Thanks for posting.

ORIGINAL: tubeydude

Great post indeed!
I still remember when I (recently) heard a mix that was done this way and getting a chance to hear things soloed. What an eye opener. There was even CRAZY gating on the drums (mainly kick and snare) that sounded like absolute crap when soloed. Bring in the mix, not only could you not hear ANY artifacts from the gates, but it opened the sound up....HUH???

There are lots of tricks to this stuff. I'm also reading Bob Katz' Mastering Audio book and wow...there is some heavy stuff in there.

Thanks for your well written and enthusiastic report!

The dog comment was golden!

Erik

I learned a lot from Bob Katz's book, but actually, not a lot about mixing.

Not trying to hijack the thread, but have any of you read this book?

http://www.amazon.com/Mixing-Engineers-Handbook-Mix-Audio/dp/0872887235

After reading this thread, I seriously considered buying this book. It can't hurt, can it?

Thanks Scott!!!

ORIGINAL: ed97643

Not surprised at all by what he did. Let me add one more from the school of "everyone should know ths by now, but..." to the list:

ALWAYS keep a reference file ready to play:

- a reference file is a mastered song by a group who you really want your music to sound like,
- where you have their song as a track in your own song file,
- with [their] track volume DOWN by (around) 3db (because their song is mastered and yours is NOT).

HPF is your friend.
Soloing tracks to set EQ / delays / etc. is NOT your friend.
Listening to your tracks over as many different playback monitors or systems (while CONSTANTLY comparing it to your "commercially acceptable" reference tracks) is you friend.

I truly hope this comes across as helpful, as that's what is intended. We're ALL learning here (... I sure am!).

Best,
Ed

PS, great post.

BINGO

ORIGINAL: ed97643

HPF is your friend.

Mixes are overtones. They skew to the right.

ORIGINAL: ed97643

Soloing tracks to set EQ / delays / etc. is NOT your friend.

Solo is best used for finding problems, not for finding goodness.

excellent post and contributions

OP,

he did you a favor deleting the mixes. He showed you what he was doing and explained the philosophy behind it. But it is only by finding your own tricks that you will learn them. Go back and try to get a similiar sound(s). You don't really learn by doing something right - only by screwing up.

Short term it is bad to lose a good mix - long term getting your own mix sounding close is the best way. And it won't take 30 years - all he was saying was he was still learning.

ORIGINAL: plainfaced

I always remember it as -

HPF - High Pas Filter - Allows the highs to pass
LPF - Low Pass Filter - Allows the lows to pass

What a blackout of my brains in the midst of the night!

I suppose it was the 200K that mislead me. You can't have a High Pass Filter at 200Khz.
I did find a Google result saying it's Highest Possible Frequency but that search included the 200K so could it be radio/radiation technology, not audio

What does the capital K stand for in this context?

EDIT: Oh...the K-typo was handled already.

ORIGINAL: info@tomflair.com

fairly enoug one should mention that its not all in the mix....what about the super expensive mics/pres/instruments/adda´s/high level musicians...whatever...you want...
obviously you can do a lot while mixing in a daw but the comparing the sound with million dollar productions - is only good on one hand, on the other it opens a big space for frustration - i guess everyone has asked himself hundred times: "how would my track sound if i had all the gear that the platinum guys have?" i know music is more than gear but as long as some folks work with cables that cost as much as my whole setup, is it really appropriate to compare?
for me it feels like comparing an old beetle driving on a mountainroad to a formula 1 car driving on a perfect circuit...
actually i know quite a bit about eq´ing and still sometimes i just dont get the right mix - actually i cant afford to treat my room and on the worst frequency spots i have about 18db of alteration - thats frustrating

i think you will find that it is a truly golden era in recording, and that yes, you can get equal or close to equal results without haveing all the birds and whistles nowadays. It might not be quite as creamy as somethign recorded with all the birds and whistles, but the combination of a good writer, performer, composer, mixer and masterer with event he tools only in sonar, a completely pro, amazing sound can be achieved that is just as good as the platinum million dollar projects.

I dont fall for all the hype. I have heard plenty of crap from very expensive products, and a lot of awesome material from low budget home studio work.

Where my room fails for mixing, frequency analyzing, comparison to a mastered track I like, and translation to high end and low car speakers, boombox, and whatever else I can find to play the mix on make up for it. Little more work and trial and error, but effective.

Hi D K,

Thanks for posting about this mixing experience.

I learned this (and am still learning more) the slow way --- cutting out freqs, then soloing them to see what's left. EEK! Sounds bad solo for good mixes.

This is also one of the things that irritates me to some degree about those who sell synths and samples with "big sound." Yes, it may be solo, but only rarely. It seems more of a marketing ploy to leave in all the low freqs than really helping customers. They could easily have "solo" and "for mix" patches to get you in the neighborhood for use. Many patches have ridiculously low freqs.

Hmmmm....

Maybe a marketing opportunity, synths you can actually use with less work to make good mixes rather than be impressed by playing it solo to see if you like the sound or not. Would be a hard sell to some people... eeeeww, who wants to hear that?

