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MYSTERIES OF MIXING
by Brian Knave
Electronic Musician, Apr 1, 2001
If talking about music is like dancing about architecture, then perhaps talking
about mixing is like somersaulting about perfume. That is, music is better listened
to than talked about, and its mysteries and pleasures simply cannot be elucidated
by symbols alone. Likewise, the mysteries of mixing don't readily yield
themselves to words. For one thing, there are too many variables musical
style, instrumentation, audience, and gear, to name only a few for absolutes to
be of much use. Mixing music is as much an art as making it and in one sense,
it is making it and therefore is irreducible to formula.
Just the same, the problems commonly encountered by amateur mixers are deftly
handled by the pros on a daily basis, so it stands to reason that talking to the
professionals can shed some light on the process. I spoke recently with three
renowned mix engineers about how they deal with common mixing problems.
They were understandably reluctant to suggest one-size-fits-all solutions, but
they did provide many helpful tips and the occasional gem of insight on a number
of topics. In fact, I was able to incorporate many of their suggestions and improve
my own mixes right away.
MEET THE PANEL
Even if you don't recognize the names of the mix engineers I interviewed, it's
pretty certain you've heard the fruits of their labors. Each is a veteran who has
mixed (not to mention produced) dozens of best-selling albums, and none is a
stranger to platinum. Interestingly though perhaps not surprisingly all three
are musicians, as well.
Producer and mixer Chris Lord-Alge, who resides in Los Angeles, was a 1998
Grammy nominee for Faith Hill's Faith and a 1992 Grammy nominee for Lindsey
Buckingham's Out of the Cradle. Lord-Alge has platinum credits from his work
with Green Day, Fastball, and Savage Garden. Other recent credits include Sheryl
Crow, Melissa Etheridge, Foo Fighters, Dave Matthews Band, and Barenaked
Ladies.
San Francisco-based producer, mixer, and engineer Mark Needham, though best
known for his work with Chris Isaak, has also mixed (and in some cases recorded
and produced) platinum-sellers for Bruce Hornsby, Meredith Brooks, and Cake.
Upcoming releases include albums from Lindsey Buckingham and Simon Says.
Los Angeles-based producer and mixer Ken Kessie has mixed several charttopping singles and seen platinum sales from albums he did for En Vogue, Tony

Toni Tone, Celine Dion, and Bel Biv Devoe. Upcoming releases include works by
Vanessa Williams, Carl Martin, Assia, and Eklipse.
VOICE RECOGNITION
For vocal-based songs, nothing is more critical to the mix than a consistent, justright level for the lead vocal. As Lord-Alge puts it, The vocal leads the track. To
determine an appropriate vocal level, Lord-Alge suggests monitoring at a low
volume. If the monitors are cranked up really loud, he says, the tendency is to
put the vocal too loud in the mix.
Lord-Alge also emphasizes the importance of choosing the compressor that will
add some personality to the vocal, which is the bottom line, and help it sit in the
mix just right. Generally, he says, you can't go wrong with a UREI 1176 the
blue one is my favorite on vocals. An LA-2A [see Fig. 1] is not going to hurt you,
either. And sometimes an LA -3 will do the job. Between those three you've got it
covered. Needham also praised the 1176 for vocals, as well as the new Drawmer
1969 compressor.
To get the vocal correct in the mix, Kessie focuses on excitement, fader rides,
and clearing out the track to leave some room. Mick Jagger is known for wanting
his vocal in the red, and that's something I aim for, too. I will run my vocal
compressors hot, add some tube or Neve preamp distortion to the track, and mult
the track to another channel where I can push the high end. All these combine to
bring the vocal close to the edge of disaster which is exactly what I want
because it draws in the listener's attention. Next, I do fader moves to ensure that
all the words and tails of words are strong. In addition, I will duck breathing
noises that are too loud and esses that are peaky. However, I won't eliminate
breaths between phrases because that makes it sound fake. Anything in the track
that competes with the lead vocal gets knocked back a bit with EQ, compression,
or fader rides.
Needham uses various fail-safe techniques to create a mix that has the perfect
vocal level. First I work to get the vocal intelligible all the way through at a level
that feels good to me, he explains. After that, if there is any question, I do
alternate mixes for instance, a vocal-up and a vocal-down version, including
ones with the background vocals up and down. In some cases, when working on
Pro Tools, I'll do an instrumental mix with the vocals split off to separate tracks.
That way, if the vocal is too loud in one spot, I can go back in later and correct it.
The same thing applies if you need to go back and make a clean [expletive-free]
version of the song for radio release. With the vocal on separate tracks, it's easy
to chop out a word and replace it.
Needham typically ends up with six or seven mixes at the minimum, but I've had
as many as 20 different mixes of a song. It's a lot easier to print them at the time
than to try and do a total recall later. Kessie also runs multiple mixes as

standard procedure.
BASS INSTINCTS
Finding the right level for bass guitar is also tricky. Needham and Lord-Alge both
stress the importance of using familiar and trustworthy monitors as well as
monitoring on multiple playback systems. The only way you're going to know for
sure is multiple referencing, says Lord-Alge. If you know the speakers and the
room, you should be able to get the right bass levels. But alternative monitor
systems are very important: a boom box, headphones, a car stereo.
Needham recommends comparing the mix in progress to other mixes. Before
you start, he says, or in the middle of a mix, pop in a CD that has good mixes in
the same style as the music you're working on. That should give you a good
sense of appropriate bass levels. And if you're not familiar with the room, be sure
to have a familiar system in your car that you can refer to.
Another common bass-related problem is insufficient high end. In rock stuff,
says Lord -Alge, they never seem to record the bass guitar bright enough. So it
never cuts through unless you add a lot of midrange to it. The trick is to find
where to boost the EQ so the bass will peak through under the guitars. Needham
suggests another solution: A lot of times I'll either remic the bass through an
amp or use distortion effects to get a little more grind out of the top end of the
bass. Lately, I've been using the Tech 21 SansAmp on bass quite often.
As for favorite bass compressors, Lord-Alge again praised the 1176: My favorites
for bass are the black ones, which are discreet (see Fig. 2). Needham favors LA 2As for miked bass and also uses the Empirical Labs Distressor (see Fig. 3) on the
direct signal, as well as some of the sub programs out there, such as Aphex's
Bass Maximize.
DRUM N BASS
A related challenge is getting a good marriage between the kick drum and bass
guitar. Make sure to compress the kick so that it's punchy but not ringy, LordAlge advises. But don't compress it to the point where it starts to ring and
vibrate, because then it's going to eat up the bottom end, not to mention bring up
all the leakage. Generally, you want the kick and bass to have an equal amount of
low end. Then match the two together until it feels right. Lord-Alge says he
prefers not to cut any low end from the kick but that often he will suck out some
of the 400 Hz to get rid of the boxiness. Once more, he recommends monitoring
at a low level to ensure the kick cuts through enough but not too much, and to
make sure it doesn't have too much point on it.
Needham advises keeping the kick and bass at good levels relative to one another
to avoid problems during mastering. That way, if there's not enough or too much

low end overall, it's easy for the mastering engineer to bring both the kick and
bass up or down together with EQ. If the kick and bass are out of whack, the
mastering engineer is not going to be able to fix it.
Needham typically starts a mix with the kick drum and then works on the rest of
the drums before bringing in the bass. But he warns about equalizing and
compressing the drums and bass separately from the mix because of potential EQ
imbalances and phase cancellations. Keep in mind the other instruments that are
going to go around the bass and drums, he says. For example, if you bring in,
say, a string section, or some really loud guitars, the top end on the kick drum
and bass tends to get eaten up. After compensating with EQ, the kick and bass
may sound too bright when you solo them but they're just right when you put
them in with the other instruments.
Kessie, who claims he's always experimenting with things you're not supposed to
do, describes a different way to mix kick and bass. I leave the kick in the center
and pan the bass to both sides of the stereo spectrum. This can be done a
number of ways. For example, you can mult the bass off to another channel or
send it to a chorus unit my fave is the TC Electronic 2290. My newest trick is to
mult the bass and send it to two channels of an Aphex 106 Easyrider quad
compressor. I then set the Process controls [which control attack and release
times automatically] opposite to one another one side fast, the other slow
and pan the two signals hard left and right. The slight difference in attack/release
times makes the bass nicely audible in both speakers, allowing me to run the
bass louder without burying the bass drum. When both sounds coexist straight up
the center, there's less room for either.
As for compressors, Needham loves the Distressor, both on kick and snare, and
Lord-Alge says that the built-in compressor on the SSL consoles is usually
sufficient for kick drum. On snare, Lord-Alge alternates between a Distressor
and an old Neve 2264X in limit mode. The Distressor is good because it's so
adjustable.
WHEN THE LEVEL BREAKS
Another difficulty beginning mixers often encounter is determining how heavily to
apply effects to a mix. Of course this depends on the song and the market;
however, the pros agree that, in general, less is more. My philosophy on effects
is to run as little as possible, says Kessie. The main reason is clarity there is
usually a lot going on already, and effects can take up a lot of room. Also, I want
to make classic mixes that will sound good 20 years from now. Anytime you load
on the current flavor of the day effect, you run the risk of dating your mix just
listen to any hair-band mix from the '80s. One of the biggest mistakes in amateur
mixes is too much reverb. The best approach is to get the mix working as dry as
possible; then, if you need some ambience, sneak it in.

