Dit vond ik op het UAD-1 forum. Best wel een handig richtlijn voor het maken van goede mixen. Het gaat er wel van uit dat je een mixer hebt met redelijk functies (zoals mono-bussing en parametrische EQ).
Ik vond 'm erg handig al dacht ik dat ik het mixen al aardig onder de knie begon te krijgen....
First off, ALL of this info is from other more qualified people. All ideas were pulled from the internet
in my exstensive quest to learn the rudimentary skills of mixing. I've tried MANY, MANY different methods
that never came close to the simple and straight forward methods below. Many advanced users will scoff at the narrow
approach to these methods, but this is for those who have not found their own feet yet and have limited
computer power. This article assumes you have enough computer power to handle 10 compressors, two reverbs sends and two delay sends. This is for pop music.
When I started applying these simple steps my mixes started to get better and better.
At first......just follow these steps exactly and then you can start experimenting with your own style. It may sound dictatorish to suggest following someone's exact steps, but one of the problems in the new world of DAWS is the unlimited number of roads you can take during your mix. When you have a road map to follow, you won't end up taking that side road that leads you off into no mans land. (untill you and your song are found wasted in a ditch.) It does'nt look pretty, smell pretty or SOUND PRETTY! If you are still reading this that means you have been to the place I am talking about.
Step 1.
The old cliche is true. Mix in the morning, eat right and start off listening to good commercial
mixes for the first 15 minutes or so. (your favorite CDs) Get your ears in the same place as some of the best mixers in the world. Keep your volumes at a reasonable level!!! Don't burn out your ears. Shut the bedroom door and turn the lights down LOW. Killing your visual sense will enhance your hearing sense.
Step 2.
a) Solo one sound at a time. Solo a sound and use the high and low shelves on the EQ to cut energy on each side of the spectrum. Dial down the low shelf untill you notice the sound quality changing.
Then raise the low shelf untill you find the point where adding more bass becomes noticable. The sweet spot is approx. half way between those two points. You'll notice that some sounds are affected very little by cutting bass(low end) because they have very little low end energy to speak of. GREAT...don't be afraid to crank the low shelf all the way in that case. Do the same with the high shelf ---- cut it untill it sounds different, then dial up untill you notice a difference in sound quality. Pick somewhere in the middle. SET IT AND FORGET IT. Do approx. 10 tracks and take a 15 -30 minute break. Have a coffee, read a magazine. Have a well produced commercial CD playing on a low to moderate level. Just loud enough you can hear all the main instruments. Continue this cycle untill all channels are done.
b) Use a sweep mid band, and jack up the Q (the narrowest bandwidth you can get) for that band almost all the way up. Sweep the frequency untill you find the point at where the signal is the loudest. This
is the characteristic frequency of the signal. Back off on the Q to zero, then notch the signal up at that point
in the frequency spectrum just enough so you can HEAR and SEE a couple of decibels of peak gain. SET IT AND FORGET IT. Do approx. 10 tracks and take a 15 -30 minute break. Have a coffee, read a magazine. Have a well produced commercial CD playing on a low to moderate level. Just loud enough you can hear all the main instruments. Continue this cycle untill all channels are done.
LUNCH or DINNER or TEA time. Take a 1-2 hour break to go for a walk, get out, get the blood flowing,
Forget about the masterpiece that is beginning to take shape in your studio. Don't go anywhere there is loud noise like jack hammers, traffic, angry wifes, kids etc. This is your music day. Avoid anything stressful
like paying or looking at bills etc. Stay in the groove. Drink very little alcohol and smoke no joints. It will not HELP your mix. You can do that when your work day is over. Yes...making good music is work too.
Welcome back, put on that great reference CD for another 10 - 15 minutes while you settle
into your studio again. Just loud enough you can hear all the main instruments. Lets start doing some compression in groups shall we.
Step 3.
a) Setup up 10 Group channels
Group 1. Assign your your LEAD vocal to it
Group 2. Assign your bass instruments (bass guitar, keyboard bass) to it
Group 3. Assign your kick drum to a group to it
Group 4. Assign your snare drum and toms to it
Group 5. Assign all your background vocals to it
Group 6. Assign all your acoustic guitars, mandolins, etc. to it.
