You're quite welcome Matt. :) Concerning the below...
 

As I'm building up my album, I'm recording rough tracks for EVERY single instrument on the whole album. With no mixing (aside from volume), I'm getting everything where it needs to be. I'm basically composing all the parts with a mixing mind. I'm positioning every instrument where it needs to be to reduce the need for eq. Only when my rough tracks are exactly where they need to be and I have filled my sonic spectrum as I want it will I then start recording the formal parts and really take the time to correctly record them into position. It's such a long way to do it, but I feel it should provide the best results in the end.

 
This is exactly what I do as well. I call it lab work. I try to get my instrument sounds as good as they can be with little to no eq. The toughest part while coming up through the trenches in this field is knowing WHEN a sound is a good sound for your head and WHEN a good sound is good for a mix. See that's actually a huge problem for people. For example...
 
Lots of guys solo things up when mixing to try and make things sound good. This isn't hard to do, but as soon as you bring in the other instruments, man, it's like..."what the heck was I doing for 2 hours...how can this stuff sound so bad?!" LOL!! I can't tell you how many times I've made that mistake.
 
But rest assured, over time, you learn what will work and what won't in seconds. You can create sounds for your head that sound good by themselves, but they need to be archived as "all alone sounds" because chances are, they may not work in a mix of other instruments. Or, you may need to let the instrument shine all alone and automate it when the rest of the instruments come in so "it works", ya know what I mean? Just try not to get too married to the rough tracks. You're just about always going to need to high pass something or low pass something. You'll always need maybe -2dB of gain taken out of a guitar depending on the tuning, the amount of bass in the tone as well as the amount of gain. You'll always need to use more compression on a bass guitar if you are not a bassist than a real bassist would. Stuff like that is always going to be pretty common so you keep your peaks in check.
 
That's another thing that is of importance. Peaks can kill your mix even if they come by way of sub low transients or "whoomfing" in basses, guitars, tom rumbles, kick resonance and excessive lows on vocals. But it's great that you are keeping things so focused on your raw print tracks. This is going to teach you a lot, Matt. The more lab work and experimenting you can do, the more you learn what works and what doesn't.
 
I must have 600 little test tunes that I've archived throughout the years. Honest when I tell you. Everything from pieces of cover tunes, different originals, different styles, it's really cool. Try to do at least one day of lab work per week if you can. Even if the piece you do is 30 seconds long. I can't even begin to tell you how much those little lab sessions have helped me with other things. You wait man...there is gonna come a time where this light-bulb goes off on challenging things to where you laugh and say "sheesh, this was right in front of me the whole time...I just couldn't see it!" And then things don't appear as challenging anymore. It's really a great feeling that I hope everyone can experience. :) Good luck with your album brother....keep us posted! :)
 
-Danny

Danny, one of the virtues taught to us in university was a concept called succinctness. I think you give some great advice, but bro, I just cant wade through all you write.  

So, perhaps you addressed this already, and if you did, I apologize, but... Reverb is perhaps THE  most critical part of a mix, whether you use a little or a lot. Reverb defines our world. Reverb is how we judge space and depth. Reverb should be the single most important thought in an engineer's mind. Reverb also defines many other aspects of music other than space... it defines style, it defines generation.

With a well recorded source, you can do with out EQ, without compression.... but no reverb (which includes the sound of the recording environment) and the mix will be flat and lifeless... always.

Just my 2C
Shad

Reverb defines our world.

So which 'world' do you want, the recorded world, a fantasy/simulation of your own making or the one you are listening in?

Frequency range (eq), prominence (primarily level although also a function of eq) and position (pan) are the 3 key foundations of a mix, (unless your singular function is capturing a live performance and even then you are still likely to edit different input sources (mics) so as not to end up with tons of undesirable stuff) as is it is your job as a mixer to define those things for the listener.

Compression (also expansion) and reverb then should be secondary to those primary concerns.  That's not to say those things aren't important but I've found out if I don't spend 90% of my time on those first elements then I'll spend days on farting around with compression and 'verbs and not get anywhere.

