Mixing Resources

Adam Black

Freshman
May 17, 2011
67
0
0
MA
www.rationalacoustics.com
Was hoping ya'll could save me some time. I'm looking to bolster my knowledge regarding mixing; not just tonal shaping but the patching, tools, methods and crunchy bits associated with the task. My good friend Google is sure to have many suggestions but he's rather verbose and doesn't always deliver the good stuff immediately. So please share any links you may be aware of regarding good online resources for learning more about the nitty gritty of mixing.

I have a good knowledge base regarding sound, but due to the nature of my work I tend to acquire knowledge backwards or in a less than linear fashion. It's just a byproduct of what I do. So I'd really like to address this from the ground up and fill in the gaps.

Thanks.
 
Re: Mixing Resources

Was hoping ya'll could save me some time. I'm looking to bolster my knowledge regarding mixing; not just tonal shaping but the patching, tools, methods and crunchy bits associated with the task. My good friend Google is sure to have many suggestions but he's rather verbose and doesn't always deliver the good stuff immediately. So please share any links you may be aware of regarding good online resources for learning more about the nitty gritty of mixing.

I have a good knowledge base regarding sound, but due to the nature of my work I tend to acquire knowledge backwards or in a less than linear fashion. It's just a byproduct of what I do. So I'd really like to address this from the ground up and fill in the gaps.

Thanks.

when you say you have a "good Knowledge base regarding sound " my first question is How much Do you know, for example : there are people that DON'T know how to even turn the first piece of gear on and then there are others that know the basics and then others that know a little more than that. Which one would you say that you fall under? I have a few helpful How to videos that i could put on here for ya. but i need to know how much you know , before i send them and you already know about it.
 
Re: Mixing Resources

when you say you have a "good Knowledge base regarding sound " my first question is How much Do you know, for example : there are people that DON'T know how to even turn the first piece of gear on and then there are others that know the basics and then others that know a little more than that. Which one would you say that you fall under? I have a few helpful How to videos that i could put on here for ya. but i need to know how much you know , before i send them and you already know about it.

My sound knowledge is a direct result of the work I do. I'm a software engineer by trade, but about six years ago I started doing software for the pro audio market. After working at EAW for a year I joined some friends and started Rational Acoustics. I'm the lone code jockey responsible for Smaart v7 and Smaart Di. I'll assume you're at least somewhat aware of our offerings so won't bother to detail them.

In addition to spending my days around sound guys, watching system tunings and discussing advanced theory I've done a good bit of reading on the subject. Though usually my motivation is to learn the stuff so I can better understand the needs of our user base and provide software that empowers them. The bulk of my knowledge is on system tuning, theory and the math behind the calculations used in acoustical and sound measurements. Which is fascinating stuff, but I couldn't mix a show, nor even mic and connect the band to a small mixing console. I know what gates are and how they work, the same for compressors, yet I wouldn't know when to use them or even how to put them in line. See what I mean by saying that I've learned it backwards and in a non linear fashion? I'd say I know a lot about the theory and little about practical use.

Ideally I'd like to get to a point where I could take a small console, mic up and connect a four piece band, tune the PA and mix a show at the bar level. A good portion of our user base does this on a daily basis and I'd really like to get a strong handle on that world. Mostly because it makes me better equipped to make product improvements that best serve that portion of the market, but also because I find it fascinating.

Thanks.
 
Re: Mixing Resources

Sounds like all you need is a good desk jockey to sit in the instructors seat (like Drivers Ed) and just go at it. I'd do it in a heart-beat in exchange for SMAART-ing a couple of rigs for me...
 
Re: Mixing Resources

Sounds like all you need is a good desk jockey to sit in the instructors seat (like Drivers Ed) and just go at it. I'd do it in a heart-beat in exchange for SMAART-ing a couple of rigs for me...

I've watched several pro's at work. But as they were working I didn't interrupt and merely observed. I would have liked to pick their brain and ask questions about the rationale for what they were doing, but again I was just a guest and didn't want to jam them up. Also they are usually on high end desks, which is likely overkill for what I'm after. Though I suppose they have the same problems to solve. Just more expensive toys to achieve it with.
 
Re: Mixing Resources

I have access to a Presonus Studio Live 16.4.2 & 24.4.2. I figure since they are available it's a decent place to start.

I'd agree that these desks will be a great place to start.

They have your basic feature set, yet laid out in a very "analog" configuration which I think helps one to relate the tasks and the tools clearly.

Check your PM's.
 
