The Perfect Mix - and notes on Mastering, Post-Production, and the Final Touch
There are many ways to get your songs to final form. Lets assume, for this article, final form means a beautifully polished piece of music in 16 bit 44.1 khz digital audio (i.e., the "red book" cd audio standard) or a standard wave file. You need to start, of course, with a fully or almost finished song. This is the point where the writing ends and the TweakMeistering begins. I'm going to give you some hard earned tips on Mixing and Mastering in the old analog style.
Mixdown and Mastering, traditionally speaking, are two very separate processes. Mixdown is the art of leveling, equalizing and effecting all the various sources from many tracks down to a stereo Mix. Mastering is the process of taking the stereo mix and putting it in the final album-ready form. Recent software and hardware developments make these processes easier and less expensive than they ever have been in the history of making music. Given that much of the time we can stay in the digital domain we can add processing to our heart's content and maintain a high signal to noise ratio and achieve optimum dynamics for the piece at hand.
The Mix Process
Please consider these parameters not as rules but a starting point for you mixes for the standard pop song or ballad using an analog mixer. Of course the instruments change if you are doing techno or symphonies, or ambient stuff, but the reference may still be helpful.
Step one is always to calibrate the mixer. Use a test tone of 0db (that's LOUD, so turn down the monitors). Set the fader at 0db on the board. If you don't have a tone to use take the loudest sound that the channel does during the mix, Set the trims so at the loudest, the meter pegs at 0db. Do this for every channel in the mixer. This gives you a reference. a zero db signal will meter at zero db when the fader is at zero db. Now you know what those numbers are for that are silk screened on your mixer! Do It!
Lead Vocal 0db use a low cut filter to eliminate rumble and plosive pops around 100-200 hz. Carefully enhance the delicate high end around 15khz to add air and sheen and don't overdo it! This is the trickiest adjustment and may often spell hit or dud. Perfectly center the vocal and pan it not with pan controls, but with very subtle left/right hi freq eq's. Put on the cans (headphones) and make sure its in the absolute center of your forehead.. Every word must be intelligible. Add reverb and delays but don't let it get smeared. Before you print to tape or DAT or whatever, check the vocal any make those tiny adjustments that are needed.
Cool trick: Split the main vocal track to two seperate faders. Compress the main vocal and send the secondary, uncompressed vocal to a reverb unit. This way the reverb stays out of the way until the vocalist gets loud. Hey that's they way it works in real life.
The Mix itself
Now, watch the meters when you play the whole mix through the board. On an analog board you should have peaks at no more than +3db. If what you have is more notch down every fader in 1 db increments until you get there. Shoot for 0db. On a digital board (or software mixer) you never want to go over 0db, anywhere, ever.
Mono Check: Always check you mix in Mono and look for sudden drop outs or instruments that disappear. That's phase cancellation at work, and it happens with stereo tracks and effects.
No faders above 0db rule: When getting a mix started follow this religiously. If you find your vocal doesn't sound good unless its at +5db then move everything down 5 db. Conserve headroom. You don't want your mix compromised by that awful crackle at the peak of your song.
Now you fine tune to taste. Listen for the quality to "lock". There is a definite point where this happens. Suddenly it all falls into place, given you have good material. A great mix of a great song will fill you with absolute elation. You'll be blown away and in awe. You will feel in love with it. No kidding. Might sound corny to the less mature among us, but I assure you its true. A great artist friend of mine puts it this way. Greatness in art depends solely on how much love you put in to a work. You put it in, it pays you back, your friends back, and everyone who listens. Moral of this lesson. Never take mixing and mastering lightly. The tiniest fader movements make a difference. Be exacting!
The Mix is a Dynamic, Moving Process
Don't just sit there while your mix goes to tape, or disc, or DAT. If you are using a board, assign the faders to subgroups. For example, if you have 4 subgroups you might want to send your vocal tracks to groups 1 and 2 and everything else to 3 and 4. This way you can slightly alter the balance between the vocalists and the band as the piece goes to tape. This technique, while tricky, can yield outstanding results. You can give the vocalist a touch more edge just when they need that oomph and when the vocalist takes a break you can subtly boost the band a bit. If you have 8 busses you might dedicate 5 and 6 just to drums and 7 and 8 just to effects, nudging each as is appropriate. If you have a digital mixer, this is where you want to automate.
The Role of Compression at Mixdown
On it's way to the recording device, you can patch a compressor/ limiter/gate. The Gate simply cuts out any audio below a certain threshold so that any hiss or noise coming from your synths or mixer is eliminated before the music starts. The limiter keeps your peaks under a certain fixed level and will not let them go higher. A Compressor is a volume slope applied to the audio material going through it. It can amplify the "valleys" and attenuate the "peaks". Essentially compression reduces the dynamic range we have just struggle to achieve in our mix. You might wonder why you would want that. In many circumstances, you don't want it. However, in the majority of cases you will find it useful, especially if you want your music to be "hot", "have punch" "be as loud as possible", or have the consistency of a radio mix. The stereo compressor also helps balance the song and give it a uniform character we are so used to hearing in commercial music. It essentially gives you the strongest and smoothest mix and calms down some of the 'jaggged edges' that might disturb the casual listener. However, it is also very easy to make a mix totally lifeless with a compressor and reduce its dynamic power. What started as a powerful orchestral arrangement can end up a wimpy piece of Mall Muzak so be careful and bypass it frequently to make sure you like what you are tweaking up. I think compression works well to attenuate that occasional peak that rips through the roof of a digital audio recorder and ruins the track. Also if you have the cash for a fine analog tube compressor. or even a high quality compressor plugin, there is lots of magic you can do at this stage.
Summing Up:
Whether you are writing industrial hardcore or the darkest ambient, a 100 piece orchestra or a stark minimalist a capella mix, always keep your ears tuned to making an artistic statement, a work of unforgettable beauty. This is the bottom line. The more control your Mixer gives you, the better you can paint the overall image. Working with compressors and mastering processors gives you a shot a polishing that image much like we polish a stone to bring out its colors. Hope this article helped you get a handle on the concepts of the perfect Mix, mastering and post-production, and the Final Touch.
Courtesy of TweakHeadz (http://www.tweakheadz.com)
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