Group 7. Assign your percussion, cymbals, shakers, etc. to it
Group 8. Assign all your clean electric guitars to it.
Group 9. Assign all your distorted guitars to it
Group 10 Assign piano, keyboards to it.
b) Put a compressor on every channel. Yep..every channel. If you have GOOD compressors this will make
an enormous difference to your mix. Hit Groups 1-5 with a fairly serious squeeze. NOT ENOUGH TO TAKE THE LIFE OUT OF THEM, but enough to teach them a lesson in behaviour, they are greedy and they know it. Hit groups 6-7 with a very light amount of compression. Hit groups 8 -10 with a medium amount of compression. When you are doing this, tweak your attack and ratios accordingly not to alter the natural
sound of the signal. If your compression is low quality go with less on all 10 groups. If your compression is
high quality (e.g. UAD 1176, LA2A or WAVES) you can be more liberal. SET IT AND FORGET IT.
Step 4.
Make sure all your group faders are dead center.
a) Using your individual channels now, place your bass instruments in dead center. Place your lead vocals dead center. Place your kick and snare in dead center. Place all your guitars (electric and acoustic) hard left and right. Your choice of which sides.Place your percussion instruments hard left and right. Place all your keyboards hard left and right. Place your back ground vocals at 10 o'clock and 2 o'clock. Place your toms at 10 o'clock and 2 o'clock in the natural sequence of a drummer. SET IT AND FORGET IT.
Step 5.
Set all the active channels to approx. -20db. In other words, solo each channel one at a time and see that the master meters shows approx. -20db. Now listen to the whole mix at a low level. Just loud enough that you can hear each sound. It may not be as fun and exciting, but hang in there. Now; if a signal sticks out, lower it's level in small steps untill it fits IN the mix. If a signal sounds buried, raise it's level untill it sticks out, then drop it slowly til IT fits in the mix. If the overall mix sounds bassy or boomy, slowly pull down bassy and low end sounds. If the overall mix sounds trebly or harsh bring down those sounds that are characteristically trebly. Do the same with mid range. If it sounds honky or nasal bring down some sounds that characteristically live in the mid range. Go through this procedure 2 - 3 times with a short break between each run. SET IT AND FORGET IT. Put that reference CD in again as CLOSE to the level you have been mixing at. If you have been mixing at loud levels your usefulness was over about three hours ago. If you stuck with LOW to moderate levels you won't be as tired and you may have some more productive work left in you.
Step 6.
Select MONO at your master faders. Make sure nothing sounds flangy or distorted. Make sure some sounds have not disappeared from the mix. If they have, find those instruments and see if they can be altered with EQ (or MUTED all together) without making the song fall apart. Make SUBTLE EQ and level adjustments to make sure some signals are not "walking on each other". You will be able to tell because it will be muddy, murky and undefined. SET IT AND FORGET IT Take a well deserved break.
Step 7.
a) Select back to STEREO. Do a quick check again for overall levels as in Step 5. Setup two REVERB sends. One with a large room and one with a smaller room. This is VERY subjective to your taste, the
tempo and the style of the song. TAKE THE TIME TO TWEAK YOUR REVERBS for as long as it takes
to get a great reverb for your drums and percussion. (smaller room) A great reverb for your BACKGROUND
vocals and your keyboards. (larger room) Be sure to take special care not to make the REVERBS thick and grainy as they will just ruin everything you have worked on so far. DON'T USE THEM YET.
b) Setup two delay sends. One shorter and one longer. make one of them the tempo of the song. This is also subjective to your taste. DON'T USE THEM YET.
c) Take a break for a bit and put that reference CD in again at the same level you have been mixing at. I mean THE SAME. Listen very closely to how much reverb is ACTUALLY used on the instruments. Pay particular attention to the snare, lead vocal, the back ground vocals, the organs and keyboards. You may be surprised at how dry most of the sounds are.
d) Put your mix back up. Now very carefully add a reverb to GROUP 4. Try long and short verbs. Experiment untill the snare sounds right but not taking over the mix in ANY way. Try the same with the GROUP 5. You can be fairly liberal and use the long verb. Do the same with GROUP 10. Now try a small amount on the lead vocal. You may not want any at all, but a SMALL amount might help.
e) The same with delays but only use them on GROUPS 1,6,8,and 9.