Regards,
Dave Clark

ORIGINAL: keith

ORIGINAL: info@tomflair.com
if you say that its the same as running your 300 bucks se-mic from china into the micpres of your m-audio then eventually have a problem with the ears (no offense intended)

Tom, I don't think it matters whether it's $300 or $150 or $3000... what matters is the end product -- i.e., does it sound good? When you listen to a good production/performance/recording/mix/whatever, your brain tells you it's good based on your musical tastes and in your case your ability to discern quality production/performance/recording/mixing/whatever. Your brain doesn't say "gee, I like this song, but I'd really like to hear what it would sound like if it was recorded with this $3000 microphone".

Go listen to Lance's stuff, if you haven't already... http://www.soundclick.com/bands/default.cfm?bandID=748414
I think it's testament to what he's talking about.

If I can lay down a percussion track consisting of pots, pans, and a plastic spoon then I'll do it, as long as the end product is what I'm looking for. It doesn't matter that I'm not even using a real musical instrument, does it?

i agree with you - never intended to play it "idea&performance" vs. "gear" -- but just if you would recorde the same take with both setups you would very probably like the highend take more...actually in the end its almost never about the gear (beatles 4 track recorder..)
but i am talking from a tech-point of view... i just beleive that its a bit weird that everyone agrees that a behringer compressor sound crap compared to a urei but on the other hand the same people claim that you can do all with 3-4 bundeled plugs... so how do they set any stanbdard? to say that you can make top notch productions ONLY with sonar (as lance said) is a bit shortening reality...because following his thought it would also be enough to use a 8 track minidisc recorder - or why arrange something with 5 instruments? if my hook is so great it should be enough to play it on a flute....
its not only the idea, its also the modeling of the idea....

ps: i listened to lances stuff and i dont like it - technically well done but not appealing to me - we would say "not fish nor meat" in my place here - but taste is what it it is...peronal...

pps: show me a "classical" pop, rock or rmb production with musical depth and success that has been produced with crap equipment...i guess there are none - the problem is that a lot of newer music generes have made a style out of their weakness...actually its right that you could do some hardcore techno tracks on cheap eqiopment because that music sucks anyway - but i bet lance to record a jazz band or a classical with cheap gear....as i wrote, as soon as the lacks of quality will sum up he wished he had "high end gear"
what would a good story writer prefer? to write with a blunt pencil on a dirty piece of paper in a shady corner or rather a golden pen on pergament in a nice leather couch with a bright lamp? (i am half musician and half technician - so for me not only the endproduct counts but also the way how i get it...) ...hard to explain my thoughts about his in english anyway - unfortunantely...cheers

ORIGINAL: bunnyfluffer

maybe tom... I hear you but I don't agree with you.

I hear you about the golden age of marketing - but still, even the cheap stuff today is pretty darn good by most standards. Sure, going the last 10% in gear can cost you 90% more than the low end gear (mic pre's, compressors, etc, etc) - but in all but the most critical situations what most people have is good enough to get 70-80% of the way there.

20 years ago (1988) I was recording on a 4 track cassette and that was as good as it got. The first sampling workstations were out and very expensive (Roland W-30 for example). So the limitations of 20 years ago, versus the limitations of today could clearly call this a golden age of home recording.

Also, it's the pilot not the plane. People can spend tens of thousands on great gear and still not have great recordings. Gear doesn't make a great recording - a great engineer does, and many great engineers and producers will tell you the 90% that comes before the mic is more important than anything that comes after it.

There are many examples of home brewed hits, one even changed the entire landscape of musical history and popular culture in United States, and by extension the world... "Boyz-N-The Hood" single and "Straight Out Of Compton" by NWA... recorded in a garage... In my opinion, this and other examples like it (in terms of impact not genre) are the hope of this golden age...

Jimi Hendrix on mono cassette trumps anything...

Have it ya'll...

-tbf

ORIGINAL: info@tomflair.com

well actually if you put a weak sound inside sonar it doesnt matter if you work at 24/96 or whatever....
so where is point in denying that one doesnt need good outboard stuff? the mixengine and the plugs are just a small part of all...
if you really say that it makes no difference between recording with a brauner into a greta river pre with a gentle avalon compression through a good ad - if you say that its the same as running your 300 bucks se-mic from china into the micpres of your m-audio then eventually have a problem with the ears (no offense intended)
also i wouldnt rely on a spectral analyzer for room-workaround....in my unterated room i have some holes that i cant compensate because there is just almost nothing there - so it makes no sense raising a very narrow notch at 85hz by 18db....cos still it will be erased by the phasing...

my personal resuming: yes sonar is very good / with no good basic material its still "worthless" and the summing of negative effects of cheap gear - (track 30 instruments with a cheap mic and mix them )are more than obvious....

so imo its not the golden age of recording today - its the golden age of marketing, because the classic good hardware still cost the same (btw. also claiming vsí´s sound like the original synths is not true - i havent heard a single of my producer colleagues that would say this nor do i ....even the synths with super specs and very hard on cpu do not sound as charming and mixable as their originals...and i owned some of the old ones so i know what i am talking about...