Lord-Alge offers the same advice: You grill the steak first and then put the sauce
on it you don't put sauce on it while it's grilling. Get the mix sounding good
relatively dry and then add the sauce as needed in the places where you feel it
adds some attitude. Lord-Alge also emphasizes the need for clarity and suggests
how to maintain it: In general, don't put an effect on everything. What you want
is clarity and you're not going to get it unless you leave some things dry. The
more goop you pile on, the less definition you get.
Needham again recommends the fail-safe option of alternate mixes: If there's
ever any question say, you're worried about a certain delay simply make
one mix with it on and another with it off. Does Needham ever notice uses of
effects on other people's mixes that he thinks of as a mark of amateurism?
Actually, I get some of my best ideas from people who are working in home
studios because they're not afraid to try things that are totally off the wall. It's
amazing some of the creative effects they come up with. I usually tell people to
bring in those mixes as well as the effects boxes they've been using. Or, if they
have extra tracks, they can just print the effects because often, when you try
to duplicate them later, you never come up with something as good.
CROWDED HOUSE
A common mixing problem is clutter, which can occur when two or more
instruments are playing in the same frequency range and thus competing for
sonic space. The trick here, says Lord -Alge, is to identify the instrument [in the
cluttered part] that's most important to the song and then to move the other
instruments out of its way with panning, EQ, or whatever. What you don't want is
the middle of the mix all jammed up try to keep as much out of the middle as
possible. There's no rule, of course; it's all instinct. If you have to add a boatload
of EQ to make it work, then that's what you do. You're not going to sit back and
say, Oh, I think that's too much EQ. If it sounds good, who cares how far the
knob is turned?
I will look at any and all options to keep a mix sounding clean and uncluttered,
says Needham. If I can't get it to work by changing the EQ or the panning, then
it's time to ask, Is this the right part? People just getting into mixing often don't
realize that the most dramatic tool on the console is a mute button. Rather than
just turning things down because they're a little muddy, sometimes it's better to
turn them off, whether just for a section or for the whole tune. Of course, that
could be a touchy situation the band comes back in and realizes you've taken
out three guitar parts in the verses! But say you have a piano and guitar playing
basically the same part by leaving one of them out and then bringing it in later
to build the second verse or the chorus, you can create a more dramatic
difference between the sections.
Kessie echoes Needham: Often, the best way to fix poor tonal balances is to
mute one of the offenders. Other options are to remove clashing regions with EQ

and panning. For example, use panning to make one part stereo and the other
mono. I think many mixers avoid putting sounds straight up the middle but
sometimes a key rhythm part panned dead center can really glue a mix tight.
Another solution is to use depth: by adding ambience to one part, you can make
it seem farther away than the other. Auto panners and other motion-based effects
can also be used to differentiate parts: having one part in motion will separate it
from a part that's static.
CAN'T TUNA FISH
Digital-audio editors have provided a relatively easy solution to a problem that
can ruin the best of takes an out-of-tune part. But it wasn't always that way.
Ten years ago, says Needham, I used a device that allowed you to control pitch
with an automated fader. But you had to do it by ear, which was hard
especially when a note was bending and you were trying to creep the fader up
just enough to keep it in tune. Once, to deal with some out-of-tune background
vocals in the days before digital tuning programs were available, Needham
washed them out a bit with echo and chorus and turned them down low in the
mix. People actually dug the sound Wow, what a mysterious background
level!
These days, dedicated mixers rarely deal with tuning problems. Instead, the
problem is often handled by engineers who specialize in tuning vocal tracks the
producer sends the vocal out and it comes back tuned. As Lord -Alge points out,
Tuning is an issue for the producer and the artist. Hopefully, they've sorted out
any tuning problems prior to giving you the tape. Still, any mix engineer worth
his salt knows how to tune a vocal track.
The great thing about tuning programs, says Needham, is that you can rescue
a troublesome line that has an emotionally great performance. I usually work on
Pro Tools, so I mostly use Antares's AutoTune. But some people get a little
carried away with AutoTune: they use it in auto mode and start taking out pitch
bends that are supposed to be there and that support the emotion of the delivery
and sometimes those little pitch bends are what make the vocal work.
Lord-Alge frowns upon of the extent to which tuning correction has become
commonplace and is concerned that the ubiquity of digital fixes can lead to a
certain slackness in the recording process. You know, I'm getting a little tired of
hearing that AutoTune sound. Instead of, That's close enough let's just
AutoTune it, have the artist sing the part a couple more times; have the vocalist
get some attitude into it and get it in tune. An extra ten minutes isn't going to
hurt. If the singer just can't hit the note, then AutoTune it. Don't just use it out of
laziness.
Kessie offers an approach for those times when tuning programs aren't up to the
task. AutoTune doesn't always work for more extensive tuning problems. In

really difficult cases, it helps to be running a synched -up sequencer. Then you can
drop the offending line into a sampler and use the pitch wheel of your controller
to do some amazing fixes that the automatic programs aren't capable of. You can
also edit the pitch-wheel MIDI data to get exactly what you want.
WAYWARD WALLOPS
One mark of a seasoned studio drummer is the ability to play backbeats and other
groove-defining parts at consistent levels from hit to hit a skill that can take
years to hone. Not surprisingly, many young drummers have yet to develop that
level of control. Hence another common mixing problem: how to deal with
inconsistent drum and percussion hits.
In Kessie's view, there is a right way and a wrong way, depending on the
capabilities of the engineer and the studio, and on how much time is available.
The right way, says Kessie, is to replace the weak hits with samples of the
strong ones. It's best to do this on a digital audio workstation, as all triggering
devices will induce a delay. A delay may work on the snare, but a delayed kick
will ruin a groove. The wrong way is to compress the hell out of the offending
sound, because usually the amount of compression needed to compensate for a
weak hit will overcompress the strong hits. Fader rides can sometimes do the
trick, but the fact is that a softer hit turned up louder doesn't sound like a harder
hit.
Needham is quick to point out that sometimes the inconsistencies are what make
it work. But in general, his approach jibes with Kessie's. In a situation where
one important hit was done correctly and musically right, but only once by the
drummer, I would probably copy that hit and paste it where it's appropriate. It's
nice for variety's sake to have more than one good hit, though.
One thing I use a lot, he continues, is Digidesign's Sound Replacer. Not only
does it allow you to replace a sound completely, but you can also reinforce the
original sound with layers of other sounds, for example to improve the attack,
consistency, or tone of a drum hit. Of course, it can be used creatively, too for
example, I've used it to make a kick drum sound bigger in a chorus.
DIFFICULT PHASE
Phase problems occur most often between stereo or multiple mic signals, but they
can also happen between stereo effects, the direct and miked signals from a
guitar amp, and even separately recorded tracks. Whatever their origin,
unresolved phase problems can spoil an otherwise good mix.
The simplest phase fix is to use one channel rather than two. If you have an
acoustic guitar on two tracks and you can't fix the phase problem, says LordAlge, choose whichever track sounds better by itself for the mix and just use that

one.
As for correcting phase problems, there are a number of approaches. The first
step is to figure out where the phasing lies. You put the two channels up, says
Needham, and it's pretty easy to hear the phasing as you bring one of the faders
up and down the whole middle just drops out. Usually one of the channels is
180 degrees out, as on bass guitars where the DI is out 180 from the miked amp.
But that's an easy fix just flip the switch on the console.
Phase problems often occur on live drums because of all the mics, says Kessie.
I'll start with the kick, add one track at a time, and flip the polarity of the new
track until the sound is fattest. Sometimes I flip background vocals out of phase
because they feel better that way. And sometimes I flip loops and drum-machine
parts if it makes them sound better. Careful listening is the key.
But what about more subtle phasing, such as phasing between signals on a
stereo-miked acoustic guitar, where a simple 180 flip doesn't fix the problem? In
that case, says Needham, I may actually move one of the tracks in Pro Tools
that is, jog one slightly one way or the other in time until the two tracks line up.
You can watch the waveforms or just listen until it's right. I usually do it by ear. I
may use the waveforms to start with, but in the end what matters is how it
sounds.
Lord-Alge suggests a similar fix that can be done without the luxury of waveform
editing. In a worst-case scenario, put a delay on the second channel and nudge
it a few milliseconds until it feels right. A couple of milliseconds will usually fix it;
the trick is to move it just enough to make it sound good while listening in mono.
Although the pros hold differing opinions about how important it is to mix
specifically for mono compatibility The only place you find mono speakers
these days is in old pickup trucks! jokes Lord-Alge they agree that it's wise to
check the mix in mono from time to time. I always check in mono before I print
the final mix, says Needham, as well as at various stages along the way.
Switching to mono may introduce another problem: disappearing stereo effects.
As Needham explains, that happens because many stereo effects processors
especially inexpensive ones create a stereo spread by flipping one side 180
degrees out of phase with the other. One solution, says Needham, is to use
two separate but identical processors to create the stereo effect. For example,
rather than using the left and right outputs from a Yamaha SPX90, use the left
outputs from two SPX90s. That way the stereo image doesn't collapse when you
go to mono. Of course, another solution is to use the effect in mono.
Kessie often uses two effects that seem to go outside the speakers: a TC
Electronic 2290 chorus patch and a 3D processor called Spatializer Pro. These
effects sound great in stereo, but they disappear in mono. I don't mind, though:

