Whats Your Workflow?

[DwaneHollands]

Hi Guys,

A newb wanting a little more direction on how the pros 'take care of business' when they mix ; )

I'm interested in what the first thing you do when you start a mix?

- Do you push all faders up and have a listen, then start problem solving from then?
- Do you tidy up the bottom end of all the instruments with EQ, Compress and then put up the faders?

Basically interested in generalities of your workflow. Start with A, Continue to B and finish with C.

Thanks for humouring me ; )

regards,

[NYMo]

Hi there,

Dwayne...invest in Stav's book...helped me heaps with mixing !
(I am a Stav convert :)

Cheers

John NYMO Nyman

[Ben M]

Dwane

I'm not going to tell you how to mix music, that's for you to discover. Find your methods that best work for you. But one thing that has worked for me is - set aside some time before you mix to clean up your tracks. I mean fades, names, memory locations, change your file to "....... mix" to save different stages, save a rough mix back onto the project file so you can reference your mix progress. Then make sure all of your outboard/effects and aux channels are easily at hand.

Once this is done you have a better chance at having a great time while your actually mixing. :)

[DwaneHollands]

Hey Ben,

Yeah, I'm pretty slack at doing those things. OK, I'll have to be more disciplined and spend the time labelling my tracks, organising them and having a more coherant naming convention. I must admit I rarely check my progress. (probably because I'm scared my earlier mix was superior. All the more reason to I suppose!)

NYMO,

I forgot I had that book! I bought it years ago! I got it and someone asked me if they could borrow it straight away. So I lent it out, then someone else borrowed it. I finally got it back after years and it just sat on my backseat of the car. I've started reading it....FINALLY! Very interesting what he talks about with the space between the monitor speakers like a ribbon effect. Too far apart and your centre panned material will sound too soft and you'll lean on the fader to bring it up. Too close and you'll pull too far on the fader to compensate. Never heard that before! Very interesting stuff....

[jkhuri44]

organisation and getting ur head clear is one of the best things i can say about workflow....mainly coz its hard to say exactly how to tackle each mix, as they will all be different.

If and when working both analog and digital....

be sure to name things clearly, so that with a glance you know what you're looking at....be sure all patching is colour coded....so that desk patching is one colour, sends are another, effects are another, sidechains are another, etc....this will help you negotiate the swamp alot easier.

In DAW world, colour code tracks, so that all your auxs are one colour, submixes another, effects another....etc.



Generally, my first step in a mix is to appraise how good the tracking is...."has this been tracked well....has the engineer already done some work on making space for the instruments, etc....from there, it tells you what you have to do....
The first step is listening.

The second step....turn every track down, to about -10...and work up....the amount of time you'll save doing this is a saving grace....nothing is worse than automating a track then realising that you've gotta turn it down in general by 3 dB....shits me to tears....


After this, get onto general eqing...start by cutting what you know wont be needed...in general terms....bass in hi hats for example...wont serve you much. This is prob one of the most important things to do, the less unnecessary low end....the more loudness you can inject into your mix, and the more clarity you'll achieve.

Next, work out how controlled your performers are, and start applying compression to what needs it.....

After this, i will generally get to start routing everything into sub mixes so that any future sidechaining is easy to address. ....as after you nut out all your main issues with single tracks, its time for you to play with creative routing/sidechaining/and gentle volume automation.

I will then spend time automating nearly every detail of the mix, drum and bass relationship, then the relationship of that to guitars//instruments, then vocal.....i may approach it viceversa, if the vocal is stronger than the band, or in poppier music.....there's no rules to the order, but the idea is finnicky automation EVERYWHERE. I wanna hear every detail in every instrument.....further to good compression, automation is the final icing on the dynamic cake.

After this...i'll generally start on my effects...reverbs, delays, SFX....etc.

Generally after this, an special effects like reverses...drop outs, etc i will do by rendering teh whole song and working on a temporary file which can be replaced later.

This is all veeerrrry general....and is missing shitloads of stuff that i just guess comes with practise, that i dont even think about....but there's a few little pieces.....that im sure i and the rest of us can add to.