SET IT AND FORGET IT Go get some sleep. you're done for the day. You may be tempted to continue
but try not to. You are likely wasting your time.
Step 8
a) In the morning LISTEN to your reference CD for a few minutes. Use VERY LOW VOLUME for this step. and pay particular attention to the lead vocal, kick and bass levels. Make sure the door is closed to the room, the lights are very dim and your ears are in the sweet spot between your near field speakers. (you are using nearfields right) Put up your song at the SAME LEVEL and pay CLOSE attention to the level of the lead vocal, kick and bass. The lead VOCAL should be most prominent. The SNARE next. The KICK next.
b) Set your master faders so the song is peaking at approx. zero DB.
c) Bring up the VOLUME. Ahh.....you've been DYING to do this. Well now is the time. Listen with GREAT
concentration. You don't have long before your ears are ruined for the day. Only listen at this level for
one pass of the song and take a break. Pick out obvious level problems. Obvious REVERB and DELAY
problems. Obvious COMPRESSION problems. Obvious EQ problems. I can't stress enough that the key word here is OBVIOUS. Don't start tweaking with a sound unless it really sounds bad and out of place. If you have followed the steps closely it should all be sounding warm, sweet, crunchy and punchy. (of course, if the playing is out of time, out of tune, out of key........ you were screwed from the get go) Work fast and don't think....LISTEN. Turn off your eyes and your head and LISTEN. Try closing your eyes all together
and listen. Did I mention WORK FAST. IF you slow down at this volume you will start to second geuss
yourself likely ruin what is a good mix. You are just picking out THE OBVIOUS and the UGLY.
d) Export at 32 bit floating point and whatever sample rate you want. Whatever your mastering house or
software will handle. The higher the quality the better.
e) Export several times with LEAD VOCAL up, LEAD VOCAL down, SNARE up, SNARE down, KICK UP, KICK DOWN.. etc etc. But I am talking EXTREMELY SUBTLE moves here. Back it up!!!! SET IT AND FORGET IT . Tomorrow is another day and another song.. Be sure not to mix a song you just wrote and
tracked. Put some time and distance between your ears and your songs. This way you can be objective
and FAIR to yourself
Ik vond 'm erg handig al dacht ik dat ik het mixen al aardig onder de knie begon te krijgen....
First off, ALL of this info is from other more qualified people. All ideas were pulled from the internet
in my exstensive quest to learn the rudimentary skills of mixing. I've tried MANY, MANY different methods
that never came close to the simple and straight forward methods below. Many advanced users will scoff at the narrow
approach to these methods, but this is for those who have not found their own feet yet and have limited
computer power. This article assumes you have enough computer power to handle 10 compressors, two reverbs sends and two delay sends. This is for pop music.
When I started applying these simple steps my mixes started to get better and better.
At first......just follow these steps exactly and then you can start experimenting with your own style. It may sound dictatorish to suggest following someone's exact steps, but one of the problems in the new world of DAWS is the unlimited number of roads you can take during your mix. When you have a road map to follow, you won't end up taking that side road that leads you off into no mans land. (untill you and your song are found wasted in a ditch.) It does'nt look pretty, smell pretty or SOUND PRETTY! If you are still reading this that means you have been to the place I am talking about.
Step 1.
The old cliche is true. Mix in the morning, eat right and start off listening to good commercial
mixes for the first 15 minutes or so. (your favorite CDs) Get your ears in the same place as some of the best mixers in the world. Keep your volumes at a reasonable level!!! Don't burn out your ears. Shut the bedroom door and turn the lights down LOW. Killing your visual sense will enhance your hearing sense.
Step 2.
a) Solo one sound at a time. Solo a sound and use the high and low shelves on the EQ to cut energy on each side of the spectrum. Dial down the low shelf untill you notice the sound quality changing.