when the mix is in mono, there's usually too much going on for one little speaker
anyway. If the mix gets tighter and a little dryer, that's okay by me.
ART OF NOISE
A crucial, albeit pedestrian, task for any mixer is making sure all tracks are free
from extraneous noise such as unwanted breathing, chair creaks, guitar-strap
noise, squeaking drum pedals, and so on. How do the pros clean their tracks? It
varies.
Lord-Alge, who works primarily on an SSL console and a Sony PCM-3348 digital
48-track, says, The first thing I do is make my own copy of the client's tape.
Then I tidy up: I put the tracks where I want them to be and I go in and erase
everything that's not supposed to be there. If I run into noises clicks and pops
or whatever I'll either erase them or mute them.
Automation is a lifesaver here, Kessie says, and noise gates are another. If you
don't have either of these, then clean the tracks on a digital audio workstation.
But don't erase live drum tracks just because certain drums aren't being played
the sounds of adjacent drums resonating are part of the sound of the kit, so I like
to keep those in there.
Needham says he can usually find any unwanted noise just by listening to the
whole mix but if he can't locate a particular noise, he'll solo everything all the
way through until he finds it. He then uses mutes to block the unwanted noise,
and he also mutes any instruments (except for drums) that aren't playing. You
don't want to hear someone tuning up a guitar or moving around or whatever.
As for extraneous breaths from an instrumentalist, they don't bother Needham
much. Usually you can just take out any breaths that are really annoying by
riding with an automated fader. With drum sets, though, I've had to go back and
use Sound Replacer for example, on a track where a mic has fallen out of the
clip and is sitting on the tom. On vocal stuff, I've gone back and taken good
breaths from other parts of the tune and stuck them in where needed.
Another common noise problem is accidental distortion, whether from a mic,
preamp, or digital recorder. This can be almost impossible to get rid of, says
Kessie. It seems that no matter how hard you filter the sound or turn it down,
you can still hear it. The best solution is to replace the offending note or phrase
with a nondistorted one from another part of the song if possible. If the distortion
is on a lead vocal, maybe one of the precomped tracks can be bounced in for a
quick note or two. If that fails and you can't get rid of the distortion, try adding
more by running the track through Line 6 Amp Farm or a SansAmp. That way, it
will sound as if it's supposed to be distorted.
POTS AND PANS

Poor panning is another common mix problem. Sometimes you'll hear a mix with
multiple guitar tracks, yet it sounds like one giant washy guitar, Needham says.
What I like is a wide stereo spread so the song sounds as open and big as
possible. It says something that the best mastering engineers Ted Jensen at
Sterling, for example really know how to widen the stereo spread.
Needham will do whatever it takes to make a mix more exciting, with little or no
regard for what may seem natural. In some cases I might try to keep the natural
acoustic spread of the instruments, he explains, especially if the whole band
was recorded live in the studio with no baffles. But more often the reality of the
recording has absolutely no bearing on the way I pan things in the mix. I might
even pan an instrument to a different place during the chorus to make the mix
more dramatic.
Lord-Alge espouses a pan philosophy similar to Needham's. The trick, he says,
is to get interplay on the sides. I use three different pannings: left, right, and
center. On occasion, if I'm really jammed with percussion or extra guitar parts, I'll
use more of the spectrum. But generally, it's hard left, hard right, and center.
Start with that and if it sounds too wide, bring in the reins. But start out as wide
as you can go.
Multiple stereo tracks mean more panning options, but here Lord-Alge made an
interesting point: If you pan everything stereo the guitars, the keyboards, the
drums, the background vocals the mix becomes super mono. Then you have to
say, enough of this stereo crap let's put some things left and others right so we
can get some interplay.
Kessie takes a different view of panning: To me, mixes with hard left and right
pans can sound fake and disconnected. I probably run narrower mixes than most
guys because I like the way they feel. To me, a narrower mix just sounds more
real and glued together.
HERE, THERE, EVERYWHERE
A sure sign of an amateur mixing job is a final cut that sounds good on some
speakers but awful on others. A professional mix, on the other hand, translates
well no matter what it's played on.
The key, says Kessie, is to use well-balanced monitors and to listen to your mix
on as many different systems as possible. Cheap speakers, car systems, boom
boxes, and headphones all provide information about which parts are too loud or
are not cutting through. Listening at low volume is good, as is listening from the
next room. Also recommended is taking ear breaks and playing some well-mixed
CDs for reference. I would much rather work in a room with great monitors than a
room with tons of outboard gear. You can always rent extra gear, but if the
speaker/room combo isn't right, you will be back doing recalls or begging your

mastering engineer for yet another miracle.

Lord-Alge points out the wisdom of considering the lowest common denominator
among listeners. Ninety-five percent of people listen to music in their cars or on
a cheap home stereo. If your mix doesn't sound good on a pair of small speakers,
what's the point? A pair of $10,000 powered monitors may sound pristine, but no
one else has them, so you're more likely to have a translation problem. An
engineer with a little practice who checks the mix on a whole bunch of small,
crappy-sounding systems can find the middle ground where it sounds good on
everything.
In addition to Yamaha NS-10s the speakers he has mixed on for 25 years
Lord-Alge monitors on a small Sony boom box. I have some big UREIs in the
room, but I almost never turn them on. The fact is, 25 years on NS-10s haven't
led me wrong yet. Of course, I use a subwoofer with them, and the sub is dialed
in just right.
Needham, too, stresses the importance of using familiar speakers. I travel a lot,
so when I'm out of town, I always try to rent the same model of car there are
two or three that I know the systems in. I always have my own speakers with me
for the studio, of course, but a lot of times I'm listening in the car.
Needham recently replaced the pair of Klark-Technic monitors he had been using
for 15 years with a pair of JBL LSR28P powered monitors. The LSRs are the first
JBL product in years that I've been totally in love with. All the mixes I've done on
them have translated great. I did my own comparison test of 15 or 20 different
sets of speakers and for me the JBLs were the easiest to mix on.
ALL MIXED UP
Kessie's warns against missing the forest for the trees. Some producers are
unable to prioritize; to them, the correct ping of an 18-inch china cymbal is as
important as the lead vocal. They will spend hours equalizing a tom, or endlessly
altering the hi-hat level until it's 5:30 in the morning, and the lead-vocal fader
hasn't even been opened yet. Don't be one of those people. Prioritize, and then
spend your time on the important things. Not everything needs a lot of attention.
Big-time mixers know this. They make the important stuff so strong, the little
things take care of themselves.
In parting, Needham beat the drum for multiple prints. Whenever you get to a
place where one person thinks the mix is great and someone else doesn't, just
print it to tape and move on. I've been in situations where after four hours the
mix was sounding great and then five hours later it was like, Aw, man, this
sucks! But tape is cheap, so now, when I get to a point where I'm happy with the
mix that is, before I start deconstructing it and trying other things I'll just
print that version. That's also good to do because then you have something to go

back and compare to. Damn, five hours ago we really had this nailed! And if you
have that version on tape, you're covered. You can pack up and go home.
Lord-Alge, who like Needham is legendary for turning out great mixes fast, puts
the subject of gear into perspective. How about getting the mix done as fast as
you can? Use your instinct, find what makes the song work, and go after that.
Don't dilly-dally. Make the song work quickly. What's not important is going
through tons of compressors and EQs on every instrument until you feel you have
the right ones. Just put your favorites in and use those. Make the song work first
before saying, Oh, let me just try this goofy compressor on the background
vocals and see if it adds something. If you get creative before you even have the
song together, by the time you have gone off on your tangent, you won't know
what you are doing with the song.
A lot of engineers think the mix is about the gear, but it's not it's about your
gut instinct. The gear is just there to help you. The most important thing is to
make the song work for those who are going to buy it. Period. You're not the
artist; it's not your song. If the artist is happy and the label is happy and people
respond to the music, then you have done your job. Sitting around playing with
your toys isn't going to help make the song a hit. The trick is to gradually
incorporate the tools into the process.

For associate editor Brian Knave, the mystery is how to find time to mix all the
songs he has recorded. Special thanks to George Petersen and Steve
Oppenheimer.

2001, IndustryClick Corp., a PRIMEDIA company. All rights reserved. This

article is protected by United States copyright and other intellectual property laws
and may not be reproduced, rewritten, distributed, redisseminated, transmitted,
displayed, published or broadcast, directly or indirectly, in any medium without
the prior written permission of IndustryClick Corp.