Re: Mixing Resources

Sounds like all you need is a good desk jockey to sit in the instructors seat (like Drivers Ed) and just go at it. I'd do it in a heart-beat in exchange for SMAART-ing a couple of rigs for me...

+1000

Anytime you are in the mid-atlantic you are welcome to either look over my shoulder and ask questions, or have me look over yours.

I am a big supporter of running the SMAART spectrograph during shows, so I would suspect we would have a common language.
 
Re: Mixing Resources

+1000

Anytime you are in the mid-atlantic you are welcome to either look over my shoulder and ask questions, or have me look over yours.

I am a big supporter of running the SMAART spectrograph during shows, so I would suspect we would have a common language.

Thanks guys. And yes there is a large vocabulary overlap. I could likely fool any non pro when discussing such things, maybe even some pro's. But I'm all theory with little practical knowledge, and even less experience. At best I could do a passable job tuning a small system. For which I routinely take advantage of every opportunity available to watch and learn. I've had the pleasure of watching many large system tunings and even a few clubs. But in a nutshell I know enough to realize how much I don't know about actually getting the job done.

I don't get to travel much as I'm generally kept close to my keyboard so I can bang out code. Our development process never stops, though it may seem like it does from the outside. But that's because we're a small shop and I'm the only code jockey. So to ride shotgun with someone they'd have to be in the North East. I live in MA and work in CT and seldom stray far.
 
Re: Mixing Resources

John Chiara has a line about mixing towards a target. I like that thought. Once the basics of standard routing is taking care of, mixing really comes down to having a target in mind, understanding what the different equipment can do, and then using the equipment that is available to hit that target.

With one of the bluegrass bands I worked with we could go from a 60 seat coffeehouse to a 600 seat theater to a 5000 person festival, with the same range of equipment. They said what they liked about what I did was that I could create a consistent product for them regardless of the type of system we were provided.

I think that the reason I was able to do that is I have always payed close attention to my gain structure throughout a system. That gets you within a couple of db for each channel. The last bit is where artistic taste comes in. And that comes from listening to a lot of music, paying attention to what is going on on stage, and practice.
 
Re: Mixing Resources

Ideally I'd like to get to a point where I could take a small console, mic up and connect a four piece band, tune the PA and mix a show at the bar level. A good portion of our user base does this on a daily basis and I'd really like to get a strong handle on that world. Mostly because it makes me better equipped to make product improvements that best serve that portion of the market, but also because I find it fascinating.

Thanks.

Adam,

Kudos on doing this process. I can somewhat relate, as I had read everything there was to be had on the "mix a band" side before college, but had only ever mixed voices in a live theater context until then. It was only in college where I got thrown into real band situations, and the book learning was only marginally helpful. I was a really sucky live mixer for bands for a few years, and thankfully was mostly doing setup and tuning, which I had more natural aptitude for.

---
A specific personal improvement:

I really, really sucked at early on was making sense of all the individual sources in a mix, and then the whole mix. There I ended up buried in headphones soloing channels just trying to make sense of what each instrument was doing. Once I put the headphones on, I got stuck down in the weeds, missing the whole mix context, and absorbed in what twiddling the knobs would do for one channel to the exclusion of all else.

Now, many years of practice later, I don't bother to bring headphones to the typical small RnR gig, and I don't give myself any meaningful soundcheck time for crafting tones of individual sources. Instead I focus on doing it on the fly, and with all the sources in context, as the noise masking effects of all the sources together have to be considered as a whole.

Take music that you listen to and practice with your brain keying in on each individual item, and the stepping back to listen to the whole mix. This is the same sort of mental gymnastics your brain does already when you pick a specific conversation out of a loud restaurant. You can train your brain to do this for singing, rhythm, and instrumental sources, too. Practice narrowing in on one source, and then going back to the mix. Don't worry about the frequency content of a source at first, just practice picking it out, and then going back to the full mix. Once you are doing that reliably, then you can think about overlaying your frequency knowledge on top.

