For those of you who are unfamiliar with mid-side processing, it’s essentially splitting your track not into left and right signals, like a regular stereo image, but into one mono, and one stereo signal.
I’ll be showing you how to turn the act of compressing audio, into a way that shapes the sound of your recordings, similar to how an equalizer shapes the sound of your recordings.
This technique will also help to clean up your mixes, by allocating specific times that a signal’s amplitude will increase.
By ‘vocal clicks’ I’m referring to the noises made during a vocalist’s performance which are not breaths or the actual notes
Although the English language has its fair share of pleasantly harmonious phrases and sounds, the ‘ess’ sound isn’t one of them. When properly balanced and mixed, the very common ‘ess’ sound (also referred to as sibilance) doesn’t present many problems.
We’ve all been there - we take a break from our mix, thinking that after we’ve given our ears their much needed respite, we’ll return to the same, sonically spectacular masterpiece we left only moments ago.
While many engineers dream of owning racks of gear and endless plugins, the reality is, we often only need to start with a few pieces of equipment and some free plugins. Lucky for us, there are all sorts of free plugins that can help improve a mix.
A great mix translates and accents the message of a song. Sure, the music and lyrics send the strongest signals when people listen, but the mix will aid in creating vibe and accentuating particular elements for a song.
As mastering engineers, we have all heard people describe our job as “making it louder”. We adjust gain levels, we use compression, and we limit to achieve these results. To a listener, it is louder and reaching for the volume adjustment becomes less of a necessity. To us, it is a careful combination of tools based on what a song needs to sound its best. Limiting is most often the last stage before dithering and its importance cannot be overstated. Using a limiter aggressively can squash the life and dynamics out of a mix at the last stage. On the flip side, using a limiter too sparingly may not bring up the low level parts of your mix, leaving your mix with dynamic range that may be too expansive for the genre. In the world of digital audio, engineers should familiarize themselves with the effects of different plugin limiters. Below are some of the plugin limiters that have proven to be effective for in the box mastering.
Positioning your monitors properly is essential to getting the most accurate performance from them and creating a true stereo image. Thanks to the SpeakerAngle app from Genelec, it's never been easier to dial your monitors in to a perfect equilateral triangle.
It is no secret that drums are the foundation of mixing across the majority of contemporary genres. They drive an immense amount of feel and emotion to any given song without much melodic context. Drums and their overall aesthetic alone can easily make or break any mix. Why? They are complex in nature, and they often cover the entire audible frequency spectrum. This can make them a challenge for novices and professionals alike. However, the truth is that a variety of fundamental concepts will provide the tools to make your drums sing within a mix! This article aims to portray those essential drum-mixing concepts in a chronological fashion. Regardless of genre, the following concepts can provide fundamental concepts to take your drums to the next level.
Loudness is a major concern for almost every artist and engineer. In an industry that’s flooded with plugins and gear that continually tries to offer a one size fits all preset to make your music louder than then next person, we have missed the foundation of how to actually achieve loudness.
While working with a mix, a mastering engineer must use tools that mix engineers may not consider. While there is overlap with the types of compression or EQ that are used, the process for a mastering engineer involves only a single stereo file versus the tracks that make up the entire song. This means that if the guitar is too loud, or the vocal is too quiet, a mastering engineer is unable to adjust individual volumes of these pieces. One of the approaches that can be used to enhance the “space” between similar elements is to use stereo imaging tools to narrow or widen frequency ranges across the stereo field. While this may not affect the individual levels of tracks, these tools can work wonders to bring out the important frequencies in instrumental or vocal performances within the stereo file. Using stereo imaging tools during the mix stage can be done however, and learning to use them appropriately, may help give you a three dimensional sound and bring your mix to life.
Aside from vocals, drum tracks serve as the most prominent elements in most forms of modern music. Not only do drums provide the rhythmic foundation of to a song, but they can also cover the entirety of the audible frequency spectrum. As engineers, becoming proficient in the art of treating and mixing drums is one of the most difficult yet essential tasks we face. However, learning essential tips and techniques on how to methodically organize and set up drum tracks before mixing, will set you up for later success. Initial drum organization yields success and can save a lot of time, second-guessing, and head scratching further down the road during the mix process. This article will aim to provide insight on how to effectively address and organize your routing, grouping, soloing, parallel channels, fx sends, phase relationships, and tuning for your drum tracks. We can make our drums rock before mixing even commences!
Have you ever listened to a song and noticed that the snare sounded a little brighter during the chorus, the kick had more of a thump, and the vocal effect had changed from an eighth-note to a quarter note delay. A mix tends to get boring hearing the same sonic textures from beginning to end. That’s why mix engineers use plugin automation to create impact and keep the audience engaged!