20 TIPS ON... MIXING

PAUL WHITE delivers a crash course in instant mixing.
The vocals sound great, the drums are really kicking and the guitars are exceptional,
but put it all together and what have you got? A mess! Sound familiar? Until you've
gained plenty of experience in mixing music, the process can seem very frustrating.
There are probably as many correct ways to tackle a mix as there are successful
engineers and producers. Even so, I've taken 20 tips that I've found to be helpful over
the years and presented them below in the form of a checklist. These are not
immutable rules, just general guidelines that can be broken any time you feel you can
get away with it. Have fun!
Put the mixer into neutral (EQ flat, aux sends down, routing to Left/Right only and so
on), before you start work and pull down the faders on any channels not in use. Make
sure all unused aux sends are set to zero and that unused mixer channels are
unrouted as well as muted, as this will further reduce the level of background noise. If
you don't do this, you may find effects on tracks that don't need effects, or
unwanted tracks creeping into a bounce due to a routing button being left down. You
should also have a track sheet for your recording from which you can label the mixer
channels. The time -honoured way to do this is to use masking tape and felt pen, so
that you can peel the whole lot off when the job is finished.
Optimise the gain settings not only for the multitrack returns, but also for all effects
sends and returns and for your external effect units. Also ensure that your master
recorder is being driven as hard as possible, without overloading on signal peaks.
These simple measures can significantly improve the clarity of your mix. If your
recording is going to be digitally edited, leave any fade-outs until the edit stage, and
don't try to chop off the noise that precedes or follows the mix -- you may need this
when setting up a digital denoiser that requires a bare noise 'fingerprint' for calibration
purposes.
Subgroup logical sections of your mix, such as the drum kit or the backing vocals, so
that you can control the overall level of the subgrouped elements from a single fader
or stereo pair of faders. This allows you to control the mix using fewer faders, and
fewer fingers! Be aware that any channels subgrouped this way must also have their
effects routed to the same groups(s), otherwise the effects level won't change as
you adjust the group fader.
Where level adjustments need to be made, mark the fader settings with a chinagraph
wax pencil and, if necessary, take note of the tape counter or timecode locations at
which the level changes occur. This way you can solicit help from other musicians in
the studio if the mix gets too busy. If you're lucky and are using mix automation,
listen to the whole mix through without watching the levels, so that you can
concentrate on the balance of the instruments.
Don't assume that your ears always tell you the truth. Rest them before mixing and
constantly refer to commercial recordings played over your monitor system, so that
you have some form of reference to aim for. This is particularly important if you use
harmonic enhancers, as your ears can grow used to the effects of over-enhancement
very quickly.
Don't overdo the effects, especially reverb, as this can clutter your recording and
take away the contrast that is needed to give your mix punch. As a rule, the drier the
sound, the more up-front it will sound, while heavily reverbed sounds tend to move
into the background. If you need strong reverb on lead vocals, try to add some pre-

delay to the reverb effect and adjust both the vocal level and reverb level so that the
vocal sits comfortably over the backing.
Don't pan bass sounds such as kick drums or bass instruments to the sides of the
stereo soundstage, as these high energy sounds need to be shared equally between
the two stereo speakers for best results. As a rule, very bassy sounds contain little or
no directional information anyway, although bass sounds that also contain a lot of
harmonics can sound more directional.
Leave any final EQ and effect adjustments until the full mix is playing. If you work on
any single instrument in isolation, it's likely to sound different when everything else is
added. If you can avoid using any heavy EQ, the result is more likely to sound more
natural.
Try not to have too many instruments competing for the same part of the audio
spectrum. The mid-range is particularly vulnerable, so try to choose the best sounds
at source. You can improve the separation when mixing by using EQ to narrow the
spectrum of the sound you're working with. Try rolling off some low end and
occasionally taking out any excessive top end. This is sometimes known as spectral
mixing, where each sound or instrument is given its own space in the audio spectrum.
A good example of this is the acoustic guitar which, in a rock mix, can muddle the low
mid. If you roll off the low end, you still get plenty of definition, but the mix will seem
far cleaner. Sidechain filters on noise gates (set to Key Listen mode) are often very
good tools for trimming the high and low ends of sounds without unduly changing the
section you want to keep. Don't over EQ sounds as they're likely to sound unnatural,
especially when boosting. As a rule, good external equalisers will sound better than
your console channel EQ when you're trying to make significant tonal changes. If you
can confine your EQ to gentle shelving cut or boost rather than using heavy sweep
mid, you're less likely to end up with nasal, harsh or phasey sounds. If possible, fix
problems by using EQ cut rather than boost. The human hearing system is less
sensitive to EQ cut than it is to boost. This is especially true if you are using a lowcost equaliser or the EQ in your desk.
Compress the vocals to make them sit nicely in the mix. Few vocalists can sing at a
sufficiently even level to be mixed successfully without compression. Soft-knee
compressors tend to be the least obtrusive, but if you want the compression to add
warmth and excitement to your sound, try an opto-compressor or a hard-knee model
with a higher ratio setting than you'd normally use. Be aware that compression raises
the background noise (for every 1dB of gain reduction, the background noise in quiet
passages will come up by 1dB), and heavy compression can also exaggerate vocal
sibilance.
From time to time, check your mix balance by listening from outside the
studio/bedroom door. This tends to show up level imbalances more clearly than when
listening from directly in front of the monitors. Nobody is quite sure why, but it works.
Don't monitor too loudly. It may make the music seem more exciting (initially), but the
end user is unlikely to listen at the same high level. High monitoring levels also tend
temporarily to shift your hearing perspective and can lead to permanent hearing
damage. It's fine to check the mix loudly for short periods, but most of the time, it's
useful to try and mix at the level you think the music will eventually be played.
(Forget I said this if you're mixing dance music for nightclubs!)
Check your mixes on headphones as well as speakers. Headphones show up small
distortions and clicks that you may never hear over loudspeakers. However, don't rely
solely on headphones for mixing, for they represent the stereo image differently to
loudspeakers and are notoriously unpredictable at low frequencies.
Don't vary the level of the drums and bass unnecessarily during a mix, as the rhythm
section is traditionally the constant backdrop against which other sounds move.
Natural dynamics within rhythm instrument parts is OK, but don't keep moving the
faders on these sounds.

In a busy mix, try 'ducking' mid-range instruments such as overdrive guitars and synth
pads under the control of the vocals, so that whenever the vocals are present, the
conflicting sounds fall in level by two or three dBs. Just a little ducking can
significantly improve the clarity of a mix. Use a fairly fast attack time for the ducker
(which may be either a compressor or a noise gate that has ducking facilities), and
set the release time by ear. Shorter release times will cause more obvious gainpumping, but in rock mixes, this can add welcome energy and excitement.
If you are recording a primarily MIDI-based track, try not to look at your sequencer
display while mixing; the visual stimulus interferes with your ability to make subjective
judgements based only on the sound. If necessary, close your eyes. Watching your
sequencer progress through the arrange page can also give you a false impression of
how well the arrangement is working, which is why some composers prefer hardware
sequencers.
If a close-miked sound seems unnaturally lifeless, but you don't want to add any
obvious reverb, try an ambience or early reflection setting to induce a sense of
space. The shorter the reverb time, the easier it is to move the treated sound to the
front of your mix.
Listen to your finished mix again the day after you've finished it, as your perception is
likely to change after resting your ears overnight. Also check the master recording on
as many different sound systems as you can, to ensure it sounds fine on all of them.
Even then, save all your mix information and track sheets, including effects settings,
as you never know when you might want to try to improve on the 'final mix'!

The time has finally arrived.