---

Let me see if I can distill some of my other learnings down to a shorter than normal length (for me):
  1. The instruments, monitors, and PA all assemble to make the sound in the audience. They can't be considered in isolation.
  2. Microphone placement in live work is first about isolation, and then about tone. If you have no time or control over tones, place the microphones to maximize separation between sources.
  3. Nothing wrong with turning a microphone off in a mix. In small rooms with an undisciplined band the PA can often end up with merely kick, vocals, and reverb.
  4. Mixing is a balance of two psychoacoustic phenomena: noise masking and the equal loudness curves. As the overall volume increase, you'll need more aggressive management of the high end to mellow out the mix. As for masking, a signal that stands out just fine by itself is often lost in the mix of multiple instruments in certain frequency ranges. A good example is bass guitar, I find that I'll actively push the midrange of the bass to get it audible in the mix. Merely raising the fader doesn't address the midrange noise masking from other sources.
  5. Aggressively cut out the frequency ranges that aren't necessary for a source. You've got a lot of open microphones on a stage, and the more you manage what they contribute to the PA, the better. I'm very thankful for consoles that have both high and lowpass filters for this reason. Managing out of band gack also helps with noise masking issues. I'll lowpass guitars, toms, bass guitar, kick, leslie, or any other source that doesn't need to be clouding the top end. A way to accentuate specific sources is removing extraneous, masking frequencies from other sources.
  6. As you train your ears, start by aiming to pin down the octave of the problem frequencies, not the specific frequency. Identifying at the octave level is usually enough to find problems quickly with a sweep of the eq knob, and then you can improve your frequency discrimination with time.
  7. Learn to mix in mono before starting to pan sources.
  8. Your brain keys in on average levels of sources. If you can't get a source to sit in the mix, reducing its peak to average ratio with compression is often the trick to glue it in place.

---

As for compressors and gates, I could show you in 3 minutes what would take more than 30 minutes to type, so I'll not head there.

Since you've got access to a Presonus 16.4.2, if you want to multi-track something, and then send me the files, I'd be happy to do a headphone mix and then send you back the scene, so you could see what was done in the mix.
 
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Re: Mixing Resources

Adam, forgive me for stating the obvious here, but I'm sure there are many sound people in your area that would jump at the chance of some mutual benefit and take the time to train you to whatever level you want to be at.
As a software engineer, you are obviously mentally capable of visualizing the flow of a piece of software, so doing up a sound system, routing a mixer, routing effects etc. should be a breeze.
 
Re: Mixing Resources

all that audio fufu stuff is really good advice

you can read it a thousand times and it will stick real good

best thing you can do right now is go hook stuff up

make noise
turn knobs

listen

and never forget signal flow
when something quits working

it's not a matter of if...


all my stuff is duumb
 
Re: Mixing Resources

Hi Adam,

I know you wanted some advice, but I'll first share some resources with you that I've found very useful.

As a glossary-style reference, Rane's Pro Audio Reference has a fantastic wealth of knowledge, and their RaneNotes on various topics of Live Sound are great reads to novice and experts alike.

SoundForums has great articles about RF coordination and some of the blogs are interesting and fun to read (like this one from Jake Scudder).


Here are the most common things that I see (unfortunately) everyday from other AV techs who don't know right from wrong in regards to what I consider essential audio know-how:

1a. Gain Structure - every single piece of gear you will utilize has a usable signal range for its input(s) and output(s); learn/figure out how to adjust each stage for each piece of gear and why you should do so. The wireless microphone transmitters I typically use, for example, have both sensitivity and gain controls. The receiver has an adjustable output level as well as a switch on the back for Line- or Mic-level output level, and next in the chain would most likely be the mixer's preamp. Follow this with the gain from the power amplifier, and you can have a distorted, hissy mess if any point in that chain is mis-adjusted.

1b. Signal Chain - this goes somewhat hand-in-hand with gain structure, in that the devices that you connect together all have to interact at some level. Know how each piece of gear is connected and, more importantly, why you connected it that way.

2. Balanced signals/"cabling" - Okay, it's not the cables that actually balance the signal, but they do help maintain that balancing throughout the entire signal chain. It may seem a little more install-related, but it does pay off to know the different types of balanced circuits and what they mean in regards to connector configuration (do any pins get tied together? if not, why not?).

3. Get the sound "right" at the source - From the get-go, the source's output must be usable to your gear - it is your job as the operator to make this happen. Often, things are lacking (output level, tone, etc.) that you just have to grin and bear while the show happens, but those moments when everything comes together can be truly spine-tingling.

4. Gain Structure - Oops...did I say that one already? It's worth repeating.

5. Loudspeaker Placement - Knowing how directional (or not) your loudspeakers are at what angles is very helpful in aiming the sound where you want it (audience, musicians) and not where you don't want it (microphones, for example).

Do what many here have done: make a LOT of mistakes - both in private and in public - but only make them once, and then don't make those mistakes again. That is the path to professionalism and consistency.

Best of luck, come back with as many questions as you can manage. :)
 
Re: Mixing Resources

Since the studiolive has the ability to do 'vitual soundcheck' I'd recommend you to get a multitrack and tweak the hell out of it...

Solo each channel and tweak the knobs to see how it affects your audio source and make mental/written knobs. Google some stuff and try others suggestions to see if it fits your experience.