Then raise the low shelf untill you find the point where adding more bass becomes noticable. The sweet spot is approx. half way between those two points. You'll notice that some sounds are affected very little by cutting bass(low end) because they have very little low end energy to speak of. GREAT...don't be afraid to crank the low shelf all the way in that case. Do the same with the high shelf ---- cut it untill it sounds different, then dial up untill you notice a difference in sound quality. Pick somewhere in the middle. SET IT AND FORGET IT. Do approx. 10 tracks and take a 15 -30 minute break. Have a coffee, read a magazine. Have a well produced commercial CD playing on a low to moderate level. Just loud enough you can hear all the main instruments. Continue this cycle untill all channels are done.
b) Use a sweep mid band, and jack up the Q (the narrowest bandwidth you can get) for that band almost all the way up. Sweep the frequency untill you find the point at where the signal is the loudest. This
is the characteristic frequency of the signal. Back off on the Q to zero, then notch the signal up at that point
in the frequency spectrum just enough so you can HEAR and SEE a couple of decibels of peak gain. SET IT AND FORGET IT. Do approx. 10 tracks and take a 15 -30 minute break. Have a coffee, read a magazine. Have a well produced commercial CD playing on a low to moderate level. Just loud enough you can hear all the main instruments. Continue this cycle untill all channels are done.
LUNCH or DINNER or TEA time. Take a 1-2 hour break to go for a walk, get out, get the blood flowing,
Forget about the masterpiece that is beginning to take shape in your studio. Don't go anywhere there is loud noise like jack hammers, traffic, angry wifes, kids etc. This is your music day. Avoid anything stressful
like paying or looking at bills etc. Stay in the groove. Drink very little alcohol and smoke no joints. It will not HELP your mix. You can do that when your work day is over. Yes...making good music is work too.
Welcome back, put on that great reference CD for another 10 - 15 minutes while you settle
into your studio again. Just loud enough you can hear all the main instruments. Lets start doing some compression in groups shall we.
Step 3.
a) Setup up 10 Group channels
Group 1. Assign your your LEAD vocal to it
Group 2. Assign your bass instruments (bass guitar, keyboard bass) to it
Group 3. Assign your kick drum to a group to it
Group 4. Assign your snare drum and toms to it
Group 5. Assign all your background vocals to it
Group 6. Assign all your acoustic guitars, mandolins, etc. to it.
Group 7. Assign your percussion, cymbals, shakers, etc. to it
Group 8. Assign all your clean electric guitars to it.
Group 9. Assign all your distorted guitars to it
Group 10 Assign piano, keyboards to it.
b) Put a compressor on every channel. Yep..every channel. If you have GOOD compressors this will make
an enormous difference to your mix. Hit Groups 1-5 with a fairly serious squeeze. NOT ENOUGH TO TAKE THE LIFE OUT OF THEM, but enough to teach them a lesson in behaviour, they are greedy and they know it. Hit groups 6-7 with a very light amount of compression. Hit groups 8 -10 with a medium amount of compression. When you are doing this, tweak your attack and ratios accordingly not to alter the natural
sound of the signal. If your compression is low quality go with less on all 10 groups. If your compression is
high quality (e.g. UAD 1176, LA2A or WAVES) you can be more liberal. SET IT AND FORGET IT.
Step 4.
Make sure all your group faders are dead center.
a) Using your individual channels now, place your bass instruments in dead center. Place your lead vocals dead center. Place your kick and snare in dead center. Place all your guitars (electric and acoustic) hard left and right. Your choice of which sides.Place your percussion instruments hard left and right. Place all your keyboards hard left and right. Place your back ground vocals at 10 o'clock and 2 o'clock. Place your toms at 10 o'clock and 2 o'clock in the natural sequence of a drummer. SET IT AND FORGET IT.
Step 5.
Set all the active channels to approx. -20db. In other words, solo each channel one at a time and see that the master meters shows approx. -20db. Now listen to the whole mix at a low level. Just loud enough that you can hear each sound. It may not be as fun and exciting, but hang in there. Now; if a signal sticks out, lower it's level in small steps untill it fits IN the mix. If a signal sounds buried, raise it's level untill it sticks out, then drop it slowly til IT fits in the mix. If the overall mix sounds bassy or boomy, slowly pull down bassy and low end sounds. If the overall mix sounds trebly or harsh bring down those sounds that are characteristically trebly. Do the same with mid range. If it sounds honky or nasal bring down some sounds that characteristically live in the mid range. Go through this procedure 2 - 3 times with a short break between each run. SET IT AND FORGET IT. Put that reference CD in again as CLOSE to the level you have been mixing at. If you have been mixing at loud levels your usefulness was over about three hours ago. If you stuck with LOW to moderate levels you won't be as tired and you may have some more productive work left in you.