I bothered to read (without too much effort), and I am with Danny on this.

Spatial sense plays an important part but if you don't get the foundation laid first nothing will sound 'real' after that.

OK....now a question.

EQ ITB or outboard?

Or should that even be considered as important?

trimph1


OK....now a question.

EQ ITB or outboard?

Or should that even be considered as important?

I hope it's not important I don't even own any outboard EQ....

Jon, you're splitting hairs, and in part reinforcing what I said (or is position only left and right to you?). 

Many of the best recordings that we have all agreed on in multiple threads in the CH have been recorded on some sort of non-sterile environment... maybe a large sound stage, maybe a church basement, maybe a pub... reverb defines how we perceive the space we are in within the music. Reverb can be recorded with the source, or can be added later, but one way or the other, it is an essential, irreplaceable part of the mix. The others are not.

As for the rest of your digs, give it a rest already. I have long lost any semblance of respect for you or your vast and mercurial opinions. I actually DO think you are an arse. So, I will just pretend you don't exist. Please do the same for me. OK?

Many of the best recordings that we have all agreed on in multiple threads in the CH have been recorded on some sort of non-sterile environment... maybe a large sound stage, maybe a church basement, maybe a pub... reverb defines how we perceive the space we are in within the music. Reverb can be recorded with the source, or can be added later, but one way or the other, it is an essential, irreplaceable part of the mix. The others are not.

Yup, and you won't get any of that right until the mix is working.  Period.

Many tracks these days are made without sounds ever reaching the outside world, synths and all that don't even use a mic, so any spatial sense is 'created' out of nowhere.  Disparate sound sources are where it's at these days.

You'll waste vast tracts of time by putting the cart before the horse is what I'm saying.  I've done it countless times and usually end up binning the results because I didn't pay enough attention to the important stuff at the outset.

It's really easy to give it all whatever vibe you choose after you've put the work in, that's kinda what I figured the thread was pertaining to, not whether reverb was important or not per se.

Danny's posted some good stuff there for those pondering the same question as the OP, it's worth taking the trouble to read it after he went to the trouble to post it.

Danny posted...I must have 600 little test tunes that I've archived throughout the years. Honest when I tell you. Everything from pieces of cover tunes, different originals, different styles, it's really cool. Try to do at least one day of lab work per week if you can. Even if the piece you do is 30 seconds long. I can't even begin to tell you how much those little lab sessions have helped me with other things. You wait man...there is gonna come a time where this light-bulb goes off on challenging things to where you laugh and say "sheesh, this was right in front of me the whole time...I just couldn't see it!" And then things don't appear as challenging anymore. It's really a great feeling that I hope everyone can experience. :) Good luck with your album brother....keep us posted! :) 


This is something I just started doing just this evening. Now, I'm wondering if'n I'll need yet another external HDD for just this alone...

Jonbouy

trimph1


OK....now a question.

EQ ITB or outboard?

Or should that even be considered as important?

I hope it's not important I don't even own any outboard EQ....

I'm hoping not..I'm not sure the old thing I have here is still working!!


Then, if so, the next question would be...how many bands would be enough..

I'm going to have to say that I have been convinced on the side of EQ (or adequately recorded parts that require minimal eq) as being the most important. This being intertwined with arrangement and recording all falling under the one category of fitting in the appropriate space in the sound spectrum.

Here's a quick little sketch I did of a song I'm working on. I think I might start doing something like this for every song to work out where I want instruments to lie in the verse (first image) and the chorus (second image). This is kinda where it is now, but I still plan to play around with things more. But I think this could be a really valuable tool to ensure you don't go overboard and to also help recording and mixing things to the space where they need to go.

Has anyone else used a similar method to drawing things up like this? I'm sure the triangle shape at the lower end is obviously due to lower frequencies not having much need for panning.

http://free-picture-hosting.net/?di=0MNP