: franksnbeans on November 21, 2011, 12:37:53 PM
Quote from: Chovie D on November 21, 2011, 11:31:39 AM
you sent it out of house to be mixed? or to be mastered?
Typically the musicians are present for a mix, or at minimum, the bands leader.
mastering is usually done without any of the band present.

If you sent it off to be mastered and its taking a long time, its not because the process is particularly labor intensive. Its more likely because its in a long list of projects waiting for its turn to be mastered.

Mixing involves alot of things, editing of parts, initial EQ, effects, panning, and of cousrse volume levels of each track. You can spend years twiddling around, or you can spend a couple hours..hard pan the guitars etc.

who recorded it? you guys? or an engineer?

your the drummer right? your job is to say upon hearing the final mix "drums are not loud enough!"

Yeah, I'm the drummer. The initial recording sounds awesome, but the mixing is sounding lame. We recorded it on 2"tape and dropped it into pro-tools. There are 24 tracks, and I am afraid the dude mixing now is not able to handle that. It was recorded by a good recording engineer at the New Improved Studios in Emeryville. I am contemplating paying someone else who understands our style to help with the mixing.

What is panning?

panning is where it sits left to right in the stereo speactrum. like for instance, old doors records have most of the guitars panned to the right, organ panned left.

why can't the guy who recorded it mix it?

Corey Y · November 21, 2011, 01:30:37 PM

Stock TapeOp answer here: "It depends."

It's like asking "How long does it take to install a new bath tub?" or "How long does it take to fix a car?"...it depends on the person doing it, their schedule, and what's going on with the job in question. With recording it also depends a lot on if the person mixing also engineered the recording. If not it might take them a while to sort through it all, weed out little odds and ends, before even getting to the artistic part. When I mix something I also engineered I've usually been developing a working mix as I go and doing some editing here and there, getting things sorted out so by the time I get to mixing it's just a matter of working towards an artistic vision. I've also had times where I pretty much had a near finished mix by the time tracking was done and then ended up mixing for over a month because the band has no clear goal in mind for the mix and just gives suggestions for changes (though sometimes it's just a tough mix).

Did you give the mixing engineer a deadline?

Also, if you don't like the result provided and it can't be sorted out, there's no harm in taking it somewhere else to be mixed. In my opinion finding someone who has experience with the sound you're going for (even if not the specific genre) is pretty crucial to getting a good outcome. Not always, since there are plenty of great professionals who can bring something good to any project if you're on board with how they do things, but it's a good guideline.

chille01 · November 21, 2011, 03:44:35 PM

If you liked the way the tracks sounded raw, and you think they sound worse after mixing, then the guy doing the mix probably isn't the right guy for the job. If it sounded kick ass to begin with, you know you have good basic tracks to work with. A good mix engineer should be able to take those basic tracks and make them sound better than anything you imagined... or at least better than they do unmixed. If it's sounding worse, maybe the guy just doesn't have a feel for what you want, or doesn't have experience with your type of music.

Note... a good mix engineer doesn't always mean a guy that cuts everything to grid in pro-tools and adds compression, reverb, eq and all sorts of other stuff to every track. There are a TONNE of great effects in both outboard land and plugin land that can really take a good basic track (say, your snare drum) and make it sound AWESOME. However, if the guy applying it doesn't know how to use it, even if it is a $5000 compressor it can still make that same snare track sound like ass. A big part of mixing is knowing when a track needs a little bit more to make it be as good as it can be, and when it already is good and requires minimal to no treatment. Working to make the song win basically, not to just throw as much shit on it as you possibly can.

As one of the musicians, you're also going to have to work to listen to the whole mix, and not just your parts. Mixing is a give and take between all the instruments, to come up with ONE cohesive sound. As Spook noted, one example is the kick and bass guitar. If the drummer wants a huge, booming kick sound, and the bass player also wants a big fat bass sound... you're gonna have problems in the mix and come out with mud. The bass needs to sit above the kick, or vice versa, if you want to hear them both well.

Another bit of advice I would give is that if you're mixing an album or more than one song... do the mixes in the same place, with the same people, in as short of time as you can. Take breaks of course... get away from it for a few hours or a few days to let your ears rest and your head clear... but don't take a year to mix 6 songs. Because chances are the mixes you did at the start of the year will sound way different than the ones you do at the end.

Which brings me to my last point... learn when to let it go. At some point, you have to accept that nothing is ever going to be PERFECT, and declare the mix as close to it as you're going to get.

Metal and Beer · November 21, 2011, 04:06:36 PM

I like when tweakers obsess over crust/grind songs

Chovie D · November 21, 2011, 04:44:03 PM

Heres jack Endino describing how he mixed "Touch me IM sick" by Mudhoney.
Hopefully this will give you a better idea of what a mixing engineer does in a brief and practical manner using a recording we hopefully all know. as others have said (Listen to Corey he knows), mixing is important , you need someone who knows what they're doing and dont be afraid to have someone else do it if you dont like how it comes out.