Step 6.
Select MONO at your master faders. Make sure nothing sounds flangy or distorted. Make sure some sounds have not disappeared from the mix. If they have, find those instruments and see if they can be altered with EQ (or MUTED all together) without making the song fall apart. Make SUBTLE EQ and level adjustments to make sure some signals are not "walking on each other". You will be able to tell because it will be muddy, murky and undefined. SET IT AND FORGET IT Take a well deserved break.
Step 7.
a) Select back to STEREO. Do a quick check again for overall levels as in Step 5. Setup two REVERB sends. One with a large room and one with a smaller room. This is VERY subjective to your taste, the
tempo and the style of the song. TAKE THE TIME TO TWEAK YOUR REVERBS for as long as it takes
to get a great reverb for your drums and percussion. (smaller room) A great reverb for your BACKGROUND
vocals and your keyboards. (larger room) Be sure to take special care not to make the REVERBS thick and grainy as they will just ruin everything you have worked on so far. DON'T USE THEM YET.
b) Setup two delay sends. One shorter and one longer. make one of them the tempo of the song. This is also subjective to your taste. DON'T USE THEM YET.
c) Take a break for a bit and put that reference CD in again at the same level you have been mixing at. I mean THE SAME. Listen very closely to how much reverb is ACTUALLY used on the instruments. Pay particular attention to the snare, lead vocal, the back ground vocals, the organs and keyboards. You may be surprised at how dry most of the sounds are.
d) Put your mix back up. Now very carefully add a reverb to GROUP 4. Try long and short verbs. Experiment untill the snare sounds right but not taking over the mix in ANY way. Try the same with the GROUP 5. You can be fairly liberal and use the long verb. Do the same with GROUP 10. Now try a small amount on the lead vocal. You may not want any at all, but a SMALL amount might help.
e) The same with delays but only use them on GROUPS 1,6,8,and 9.
SET IT AND FORGET IT Go get some sleep. you're done for the day. You may be tempted to continue
but try not to. You are likely wasting your time.
Step 8
a) In the morning LISTEN to your reference CD for a few minutes. Use VERY LOW VOLUME for this step. and pay particular attention to the lead vocal, kick and bass levels. Make sure the door is closed to the room, the lights are very dim and your ears are in the sweet spot between your near field speakers. (you are using nearfields right) Put up your song at the SAME LEVEL and pay CLOSE attention to the level of the lead vocal, kick and bass. The lead VOCAL should be most prominent. The SNARE next. The KICK next.
b) Set your master faders so the song is peaking at approx. zero DB.
c) Bring up the VOLUME. Ahh.....you've been DYING to do this. Well now is the time. Listen with GREAT
concentration. You don't have long before your ears are ruined for the day. Only listen at this level for
one pass of the song and take a break. Pick out obvious level problems. Obvious REVERB and DELAY
problems. Obvious COMPRESSION problems. Obvious EQ problems. I can't stress enough that the key word here is OBVIOUS. Don't start tweaking with a sound unless it really sounds bad and out of place. If you have followed the steps closely it should all be sounding warm, sweet, crunchy and punchy. (of course, if the playing is out of time, out of tune, out of key........ you were screwed from the get go) Work fast and don't think....LISTEN. Turn off your eyes and your head and LISTEN. Try closing your eyes all together
and listen. Did I mention WORK FAST. IF you slow down at this volume you will start to second geuss
yourself likely ruin what is a good mix. You are just picking out THE OBVIOUS and the UGLY.
d) Export at 32 bit floating point and whatever sample rate you want. Whatever your mastering house or
software will handle. The higher the quality the better.
e) Export several times with LEAD VOCAL up, LEAD VOCAL down, SNARE up, SNARE down, KICK UP, KICK DOWN.. etc etc. But I am talking EXTREMELY SUBTLE moves here. Back it up!!!! SET IT AND FORGET IT . Tomorrow is another day and another song.. Be sure not to mix a song you just wrote and
tracked. Put some time and distance between your ears and your songs. This way you can be objective
and FAIR to yourself
