Log in
Register
Home
Forums
New posts
Search forums
What's new
New posts
New profile posts
Latest activity
News
Members
Current visitors
New profile posts
Search profile posts
Features
Log in
Register
Search
Search titles only
By:
Search titles only
By:
New posts
Search forums
Menu
Install the app
Install
Reply to thread
Home
Forums
Pro Audio
Junior Varsity
Mixing Resources
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Phil Graham" data-source="post: 98940" data-attributes="member: 430"><p>Re: Mixing Resources</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Adam,</p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>---</p><p><strong>A specific personal improvement:</strong></p><p><strong></strong></p><p><em>I really, really sucked at early on was making sense of all the individual sources in a mix, and then the whole mix.</em> 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.</p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>---</p><p></p><p>Let me see if I can distill some of my other learnings down to a shorter than normal length (for me):</p><ol> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">The instruments, monitors, and PA all assemble to make the sound in the audience. They can't be considered in isolation.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">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.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">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.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">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.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">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.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">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.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Learn to mix in mono before starting to pan sources.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">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.</li> </ol><p></p><p>---</p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>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.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Phil Graham, post: 98940, member: 430"] Re: Mixing Resources 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. --- [B]A specific personal improvement: [/B] [I]I really, really sucked at early on was making sense of all the individual sources in a mix, and then the whole mix.[/I] 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): [LIST=1] [*]The instruments, monitors, and PA all assemble to make the sound in the audience. They can't be considered in isolation. [*]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. [*]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. [*]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. [*]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. [*]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. [*]Learn to mix in mono before starting to pan sources. [*]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. [/LIST] --- 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. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Home
Forums
Pro Audio
Junior Varsity
Mixing Resources
Top
Bottom
Sign-up
or
log in
to join the discussion today!