"With the tracks laid down, Endino began the mix (to ¼-inch at 15 ips on a Revox PR99). Drums (sans snare) were already submixed to two channels, so he panned them left and right. If he wanted more cymbals, he would add some 10k; more kick, add some 80 Hz; more toms, add 1.5k. "I had to learn to get the balance right when I recorded it," Endino says. "Since the whole kit was getting the same EQ, it was pretty phase-coherent. Snare would be on track 3 so that it had its own reverb send. Bass, I'd compress with whatever we had, probably a Symetrix 522 or 501. Guitars, pan 'em 8:00 and 4:00; lead vocals down the center through another Symetrix compressor. Drums and guitars I didn't compress: The Otari did enough, not to mention all those fuzz boxes. I never mixed with stereo bus compression, and still usually don't. It makes you work harder at getting your mix right. Vocals were distorted 'live' during the mix by being re-amped through my Twin and brought back to channel 9 of the console so I could blend the clean and distorted vocals for maximum intelligibility. I think there's a little slap echo, too."

All in all, the sessions for the demo came down quickly: an initial 6-hour tracking session, second 5-hour session for vocals and mixing, and a 3-hour session for mixing or remixing. A total of 14 hours for five songs, costing the label a whopping $325.
"

Mike_Sims · November 21, 2011, 05:47:35 PM

Quote from: franksnbeans on November 21, 2011, 12:37:53 PM

It was recorded by a good recording engineer at the New Improved Studios in Emeryville.

Had no idea you were local. Now that things are cleared up a bit, it depends on the people working with it really. The DIY route usually works best for me.

Isabellacat · November 22, 2011, 12:34:35 AM

I say,save your money and learn how to mix it yourself. It really is'nt that hard if you just sit down and learn how. Letting someone else do it can be complicated I feel. You know in your head how it wants to sound,and I'm sure the rest of your band would agree.

Panning? Well, that's simply where you want to place the instruments in an individual track by rotating the knobs...Whether you want certain things to sound upfront or in the background. I know you don't like getting high while you play,but try getting stoned,put on those headphones and learn how to mix it yourself. You'll see you'll get alot of satisfaction that way.And then play it back to someone who is sober and if they say it sounds good, it's good. And again, don't let the meters hit the red lights and turn up your monitors.

VOLVO))) · November 22, 2011, 01:02:54 AM

Quote from: Metal and Beer on November 21, 2011, 04:06:36 PM
I like when tweakers obsess over crust/grind songs

I've produced the SHIT out of crust/grind songs.

My approach to recording is more of a Bill O'Rielly "FUCK IT, DO IT LIVE" style. If I'm to record with a band, I want a big room, the guitar and bass cabs facing the same direction, in line, and the drums to shoot a perfect 90 degree angle from those. Overheads for the drums pick up some guitar, and bass, guitar and bass picks up a little drums. We play the song, one take, no multi-tracking, no compression, no bullshit, just natural room sound and live playing. If I fuck up the lead, start the entire song over.

So much more fun, There's been times where we've gotten so into it, the recording of a six minute song ends up 10-15 minutes long because we decided it needs to groove on for a while. We be slaves to the riff...

BrianDamage · November 22, 2011, 05:14:32 AM

Panning means whether you hear a track more out of the left or right speaker. For instance when I record rhythm guitars I usually do two tracks. Both with very different tones and then when mixing I pan one (typically) 65% left and one 65% right. It seperates the sounds allowing both to be heard easier but also gives the aural illusion of one HUGE guitar tone.

All mixing is really for is to make sure you hear each track as much as needed to make it sound clear. Not really that hard if you have good tracks to work with. The real skill is in individual track processing (eq, effects and so on) and mastering.

If you have access to them send me the individual raw tracks and I will mix and master them for you free.

Chovie D · November 22, 2011, 09:58:38 AM

I guess since i grew up with a tascam porta one I take this kind of knowledge for granted.

Learning a little bit about mixing, just a little, should improve your drumming especially in the studio.
Just some basic concepts about panning, phase and eq, you dont have to go deep.

SpaceTrucker · November 22, 2011, 01:43:42 PM

I kinda like out of phase drums myself. Ala, outside inside. Best mastering I've ever heard on a 60s psych record. Also, I prefer the Muddy bottom heavy sounds of early grand funk and bloodrock records. No need to go the Normal route If thats not what you hear in your head.

Isabellacat · November 25, 2011, 03:12:52 AM

Quote from: SpaceTrucker on November 22, 2011, 01:43:42 PM
I kinda like out of phase drums myself. Ala, outside inside. Best mastering I've ever heard on a 60s psych record. Also, I prefer the Muddy bottom heavy sounds of early grand funk and bloodrock records. No need to go the Normal route If thats not what you hear in your head.

Werd. I don't know too much about technical talk but I know what sounds good. Best sounding drums are the ones from the late 60's/early 70's imo. Definitely that drum sound from the first Grand Funk.

Volume · November 25, 2011, 07:46:19 AM

If you paid a good engineer to record it and the tracks sound good you should definitely get a someone who knows his shit to mix it, or else there a good chance the money you paid for recording will go down the drain. I've recorded stuff in awesome pro studios only to have it come out sounding like shit because of poor mixers or mixer just not understanding the genre. I've also recorded stuff in our rehearsal space and bedroom that sound great on record. If you want to practice and learn mixing you can still do that with the unmixed tracks and stuff you record at practice or whatever.