Your latest and greatest work is almost done. You started with what you feel is a damn fine song. You carefully
planned the arrangement. You've captured some killer tracks. And then, you sweated every detail of the mix. You
tweaked, pulled, pummeled, and then re-tweaked, re-pulled, and re-pummeled those tracks until it all sounded
something like what you thought you were hearing in your head when you started. And finally, you now hold in
your hands The Final Mix. No more hedging. You're ready to commit forever. This is the sound you're going to
leave to posterity.
Your magnum opus is now ready to be mastered.
Right?
Well, maybe. Or, maybe not.
One of the most important things you should expect from any good mastering facility is a well-trained set of ears
listening to and evaluating every minute detail of your music. That facility should then give you a brutally honest,
totally objective opinion of the quality of your music and mixdown, presented in a constructive a manner as
possible -- along with suggestions for improvement and possible solutions for problems in your mix.
But hey... you've done that already, haven't you?
Again, the key word here is objectivity. The more you've been involved in a particular project, the less of it you
have. If you've spent hours and hours mixing a project, your sense of objectivity has been unalterably
compromised. If you wrote the song, performed on the record, recorded the tracks, and then mixed it yourself,
your objectivity is all but out the window.
Not only is this an unavoidable fact of life in the studio, but in a lot of other places, too. There is a very good
reason doctors should not attempt to treat themselves, psychologists should not analyze themselves, writers
should not edit themselves, and attorneys should not defend themselves in court. That reason is lack of
objectivity! Heck, I wouldn't even suggest that an experienced, professional mastering engineer master his or her
own music, on exactly these same grounds.
(For a great article which explores this subject in more depth, see Rip Rowan's editorial in the October 1998
issue of ProRec.)
A big part of my job as a mastering engineer involves listening and critically evaluating mixes that clients submit
for mastering. In just about all cases, this material is what the client considers a finished mix -- the fruits of his or
her very best efforts. The stuff I hear coming through here ranges from "genius" (pretty rare) to "garbage" (again,
pretty rare, and I'm not talking Butch Vig here, folks). Most of it falls somewhere in the middle -- mostly good
attempts, but with problems. Fortunately, most of the problems are usually fixable -- if not in mastering, then by
going back to the drawing board and reworking the arrangement, the recording, or the mix a bit (sometimes, quite
a bit).
But what kind of problems? Ahhh... finally we are coming to the point of this whole article! First, let me point out
that every mix is different, and thus presents its own set of challenges However, over the years, I have noticed a
few distinct patterns, especially from mixes done in home and project studios. Many of the same maladies seem
to crop up again and again. In this article, I've compiled a "rogue's gallery" of the Top Ten most common
problems an objective set of ears is likely to catch in a given mix. Most mixes suffer from only one or two of
these, if any. Don't you wish.
Ambiance Problems
Great-sounding music doesn't get pumped directly into our brains. People play music, and those performers and
their instruments exist in some kind of physical space. The sounds they make travel through the air and bounce
off the boundaries of that space, as well as off other nearby physical objects, and this all becomes, to the listener,
part of the overall sound. Also, performers playing together each occupy different positions -- a listener can
perceive some of their sounds as originating from "close by," and other sounds as originating from "further away."

Modern studio techniques, like close-miking and the use of dead rooms, can rob your music of the subtle ambient
cues that make the music come alive. Judicious use of reverb and delay are great tools that can bring a sense of
"air", spaciousness, and realism to a mix. Clever use of ambiance can also add a "front-to-back" dimension to a
recording that complements the "left-right" stereo soundfield. (Cool... instant 3-D!)
In short, the proper use of ambient effects in a mix is like the spices in your favorite dish -- just the right kind and
amount adds zest and flavor, but too much of the wrong kind makes it inedible. Vocals swimming in reverb to the
point of intelligibility. Drums booming off the clouds. Guitars drowning in a swamp of echo. In short, ambiance
problems. I hear them all the time.
A lot of these problems could be avoided by a) picking the right kind of ambient effect for the job, b) learning what
their parameters mean, and how to adjust them, c) using different ambient programs for different instruments,
and d) simple good taste and common sense!
Most reverb effects can be placed into one of three categories -- plate, room, or hall. Plate reverbs, with their
lower density algorithms, shorter decays, and shimmery finishes, are generally best for vocals. Room-type
reverbs (which usually come with parameters that allow for room simulations of different sizes and construction
materials) are good for drums and most percussion. Hall reverbs are for those special situations where you really
need an instrument to go "boom." Carefully chosen hall reverbs can sometimes be applied to an overall mix with
good results (don't go too heavy here!)
Learn how to manipulate the ambient effects you're using. Pre-delay is the amount of time it takes for the reverb
effect to "kick in." Early reflections are the very short echoes that occur before the "thick" part of the reverb takes
over. Longer pre-delays, and/or longer or less dense early reflections, can allow sung syllables or the attack of an
instrument to poke through before it's washed away. Decay time is the amount of time it takes for a reverb to
fade into "silence," usually defined as -60 dB (which is why it is sometimes referred to as RT60 time). Shorter
decay times can help control ambient "buildup," where reverberant effects can start to pile up on top of each
other (this isn't related to the "waxy buildup" you see in Pledge commercials, but it's almost as ugly!) And don't
forget... reverb effects have level controls, too. Watch those send and return levels!
Applying different types of reverb to different parts of your mix (instead of relaying on a single ambient effect for
everything) can really liven things up and make your mix more interesting to listen to. Different manufacturers'
reverb and delay boxes utilize their own unique algorithms, and thus sound different from each other -- Roland,
Sony, Lexicon, and TC Electronics all make great sounding reverb units, but they don't sound anywhere near the
same. Get your hands on more than one if you can, and put those extra sends on your board to good use!

EQ Problems
I wrote a pretty good article (if I can say so myself!) in the April 1998 issue of ProRec that explained the role of
equalization in carving out a good mix. Allowing each instrument to claim its own sonic space is crucial to
creating a mix that is well-balanced across the frequency spectrum, allowing each competing instrument to make
its statement without crowding the others out.
Some of you need to read that article again! The price of ignoring the wisdom contained therein can be a great
big unintelligible mud-puddle of a mix. There's music there, but that pad part... uh, it could be a cello, could be an
oboe -- I just can't tell! And your wall o' guitars are embroiled in the sonic equivalent of the Jerry Springer Show -all fighting so hard with each that you can't hear a damn thing they're saying.
Or sometimes, an otherwise pretty decent recording can sound completely butt-less (no low end) or sound like
there are blankets over the speakers (no sizzle or air). The kick and/or bass (if they can even be heard) sound
wimpy and lifeless, while the cymbals sound like garbage-can lids -- and the vocalist sounds like he or she
literally "phoned it in" (I mean, like the vocal was sung over the telephone!)
A complete treatise on EQ goes way beyond the scope of this article; and besides, I've covered it before. Suffice
to say that poor EQ decisions are usually borne of one of two reasons: a) a lack of experience, b) monitor that

are shy on bass (very common with small/cheap nearfields), over-emphasize the midrange (ala Yamaha NS -10s)
contain poorly tuned subwoofers, or otherwise lie to you about the sound you're getting.
A lying monitor system isn't necessarily a mix-killer, as long as you know what they're lying about -- in other
words, you are so familiar with their sound that you aware exactly where they fall short, and can thus
compensate properly for those shortcomings. Yamaha NS-10s may not be the flattest speakers, but I have heard
some killer mixes come off of them, because those engineers are intimately familiar with the sound of the NS-10.
Of course, it's easier to have monitors that are accurate to begin with, so what you hear closely approximates
what's really contained in your tracks.
As for a lack of experience... that can only be overcome as you read more, learn more, and watch and listen to
others who know what they're doing. Keep experimenting, too -- trial-and-error is the original teacher, and believe
it or not, it's how a lot of the most knowledgeable pros in this business have built their chops.
Inconsistent Levels.
This can range from the occasional errant note that just pops out at the inopportune time, to a whole track that
wanders in and out of the mix like the bass player went out on a beer run during the chorus. Any highly dynamic
instrument, such as horns, brass, bass, and percussion, can suffer from the problem of inconsistent levels. The
voice is especially prone to wide fluctuations in dynamics -- and nothing can kill a track faster than a singer who
fades in and out for no apparent reason.
There are all kinds of things that can cause these problems. Horns and brass can be awfully tough to record,
especially if the player moves a lot, which is why you might consider a clamp-on mic as opposed to a standmounted one in some situations. With vocalists, it's often a case of how well they can "work" the mic -- some
know enough to back off a little during the louder parts, and to move in some during quieter passages; while
many have no clue how to control their dynamics at all. And with some musicians, it's merely a case of just plain
sloppy playing!
In these cases, compression can be your best friend. A compressor can tame peaks in a track by attenuating
levels that exceed a given loudness in a precisely controllable way. Compressors can also raise the level of
quieter parts via the use of makeup gain. These two processes working together can do wonders to level out an
inconsistent track.
A compressor, however, is not always the best answer. If the track only needs to be tamed here and there,
sometimes spot treatment, rather than overall compression, is the way to go. If you are working in a DAW, the
easiest approach may be to select the offending portion and either raise or lower the level as needed. Another
time-honored method is gain -riding -- the practice of moving the faders at the proper times, and by the
appropriate amount, during the mixdown (some guys like to gain-ride during record as well, a practice I don't
recommend unless you know exactly what you're doing.) Back in the days when I started out, it was considered a
necessary skill to be able to "play" the console during a mixdown, just like one would play an instrument. You
needed to have the mix in your head well enough so that you could do the moves as they needed to be done, all
by hand. A complicated mix might sometimes take two, or even three engineers, depending on how much
manipulation had to be done during the mix and how many hands were needed. DAWs and dynamic console
automation has made this a thing of the past in most studios. Okay, enough reminiscing for now...
Panning Woes
Proper soundstaging is a major consideration in creating a successful, well-balanced mix. As we've already
discussed, ambient effects can be used to control the "front-to-back" dimension of the sound stage. Panning
controls the "left-right" relationship of timbres, which is the other half of the soundstage equation.
Proper soundstaging is something a lot of people tend to overlook. I recall observing a test at a trade show as a
young (and still pretty green) recording engineer. People who came by this one particular booth were asked to
listen to a mix over a pair of normal speakers and in headphones, and then briefly describe what they thought
was wrong with the mix and how it could possibly be improved. The listeners cited everything from spectral
balance to subtle distortion. But, the fascinating thing was this -- of the twenty people who took the "test" (and,
sad to say, I was one), all of us failed to notice the single most glaring faux pas -- the whole mix was panned