[waitup]

In the case that I have recorded the session myself I usually try to have a reasonable mix going by the time we get to 'mixing'. Not only does this save time in the mix but it aids in your decision making along the way. To exemplify, if you have to pull a guitar tone for a particular section of the song, it is a lot easier to decide on one if the mix has already begun to take shape. If you haven't begun to shape the mix, the guitar sound you go for might not work at all later down the line, if you see what I mean.

Getting the song to this point during recording will probably involve doing any necessary EQ and compression during tracking and I almost always decide on a blend for multi-mic'd guitar amps etc on the way in and just cut it to one track. Less to worry about later and forces you to work a bit harder for a sound, which nearly always works out for the best. Often I'll stay behind at the studio long after the band has gone, doing some rough mixing and setting up for the next day too.

So, in an ideal situation where I have recorded the track or someone who works quite similarly to me has, then mixing usually involves finer level adjustments, automation, maybe some effects here and there and maybe some EQ for some magic.

On the other hand....

If the mix has been handed to me, I usually get all the boring systematic stuff out of the way first, so I can feel relaxed and creative during the mix, rather than worrying about signal paths and labeling things during the mix. So first off I'll listen to each of the tracks and label them something I'm comfortable with. Then I'll route each track to an appropriate desk channel. I'll probably set up a send for a reverb and delay and bring a return up on the board. I'll sub mix elements I feel have too many tracks. Then, and only then, when I have 24 or less channels sitting in front of me, labelled and in the right order will I start to mix (after a cuppa o'course).

I'll start with the vocal usually, work on it's tone and identity with compression and EQ, usually subtle, but I'll work it if I have too. Once the vocal sounds good I'll shape the other instruments around it, possibly starting with the drums and bass to get a nice tight bottom end and supporting rhythm. When finding levels for various instruments I often switch to mono, through one speaker, as it eliminates some of the confusion of the stereo field and I often find a much more appropriate level working like this.

I don't neccesarily try to sit everything in it's own little pocket of frequency and space all the time, but I will work on keeping the kick drum and bass out of each others way and sometimes the guitar/piano out of the vocal. Sometimes it's good to let things blend a little bit, has some character.

With the levels and EQ/compression happening, I'll play around with automation, often for a few hours. Sometimes 2 or 3dB in the chorus for the guitars or a bit of a wiggle of the fader as a vocal note dies out can be that magic you're looking for.

Sorry, this has turned into a massive, slightly irrelevant rant. I'll summarise:

1. Get the boring stuff sorted - organisation, labeling, patching, routing.
2. Compression and EQ if necessary.
3. Levels in mono
4. Automation

phew... SHUT UP NICK.

[DwaneHollands]

Jamil,

Great stuff! I appreciate the info on how you generally start and finish a mix. A rough outline is great. Great idea about bringing down to -10 first! I'll remember that! Doing the boring stuff first seems to be a common trend. Labelling and colour coding tracks etc. Thanks!

Nick,

Again the common theme I'm noticing is clean up your tracks first. Label, colour code, organise. Great stuff. I understand what you mean that if you are tracking and you have a rough mix, you're more likely to setup a guitar sound (or any instrument) which is most likely to fit. The summing of the mutiple mics to a single track for the guitars, being a way to force you to work harder at getting a great sound first up....is a great idea. Reducing the amount of problems later I'm guessing. Speeding the process up. All that information is useful...didn't think it was a rant. Great stuff! Thanks for posting!

[wez]

turn the good bits up and the shit bits down.

go to pub.

[jkhuri44]

turn the good bits up and the shit bits down.

go to pub.

LOL!

turn the bass down. coz its shit.

edit the guitars coz they're shit.

autotune the vocals, coz they're shit.

L2, rinse and repeat..

they're my revisions Dwayne.

[Futureman]

turn the bass down. coz its shit.

edit the guitars coz they're shit.

autotune the vocals, coz they're shit.

L2, rinse and repeat..

they're my revisions Dwayne.

You forgot - sound replace the drums because they are shit.

[rachelp]

I love Stav's book.

I think it should be turned into a course.


rachel

[jkhuri44]

turn the bass down. coz its shit.

edit the guitars coz they're shit.

autotune the vocals, coz they're shit.

L2, rinse and repeat..

they're my revisions Dwayne.

You forgot - sound replace the drums because they are shit.

fkn lol, i was gonna write that, didnt think anyone would pull me up on it....!