As a programmer you can relate to when I first learnt c++ and oop I had the fortune that those two teaching classes were complementing each other. If those two classes weren't synced with each other I would have struggled real hard to understand the conceps around oop and its implementations in a programming language like c++.

I feel it's the like same with mixing. The physical console is your programming language and the theory behind it is the abstracts of each element that can be used and transfering one or many given functions into your programming language, i.e. aka. mixing.

As you understand the concept of signal processing you can hear what the math does to your sound while tweaking a knob.

Also, reset your controls every now and then. This because your brain adapts and can make you think that something sounds better than it actually does.

Once I went thru a couple of 30 or so temperament tunings for three days to try out and evaluate. After I did that everything I listened to sounded out of tune! It took my brain one week to get back to normal bussiness again...

Oh, and have fun while mixing :)
 
Re: Mixing Resources

Adam, forgive me for stating the obvious here, but I'm sure there are many sound people in your area that would jump at the chance of some mutual benefit and take the time to train you to whatever level you want to be at.

For certain there are local folks I could ask, even some as close as six feet from my desk. But in general I feel one should do one's homework before asking for instruction. So I'm really looking to do some reading and wrap my head around some basics before I do any hands on work or waste anyone's time.


As a software engineer, you are obviously mentally capable of visualizing the flow of a piece of software, so doing up a sound system, routing a mixer, routing effects etc. should be a breeze.

Thanks for the vote of confidence. And yes I am skilled at dealing with complex systems and routing information through them. Under the hood Smaart is really quite similar to a PA in that I have multiple inputs that need to be routed through various processes and several outputs that also need to be routed to various places. I'm confident that I can learn the process of mixing. Whether or not I have any artistic value to add to the output is unknown, but it really doesn't matter for my purposes.
 
Re: Mixing Resources

Hey Adam,

You should see if Graham Mellor can give you some weekend dates mixing openers in Providence, not too bad a drive, great club with a great system. Honestly the only way to learn how to mix is to do it a lot. Once you have the basics down you can start to learn some tricks, but they're just tricks - you should be able to mix your way out of a paper bag on a Mackie 1604 with no outboard.

P.S. Most, but not all, Real Mixing Pros™ (of which I am not one, although I am a loudmouth) love what they do and therefore love to discuss it. I'm sure there are tons of working mixers who would be happy to work through their work flow with you, some of them are even on more mid-level desks (you don't get to pick the gig). You're far from the punter who wants to ask if they know what all the knobs do, real technical discussion from a party who both understands and is interested in what they do is extremely rare - it's easy to forget just how rare when we have each other to talk to here.
 
Re: Mixing Resources

You should see if Graham Mellor can give you some weekend dates mixing openers in Providence, not too bad a drive, great club with a great system. Honestly the only way to learn how to mix is to do it a lot. Once you have the basics down you can start to learn some tricks, but they're just tricks - you should be able to mix your way out of a paper bag on a Mackie 1604 with no outboard.

Really? Get a gig? Oh heck no. Nowhere even close to capable of pulling that off. I'm not being modest, I'm being honest. I get far more credit than I deserve. Due to the nature of my work people often give me credit for knowing far more than I truly do. Sure I know some things, but it's mostly advanced theory related to system tuning that I've picked up over the years or had to learn in order to implement it in code. To date the only console I've used is a Mackie 1202. And that is only used for my desk test system and is used to route my many outputs to a speaker. Other than gain control I only use the mute button. It hardly counts as 'experience'.


P.S. Most, but not all, Real Mixing Pros™ (of which I am not one, although I am a loudmouth) love what they do and therefore love to discuss it. I'm sure there are tons of working mixers who would be happy to work through their work flow with you, some of them are even on more mid-level desks (you don't get to pick the gig). You're far from the punter who wants to ask if they know what all the knobs do, real technical discussion from a party who both understands and is interested in what they do is extremely rare - it's easy to forget just how rare when we have each other to talk to here.

That is a truism. My greatest asset for this en-devour is that I know I've a lot to learn, it interests me greatly on many levels and I happen to have access to some gear and a group of knowledgeable folks.


This is my current plan. Step one is to read the manual and get acquainted with the functionality of the 16.4.2. Step two is to make a few calls and talk basics with some skilled folks. Step three is to practice with some multi track recordings. Step four is to get some time to watch a pro in action and ask questions. Only after I've completed these steps will I even entertain the idea of getting some real world experience. My plan for that is to attend band practice of a friend of mine and tinker.

Again, thanks to all for the input and advice. I greatly appreciate it.

-A
 
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