dead center mono! That experience had an tremendous effect on me. From then on, I was a lot more aware of
proper soundstaging, I can assure you!
Like proper EQ, levels, and the use of ambiance, panning is a great way to make room for various instruments
and to bring variety and interest to a mix. It seems, however, that panning issues tend to confuse some folks. I
am often asked, "where should I put this or that instrument in the mix?" "Where does the bass go?" "Should the
hi-hat always be on the left or on the right?" "Is it best to pan the crash opposite the ride?" The simple answer is
"I don't know unless I listen to your mix," and even then, they way I would do it isn't the only good way.
The key is to always have a good reason for putting an instrument where you are putting it. Don't just throw
things around without a plan. And don't be afraid to try something a little quirky just to see if it works. For
example, if you listen to the early Van Halen records (the ones produced by Ted Templemann), you'll almost
immediately notice that the dry part of Eddie's rhythm guitar is always panned hard left. Weird, yeah... but it
sounds right on those songs!
One sure way to screw up a mix, especially relative to panning, is to mix through headphones. My advice is,
don't. Headphones provide a grossly exaggerated picture of the left-right spatial relationships in your mix. An
ideal stereo field is sixty degrees apart relative to the listening position. Headphones are 180 degrees apart, and
also don't account for the fact that the sound emanating from each of two normal speakers reaches both of your
ears, not just one. Sounds panned dead center seem to originate from your pituitary gland, not from in between a
set of speakers where they belong!
Also, be sure to observe the "equilateral triangle" rule in regards to monitor placement, making sure not to place
nearfields too far apart. A set of monitors placed too wide will create a "hole in the middle" effect, where centerpanned material will seem to emanate from the two sides, and not from the middle at all.
Frequency Cancellation and Phasing
As you're panning around, it's important to check your mix in mono from time to time. When you switch to mono,
do some instruments tend to get buried in the mix? If so, this is a pretty sure sign you've got phase problems.
Sometimes, phase problems are apparent even listening in stereo, depending on how severe the problem is,
what kind of mics were used and how they were placed, relative track levels, and how you've got things panned.
When a single sound source is picked up by more than one microphone, the sound can reach the mics at
different times. When the tracks are mixed, the crest of the sound wave picked up by Mic A can be partially
canceled out by the trough of the sound wave picked up by Mic B at exactly the same time. The amount of
cancellation varies across the frequency spectrum, and thus, this phenomenon is often called frequency
cancellation. This is exactly how a phaser effect works, by the way; though with a phaser you can usually control
the frequencies which are canceled or have the effect automatically "sweep" across a part of the spectrum in a
precisely defined manner.
Phase anomalies can easily creep up whenever you use a multiple mic setup, such as in miking a drum kit; or
even through mic bleed, as when you are recording a band live and each sound source is picked up by mics
intended for other sound sources. Sometimes, there's little you can do about that, except to alter your mic
positions or to reverse the phase on some of the mics using an adapter or specially wired cable. Many mixing
consoles and most DAWs provide a method of reversing the phase of a previously recorded track as well.
Overuse of Effects
I remember the very first digital delay I ever bought -- the venerable Effectron I from DeltaLab. It could provide up
to1024 milliseconds (a little over one second) of delay. It could do feedback regeneration and had an LFO, too.
That was about it. And as I recall, the A/D converters were 12-bit and noisy as hell. But heck, I can't complain,
because I got such a smokin' deal on the thing -- only $800!
I used that blue beast on every mix. I learned to do flanging, phasing, chorusing, slapback, and every other
delay-based effect with that one box, because that was all I had at the time.
Things sure have changed, haven't they? With the proliferation of computers, DAWs, plug-ins, and super-cheap

(and good-sounding) digital effects boxes by the hundreds, even a typical 15-year-old Bob Clearmountain
wannabe has an arsenal of effects that would have put the modern pro studio of 20 years ago to shame. At that
age, it would have taken me a whole summer of washing dishes to buy one decent effects unit, the equivalent of
which can be had today free for the taking off the Internet as shareware!
As is often the case, this bounty of blessings has become a curse!
For those folks who send me mixes full of every trick and toy in your rack, I have a message: I hereby give you
permission to use your good taste and musical judgment in choosing which effects to use. It is not necessary to
use every effect at your disposal in every mix, okay? There... don't you feel better now? I'll bet you do... and the
people who have to listen to your music will, too!
I can only give you the same advice I've already given hundreds of times -- don't slap an effect on anything
unless you have a good reason to do it. And, prior to your final mixdown, check it all one more time. Go through
every track, note the effects you're using, eliminate them one by one, and then check your sound. Does that cool
trick really enhance, or does it detract from, the overall mix? Is it really necessary to have it in there? If not... get
rid of it!
Sibilance and Plosives
Plosives are the percussive vocal sounds -- such as "p" and "b" -- that create a sudden blast of air from the
mouth and can result in an annoying popping sound in an otherwise good track. Sibilance occurs when recording
vocal sounds that contain a lot of high-frequency energy -- such as "s" and "ch" -- which, if not controlled, can
also wreak havoc on a track.
Though I often hear mixes that contain both, I have found that sibilance is a lot more common. Plosives are
sometimes a little easier to handle at the mastering stage if they've somehow slipped past the mixing engineer.
Sibilance, on the other hand, is very difficult to tame in an overall mix without adversely affecting other tracks.
One way to help alleviate the plosive problem before it happens is through the use of a pop filter, those round
plastic rings with a layer or two of hose material stretched across them. Pop filters usually don't do a whole lot to
tame sibilant material -- though they can help a little, if only by enforcing a given distance between the singer and
the mic.
Experienced singers know how to work the mic well enough to back off or move a bit off -axis to the mic during
sibilant passages. An especially windy or lispy singer can often be controlled if you have them sing at an angle
relative to the mic, so that part of the sound travels across, rather than directly into, the mic element.
Another good trick that really works is to use sound substitution -- replacing sibilant sounds with similar sounds
that are a little less harsh. I recently had a vocalist replace the word "reach" in a background vocal, singing
"reesh" instead. That helped the track quite a bit!
The best way to tame an already recorded sibilant is to use multiband compression, which works just like a
regular compressor except only certain frequencies in the sound are attenuated. It differs from a regular EQ as
well, because the multiband compressor only acts on sounds that exceed a given threshold, while an EQ acts on
all sound within a specified frequency range, regardless of level.
If you're using a DAW, and there aren't too many plosives and sibilants to deal with, it's sometimes quicker and
easier to simply select the offending occurrences and lower the volume of the selected portion only.

Distortion
Most engineers know what digital distortion sounds like, what causes it, and how to avoid it. This is the really
harsh, ugly, easy-to-spot distortion that occurs when you overload an A/D converter such that the number of bits
that would be required to recreate that sound exceed the number of bits available. This often causes the too-loud
portion of the resultant waveform to "wrap around" back to zero, which causes some pretty nasty crackling.

However, there are many other kinds of distortion that can slink their way into a mix, and most are not as
immediately apparent. Mics, mic preamps, the inputs and outputs of your mixer, your mixer's sub-busses, analog
tape -- in fact, almost everything in the signal path -- can introduce insidious artifacts whenever their physical or
lectrical limitations are exceeded.
To avoid this, it's important to know what those limitations are and how to operate within them. For example,
always remember that mic elements are physical entities that only have so much travel and give. The loudest
sound a mic can handle is expressed by its SPL rating. If you exceed that level, you're asking for trouble.
Ditto for electronic gozintas and comzoutas. This points up the need for proper gain staging -- setting the various
levels along the signal path so that you don't overload any portion of that path, causing distortion. Of course, too
low a level at any point can lead to excessive hiss, noticeable hum, audible RF interference, or other noise. You
need to learn how your equipment works, and more importantly, how it all works together.
Of course, if you're attempting to create a special effect with it, certain types of distortion can be used to your
advantage, too. Just make sure that you know what you're going after here!
Poor Arrangements
As has often been said, there's no accounting for taste -- though, given some of the mixes I've heard in the past, I
wish I could!
The wrong choice of timbres that come in at the wrong times. Meter that doesn't swing. Dead, clock-like tempos.
Syncopation that doesn't bounce. Grooves that don't groove. Poor kick-bass relationship. Key modulations that
go nowhere. Songs where every track plays from beginning to end. Orchestration that's just too over-the-top -too loud, too overbearing... just too much of everything!
I've often heard it said that music is a language -- which incidentally, is something I don't believe at all. (If you can
compose a piece of music that can tell me what you had for breakfast this morning, then I'll reconsider.) That
being said, great music is nevertheless a complex thing, and very difficult to describe. A great song contains
elements of both the beautiful and the strange. Music is all about tension and release; ebb and flow; dissonance
and consonance. Like a luxurious tapestry, there are various textures woven throughout. Like a masterful
painting, there are elements of both light and shade. Like a well-executed play, it builds in a cohesive way; there
is drama and relief; conflict and catharsis, climax and denouement. Great music contains depth, soul, warmth,
love, animation. It lives and breathes.
This can all be tough to grasp unless you are particularly gifted, or have been trained in orchestration, arranging,
or classical compositional technique, but you can learn how it's done. Listen to the best classical pieces -preferably live, if you can. Watch and listen to how themes are introduced, restated, and developed throughout
different sections of the orchestra during the piece. Listen to how a movement builds, then breaks down, then
builds again. Listen for how key modulations are used, and how different instruments create different textures
and effects in the music.
You've got to learn to do the same thing in your compositions and mixes. Given the relatively short duration and
somewhat limited structure of commercial pop, this can be a challenge; but don't forget that you have a lot more
tools and tricks at your disposal that Mozart and Beethoven ever dreamed of!
There have been hundreds -- maybe thousands -- of books written on this very subject. There's certainly not
enough room or time to cover it here in any way which could begin to do it justice, and besides, this is all so
subjective that laying down a set of "rules" would be a waste of time, anyway. But that doesn't make it any less
important. Remember folks... arranging is everything.
Cheesy MIDI Programming
There was no way I could end this article without mentioning my one big Pet Peeve of All Peeves. If I hear
another rinky-dink piano track, lifeless robotic drum groove, or soulless sax solo, I'm reaching right through this
screen and I'm coming after your ass. Yeah, buddy, that's right. Don't look away. I'm talkin' to you right now....