yet opinions may vary

hi, please read my posting above ...:-)

btw: i agree that here are a good amount of pieces of art that shine for their atmosphere and feeling, still eventually jimmi hendrix would have even blown your mind more if he had been recorded with modern top notch quality - maybe its onyl our mind fooling us because it keeps the older memories stonger associated to emotions ... imagine having heard a ficticious 24/96 surround jimmi hendrix first and THEN the mono tape .... i am pretty shure you would laugh at at it.....and say its crap ...
memory and pasion very strongly affect perception....i started making music about 15 years ago...and i didnt feel limited by bad gear then, i feel more limited by the modern interpretation of the american dream (lie) that we all can do it -as we see we cant, not with bad and nor with good equippment - oer are you a multi platinum guy? i am not

ORIGINAL: Lanceindastudio

i think you will find that it is a truly golden era in recording, and that yes, you can get equal or close to equal results without haveing all the birds and whistles nowadays. It might not be quite as creamy as somethign recorded with all the birds and whistles, but the combination of a good writer, performer, composer, mixer and masterer with event he tools only in sonar, a completely pro, amazing sound can be achieved that is just as good as the platinum million dollar projects.

Especially if you compare today's "budget" gear to the expensive gear of yesteryear! The quality of today's "toys" is amazing!

Where my room fails for mixing, frequency analyzing, comparison to a mastered track I like, and translation to high end and low car speakers, boombox, and whatever else I can find to play the mix on make up for it. Little more work and trial and error, but effective.

Room size and acoustics is probably the only part that is hard to get right in a small home studio compared to a multi-million facility. Oh and, of course, experience and training! With music budgets falling, we seem to have lost the mentorship of old days. A great shame really. :(

UnderTow

ORIGINAL: info@tomflair.com

my personal resuming: yes sonar is very good / with no good basic material its still "worthless" and the summing of negative effects of cheap gear - (track 30 instruments with a cheap mic and mix them )are more than obvious....

I agree that worthless material is worthless material no matter how extraordinary it sounds. And I think that most material is closer to worthless, and rarely sounds better than ordinary. So OK.

Let's say it's also true that the sum of 30 instrument tracks recorded with a cheap mic will sound obviously not as good as some alternatives. But I wonder how often you will actually hear that?

Under what circumstances would anyone actually record 30 tracks with a cheap mic, and have all 30 tracks summed in a final mix?

I realize I'm taking the example here too literally, but the example itself is too literal minded and extreme: In practice, that's just not what happens, and if it does... it probably suffers sonically... but also, if the song, arrangement, production, and performances have something good about them, you might still prefer listening to it than pristinely captured worthlessness.

btw. also claiming vsí´s sound like the original synths is not true - i havent heard a single of my producer colleagues that would say this nor do i ....even the synths with super specs and very hard on cpu do not sound as charming and mixable as their originals...and i owned some of the old ones so i know what i am talking about...

Yeah but here's the funny thing... and it's also the principle to be taken from the original post. When building a mix, you're not really interested in whether or not a given soft synth sounds like the one its modeled on or if a drum module is putting out "great drum sounds" or if the guitar comes from a particular mic on a particular cabinet. Mixing tends to require that you make all these great sounds sound relatively "bad" individually so that they can sound good collectively. The sounds whose phatness and naturalness we gush over when making purchase decisions and previewing patches are the same sounds we struggle with thinning out and distorting when it comes time to mix. (Again, see the OP's reaction to the "carnage" done to his original tracks.)

Is it possible that the newer sounds (and methods of producing them), while on some level might not sound as "charming and mixable as the originals," on another level are at least as useful (which DOES have its charm) and even more mixable than listening to them in isolation, and filtering them through sonic nostalgia, would have us believe?

its the golden age of marketing, because the classic good hardware still cost the same

I kind of agree with the marketing comment but for slightly different reasons. For example, I only have the LE versions of Dimension and Rapture. When I audition them I hear a lot of stuff that sounds impressive, and fun to play with. But the sounds tend to be very big, thick, and wet -- which is what makes them impressive and fun. I think "oh how great that I got these shiny noise makers for free." That's marketing at work. Then I think, "well, I'll just tweak them a little to make them more usable," and I start clicking and tweaking and realize I'm not sure if what I'm trying to do requires the Pro version and wondering if it's really worth delving into a LE version just to get semi-close sounds a little closer, and maybe I should upgrade because after all it only costs whatever they're offering it to Sonar users for this season. That's also marketing at work. But I end up closing the LE version and opening full version of another instrument (maybe free, maybe not) and futzing with that until it sounds bad enough to sound good in a mix. To my ears at least.

The weakest link in home studio or even pro studio recordmaking is not the equipment, or even the ability to use it with adequate skill -- as a casual stroll through Soundclick will quickly reveal.

I learned a lot from Bob Katz's book, but actually, not a lot about mixing.

Not trying to hijack the thread, but have any of you read this book?

http://www.amazon.com/Mixing-Engineers-Handbook-Mix-Audio/dp/0872887235

After reading this thread, I seriously considered buying this book. It can't hurt, can it?

I have both and they are both great.

Max Arwood