Beagle
Danny - these posts are excellent! thank you for your time.
You've mentioned your tutorial videos here and in other threads. can we get a link to those?
here's a suggestion: maybe you should open a service (for pay, of course) to take someone's stems and mix them and video record things as you mix in order to help individuals learn what to listen for. I personally think that would be extremely helpful to me! I agree with you 100% - I don't know what to listen for! but I don't know any way to figure it out other than trying and trying and trying again on the same thing that I have done before - which, obviously - gets me nowhere!
Hi Reece,
You're very welcome and thanks for the kind words! Well, unfortunately there aren't any video links because they are all custom made for each person that approaches me. I never use anything generic and always create from the ground up talking TO the person that hired me.
Just what you said is how it works. However, we try not to use stems. What people do is, they send me an entire mix either in wave format or in a Sonar bundle file. From there, I load up their project and run video the whole time. We listen to their sounds first the way they are, and I tell them what's wrong with them and show them various ways we can fix the sounds. I do this until all instruments are accounted for and then we form/sculpt the mix. Compression, various effects, panning, tricks and tips, all this stuff gets covered using your mix, the plugins of your choice (if I have them, if not you need to freeze them or process them) right in Sonar.
So it's really fool-proof and you learn with everything you are already used to. I've had a really nice end result with all my students that have stuck with it. Some just needed one video in order for them to "get it". Others want to be a little more complete and have been with me for a few years. It all depends on what you're looking to achieve. But I usually show quite a few things from fixing sounds, resampling or re-triggering sounds, introducing you to plugs I use that you may not have so you can see/hear what they do, different ways to make something work, busses, side chaining, parallel compression, what compressor to use for certain things....the list is huge. But it all depends on what you want to do. I can even concentrate on different techniques as well as working on specific instruments. It's always different and can be completely custom. :)
I don't like to give names of the people that study with me as that is not up to me, but a close friend of yours is studying with me now and is making incredible gains in my opinion. I believe you may be working with him on something new right now. :) But he's been a joy to work with as well as Markno who made a pretty incredible improvement after one video. But both of those guys had a clue going into it. They just needed a few fine tuning things as well as being taught what and how to listen for things. Both of them have sent me mixes that were so improved, they don't need me anymore. Mark's last few mixes have been great in my opinion...when he wasn't over-compressing. :-Þ His last VH mix was better than the one I did and closer to authentic than mine...baystid! I'm not afraid to admit defeat! :)
But stuff like over compression is nothing to worry about as long as you catch it. He knew it before I said anything. The thing is to make the mix audible and without blatant errors in frequency. We'll never satisfy everyone with our mixes. There will always be someone that doesn't like something or may take a shot at one of the instruments you chose. However, if they just say "well, I didn't like your guitar or snare sound" yet both don't have errors or things that make them sound bad, you're right where you want to be. It's your art, your song, your vision, your instruments.
We want to make instruments get along together. To do that, we have to know what frequencies will work and which ones will not. When to cut, when to boost. You always want to be a cutter if possible and save a boost as your last resort. If you have too much treble, you remove it first...don't add more bass. Too much bass, don't add treble. The thing there is, you have to know when to do that and when something MAY need a boost because it's too thin.
For example, I recently worked on that mix that James G posted on the song forum. For a one take, all in one track, that was pretty awesome because the performance was so great. However, we needed to cut more than we needed to boost on that stuff because it was a very warm, congested nearly analog sound. So once you remove the mid range congestion on something like that, you can sometimes be left with something that is a little thin.
So we then have to boost some frequencies to get back what we lost and it's up to you to sweep through and decide which of those you'll boost that enhance the best. Because it was just an acoustic guitar and a voice, we had to be careful of low end. Nothing under 180 was left in there for the most part because quite simply, it didn't need to be. But if you don't know what to listen for and just take things like "ok, this is a guitar...it needs to be thick...this is a voice, it needs to be equally as thick" you end up with congestion because the key to thick is mid range. But you have to use the right mids and use them in moderation.
The source you print also creates this thickness. I think the most asked question other than compression is "how can I thicken up my mixes?" The answer is simply...it starts with the print. If you record with a Radio Shack mic, the sound will only be so big. Each mic literally gives us a sound size. A 421 is going to give you more of a sound size than a Realistic mic. A Neumann is going to give you more sound size than an SM 58. So it's "bigger" coming out of the gate. This is why most studio's have a big mic locker.
A big mic on a big voice may be too much. Bigger isn't always better (shh ladies...I can hear you laughin now!) when it comes to mixes. Making things wider can disconnect a mix so you have to be careful there too with all these imagers and excessive pans. They sound great in headphones, but on real monitors...man, it's way too separated and disconnected in my opinion.
When Philip and I work together, he's a genius at widening and placing things all over the place. But, if I don't reel him in at times, we can get a mix that sounds a little too separated and it literally can kill your impact. In his case, some simple narrowing fixes everything. But in the case of those in need of thickness coming out of the gate, we need to always concentrate on the source of the print. When you have to make something bigger once you begin to mix it, you either do that for effect purposes or because "hey, this is all I have".
Now, we've come a long way with impulses and cab emulation etc. But when that stuff first came out, you couldn't really substitute it for a mic'd guitar cab. The reason being? It sounded too direct...there wasn't any air between the mic/cab to make it realistic and it just had a snarl about it that sounded like plugging a distortion box right into a console. Now days, we have cab impulses that are so realistic that capture a mic'd tone, people can't tell. Seriously...when done correctly, I sure can't tell. But again, there will always be a certain something you gain from the size of a print. (print = recording by the way)
Run an acoustic guitar direct and then mic it. Or do both at the same time and compare. The mic'd sound will always smoke the DI in actual sound size. With distorted guitars, this seems to be less important due to all the gain. The more gain we use, the smaller the sound unless you really mic up or impulse hybrid like crazy to form a sound stage. If we mic a clean sound and then kick on some gain using the same mic arrangement, the sound gets smaller due to the distortion. Take a guy like our beloved Frank on the song forum. He has a huge guitar sound all the time. Why? He's not using hyperdrive going through it like I would on my tone.
So there are lots of things to factor in really. But none of them matter unless someone points them out to a person. We never grow if we keep on using the same sounds and fail mix after mix. This is why I started doing the video thing. It teaches you how to deal with your sounds. When you learn to deal with your sounds and keep at it, you can then deal with other peoples sounds because you know right from wrong. But without direction and someone literally showing you the differences, you can definitely spin your wheels for years before this stuff starts to give you any sort of enjoyment.
I look at it this way...if I love this field and cringe everytime I go to mix something and end up unhappy, my days are going to be numbered doing this due to frustration, right? Ok, we'll try to stick it out...but you can only fall on your face so many times before you say "ok Yoyo, you mix this for me man...please? I can't take no more!" Though it's cool to do that and James probably appreciates the work, wouldn't it be great if you did it yourself? I've heard your stuff Reece....you always do a nice job too man. All you need is a few pointers here and there so you can tell what to listen for and how to fix it. Honest when I tell you, it's like the clouds parting after a storm when you can just listen to something and KNOW what the deal is. Even if you have a hard time fixing it, at least you know where the problem lies. Sometimes it takes more time to fix things, other times it's instant.
Anyway, sheesh...I totally posted too much this morning. Sorry for that. I just hope some of this stuff has been helpful. :) Back to work for me...have a great day everyone. :)
-Danny