MIDI is a tremendous tool. It ranks right up there in music history with the invention of the fortepiano and the
glorious day that a young guitar player names Les Paul figured out how to make a tape recorder that could play
more than one track at a time.
But MIDI is just that -- a tool -- and nothing more. It's a protocol that defines a way of pushing 1s and 0s around.
As such, there is nothing inherently musical about it at all. A stilted melody is a stilted melody, whether it came
from Band in a Box or a real band. MIDI can make the music play, but only a musician can make music.
It's important to understand that MIDI has its limits. We've already pushed and hacked MIDI way out past its
original purpose, and developed uses for it that its developers couldn't have imagined -- and that, as Martha
Stewart would say, is a good thing. Yet, even given the inherent constraints of MIDI, it is indeed possible to
create incredibly realistic, lifelike, and beautiful music with it. Granted, it takes work -- lots of it. MIDI programming
is only about 20% composing, and at least 80% tweaking and retweaking; adding expression, dynamics, subtle
timing and pitch variations, and all the other warm and fuzzy and human things that make up a great
performance.
If you want to improve your MIDI programming fast, I heartily recommend the book "The MIDI Files" by Rob
Young, published by Prentiss Hall. I've read it multiple times, and to this day it's never far from my computer.

Well, folks, that just about wraps it up for this edition. If you manage to master most of the material presented
here, you're well on your way to creating mixes that will knock some socks off. But don't you dare stop here!
Keep listening to mixes you like, study them, pick them apart, and try to emulate them in your own work. Keep
reading everything you can get your hands on. Ask people who are doing work you admire how they are getting
those results. Don't ever stop learning, and don't give up. You can do it.
And speaking of great mixes, the clock on the wall is telling me it's almost martini time...
===================
Lionel Dumond is a producer and senior engineer at MusicMedia Productions in Portland, Maine. He's got an
informative Mastering FAQ free for the asking. Just write him at ldumond@prorec.com and he'll get it right out to
you via email. (Sorry, the martini recipe is an old family secret...)

Mixing making Choices

This is the first editorial in a series of thoughts and ideas about mixing and mastering. This will not
be a technical discussion. That is what articles are for. The editorials will look at the part of the
mixing and mastering process that are decision based. Many good mixes come not only from a
good engineer, expensive equipment or all the coffee machines for the late hours, but from the
ideas of the person who mixes the music and the directions he takes the mix to.
If you listen to some records which have tracks on them mixed by different people, you will get an
idea of what difference it can make. The written words, of course, are all subjective and based on
opinions but they will hopefully show some of the aspects involved with mixing.
After listening to some demos over the internet the last weeks I was quite surprised about the
quality of simple computer based DAW recordings. In most cases the demo's were almost up to the
professional level you hear on CD's. Even though those demo's and songs were all in mp3 format
the quality could be clearly heard. The musicians on the songs were good, the recordings were
done properly, but there was something that quite didn't make the songs stand up to the levels of
those songs that make it onto a commercial CD.
Playing them over and over again it struck me. There were too many tracks mixed into the song.
The opening with two acoustic guitars of one song just filled up all the space and the electric solo
guitar didn't cut through the mix and sounded distant or soft compared to the acoustic guitars,
which sounded very good by the way.
Too many tracks in the mix!
In another song the break was filled up with both drums, percussion, many vocals, acoustic and
electric guitars, synths and maybe another guitar or two. The instruments could all be heard but
the basic rhythm was gone because of the many instruments. With this many tracks you could
have made two songs.
And in another part of another song there were just too many vocals. The vocals were of different
vocalists. It sounded too perfect. All the emotion was sung out of the song because the vocals were
too much in on the beat. In order to line up all the many vocal parts the recordings were probably
done over and over again to get all the parts perfectly synchronized. I kept wondering how the
song would have sounded with only two vocal tracks and all that emotion and expression in it...
Mixing is making choices
So you have the time to record as many track as you want, have the equipment and wind up with
30+ parts. Now you need to mix it. A basic start would be to turn up the drum and bass add the
main parts and start listening. What you hear is what you get, the basics of which the song is build
around. If you want all the tracks that were recorded in the mix you will find it hard to start setting
levels because you will mask the other important parts more and more. So you have to start
making choices...
Mixing and the basic rhythm
The more parts you add the more it will start interfering with the basic rhythm of the song. This
means you might want to consider some panning to make the sound more spread across the
speakers and have the basic parts coming out of the middle. No rocket science here.
When setting the levels for the newly added parts the critical choices start to make its way into the
mix. What if the added fill-in would be a little louder so you could here the instrument more
clearly? But doesn't that force the rhythm more to the background? Of course the main vocals still
need to be heard clearly so lets turn those up a little.

This way there starts to develop some kind of layering in which the vocals float on the entire mix
and the basic of the songs are gone. The other way is possible too. You can also just leave settings
the same and add the parts only with low levels so you get a very even level sounding mix, but
with all instruments sounding a little distant..
The point, of course, to all these thoughts: what if you just let out some parts? Would the song
loose some of its basics? Would the song be "empty"? This is were you have to make some choices
and start wondering about which parts to mix in, and if so, how do you mix them in? There are of
course ways to fit them in but I'll leave that for more technical discussions about frequencies,
compression and panning.
After some of these thoughts you might think: I can do many parts in a mix just fine. I wont argue
with that. The only danger is that the basics of the songs are not as much present in the mix as
they maybe should have been. As someone who mixes your ears are probably good enough to hear
every instrument in the mix. The art of course, as with all mixing is, take distance of it and listen to
it as a listener.
By now you also might wonder why some of those simple four or eight track recordings of the past
sounded so good in the resulting song.
Back to mixing..

Mixing, Mastering?
While mixing and mastering were quite separate processes in the past nowadays the line
gets thinner and thinner. Why is that? And why does or doesn't this matter?
Because of the many new high quality plug-ins, sample editors, digital effect processors
and computers, nixing and mastering has gotten easier and many people can afford it
nowadays.
Just over a year ago editing on a computer with a sample editor took about 2.5 times the
time it took on an expensive Pentium 200 compared to a cheap Celeron 400 System
now. Outboard effect processors are equipped with 20 or 24 bit A/D converters and are
packed with high quality digital effects, and getting cheaper. New plug-ins seem to popup every week with high quality effects and even cheaper. The only thing that hasn't
gotten cheaper is the expensive analog gear some people use for mastering.
But should or do all these things matter to the way music is produced, mixed and
mastered?
Mixing
Mixing used to be the process, and still is, of mixing multiple or many tracks back to a
stereo track. The most important factors while mixing, of course, are getting all tracks at
the right level in the mix. Usually this involves setting the equalizers for each independent
track and if needed some compression on a track. The basic idea behind the mixing is
getting the stereo track to sound good while all the important instruments are there, the
left / right and stereo balance is right and a good direct/depth ratio.
Mixing effects
While effects were used mainly on the busses of the mixing tracks, these days it's easier
to have almost any effect you want as an insert on a separate track. Not to long ago most
effects were either recorded directly on to a track with an effect processor between the
microphone and the recording device and you would have to live with it, or you did have
to do a lot of editing to get all the effects on the dry recorded track.
With all these effects running on tracks, mixes can sound very good already so why do
you need mastering? At least, that's what a lot of people seem to think when
making/recording music and mixing.
Mastering
Mastering used to be the process of processing the stereo track to get it ready before
getting it onto the final product which the consumer puts in his stereo system. The basic
idea behind mastering is getting the mixed stereo track to sound good on many different
types of stereo's, car systems, walkmans and on the media it is used or played on
tape/CD or broadcasted on radio/TV.
Mastering effects

Mastering effects
To get a stereo track to sound good on a media like CD, processors / effects like:
compressors, limiters, equalizers and the latest kind of maximizer or loudness effects are
used. These effects should not really introduce it's own sound but should be high quality
and that's the reason the analog processors are quite expensive. But then there is the
digital world and the line seems to disappear. Not only do programmers include very
transparent effect but they also included effects that have the warmer sound of analog
processors.
Both?
Now that most people have many effects and also some mastering tools and easy ways
of burning CD's what does the mean for mixing and mastering? For instance it opens up
a new way of doing both. You can actually hear a little of what the mix will sound like
when having it mastered or mastering yourself. Just print all the mastering effects on one
of your own mixes with a sample editor like a compressors, equalizers, limiters and
loudness/maximizers and listen back how it can sound when it's mastered. You can even
put it on a CD and start listening to these semi mastered songs on your car system and
other systems. Don't like it? Go back to mixing and see what you can fix.
Or even better put the effects or an effect/mastering processor on your outputs or
between your computers soundcard or mixing desk and your monitor system and hook up
some stereo systems too. Now you don't only hear the mix you would normally do but you
can also hear how it would sound after additional mastering processing and maximizing
on both your monitor system and even a crappy stereo system, or multiple.
So now you can both mix and "master" at once, or at least listen to what the mastered
version can sound like. So why doesn't it sound like the songs you listen to on TV, radio
or CD? Well you need another plug-in. It's called the experience plug-in. Oops.... That
one hasn't been invented yet, has it?
The important thing about mastering is that when you already have a good mix you need
to listen different than you do with mixing. The changes when made during mastering are
much more subtle and with a different purpose. You don't have to concentrate on the
individual tracks but you have to listen to the effect of the processing on the mix and have
to wonder how it will sound on different systems, speakers, environments. A little different
than mixing.
Impossible when you are mixing? Not really, but as many things in life it takes time,
practice and experience.
Back to mixing.. err mastering.. mixtering?

..--++({ethix-wing})++--..
Mixing Tips For Vocals:
Last month I covered some general things about recording vocals. This month I've got some specific things that
you can do to add the icing to your vocal cake.
When I'm tracking vocals I try not to use any EQ. The main reason for this is that it's really hard to go back and
match the sound that you had a month later when you decide to re-sing the first line of the last verse.
If I EQ the vocals I do it while I'm mixing. Here are some quick rules of thumb:
- Boosting between 150-250hz will make the vocal thicker. Cutting the same frequencies will obviously make it
thinner.
- I always put the high pass filter in when I'm tracking and mixing. It keeps the vocal from getting tubby and
muddy.
- Playing with 1-3khz will give the track more "cut." Try not to add too much as these are harsh frequencies.
Instead of adding here, try cutting this frequency in the track that's "covering" the vocal sound.
- Adding EQ somewhere between 5 -7khz will add some presence and bring out sibilance if you add too much.
- 10-12khz and up will add "air" and some sparkle.
Remember that eq should be done with your ears and not your eyes. There's a reason you can add or subtract
15db or more on each band. And remember that it doesn't have to be a pronounced effect to make a real
difference in the mix. Another reason to use as little EQ as possible is to avoid nasty side effects like phase shift.
That can make your track sound really unnatural, but, that may be what you want.
Reverb: I usually put a short (1.5 - 2.5 second) reverb on vocals if it's a medium tempo pop / rock track. That will
make them a little fuller sounding and add some space. Even a "dry" vocal can benefit from just a tiny amount of
reverb - even if it is almost inaudible, it will help. Remember not to overdo it - I don't like to have my vocals
swimming unless the singer can't sing (like me) or you want that spacey / trippy thing.
Delay: I also like to add some delay to the lead vocal. A long delay ( > 250 ms) will reinforce the vocal and make
it stronger if it's matched to the tempo of the song. A short delay can "enlarge" the sound of the vocal - use a
setting near 30 ms to "double" the vocal, and keep it low in the mix. It will make your vocal fatter, without adding
an obvious effect.
The bottom line is to experiment. Use this as a starting point for your own presets. When I start to mix a song I
usually know what reverb I want to use, but sometimes the best reverb is no reverb. Remember - if it sounds
good - it is good.
Keep those ideas coming to me because this is your column. I'll write about what you want to know more about.
Even if it's onion rings and Kool-Aid

Creative Filtering for Remixers

Wow Your Friends
By Francis Preve
Lately, I've been inundated with questions about several effects that are popular in modern electronica.
The interesting thing about these queries is that the answer is almost invariably: Use a filter! Filters have
been a mainstay in synthesizer programming since its inception. Most of those boingy, spring-loaded
patches and boww-boww basses are the result of lowpass resonant filters applied to a variety of
waveforms and samples. Those unfamiliar with the specifics of filtering may want to check out Jim
Aikin's comprehensive tutorials in the August and Fall '99 issues of Keyboard.
With the advent of filter plug-ins for today's audio/MIDI sequencing applications, remixers have the
tools to apply classic synth programming techniques to vocals, recorded instruments, or even entire
tracks. This approach allows for some wild tricks, ranging from making a track sound like it's coming
from outside the club and slowly entering the acoustic space to the classic "radio" vocals in recent tracks
from Madonna and Christina Aguilera. Good stuff.

Northpole is a freeware filter plug-in for VST-compatible sequencers that features resonant low -pass and band-pass options
along with envelope following, distortion, and echo. Check it out at http://www.music -andcomputers.com/columns/dance/www.prosoniq.com .

Another way to achieve these effects -- without plug-ins -- is by exploring the filtering options available
within your sampler, or purchasing dedicated hardware like Korg's Kaoss Pad, Boss's EF-303, or
Electrix's Filter Factory and Filter Queen. There are also synths with audio inputs (such as Roland's JP8080 or the Analogue Solutions Sorcerer) that allow external audio to be filtered. All are terrific tools
and well worth the money if you plan to apply these effects directly to instruments, tape tracks, or in a
live setting. It's also worth noting that Yamaha's classic (and ubiquitous) SPX1000 includes integrated
resonant filters -- but these are buried deep in the processor's submenu structure. Time to crack open
those manuals, kids.
Lowpass
One effect in particular has become so popular lately that it's bordering on cliche. This effect consists of
a track -- or even an entire mix -- starting out muffled and slowly transforming into full-bandwidth
audio. I've heard this sound described as an "underwater" effect, an EQ sweep, or "that neighbor's stereo
through the wall trick." It's really a low-pass filter applied to a track or set of samples. The secret to
making this effect work dynamically is to slowly raise or lower the cutoff frequency -- usually via MIDI

automation -- to gradually make the sound brighter or darker. Increasing the resonance on the filter adds
an overtone that follows the filter sweep, providing a more electronic, synthesized sound.
Another nifty lowpass filter trick can be accomplished by applying an envelope follower to the filter
cutoff frequency. What an envelope follower does is increase or decrease the cutoff frequency of the
filter depending on the volume of the signal. This approach can be used to recreate classic wah-wah
effects on clean guitar parts or add a slick, synthy effect to drum or music loops. Prosoniq's freeware
Northpole VST plug-in (see screenshot) includes an envelope follower in addition to its resonant
lowpass filter, making it especially useful for this type of sound.
Highpass
Highpass filtering produces an entirely different set of effects that are also useful for remixing. Because
they eliminate the low frequencies from a signal, these filters are terrific for emulating the sound of a
tinny radio speaker or telephone. Gradually lowering the cutoff frequency returns low frequencies to the
signal, giving the effect of a track morphing from thin to phat. Try this on a complete mix, either during
the intro, during a breakdown, or on a fade out. It's quite dramatic when done right.
Multi Filtering
A more advanced -- and very handy -- approach to filtering audio consists of applying different types of
filters to music and drum loops within a mix. For instance, mixing two drum loops that contain
competing kick drum patterns can muddy the groove. By isolating the drum loop with the offending kick
pattern and applying a highpass filter to it, you can effectively delete most of the kick while retaining the
hi-hats and snare. Conversely, if a loop has shrill or awkward snare hits and cymbal crashes, these can
be minimized with a lowpass filter, keeping the lows intact. I use this approach all the time on breakbeat
tracks, though it sometimes requires a little effort to get the resulting blend just right. As always, use
your hips as well as your ears to find the perfect combination. (Tip of the Month: Arboretum provides
freeware versions of their hyper-useful Hyperprism lowpass and highpass plug-ins on their website,
www.arboretum.com.)
The above techniques should provide a solid starting point for you to begin your own experiments. Be
sure to check out the advanced plug-in offerings from companies like GRM Tools and Fxpansion, as
several of their products go beyond the basics of high- and lowpass filtering into more exotic realms like
comb filters (terrific for phase and flange type effects) and bandpass filtering (another useful tool for
wah-wah type effects). The secret to blazing new trails is taking chances, and filters are a wonderful way
to get expressive results from even the most mundane performances.