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Mixing/Mastering / Mixing 'as you go' vs separating the mix from creating the track
« on: January 19, 2016, 12:52:15 am »
This topic came up recently on Nick Galea's producer forum on facebook and it generated a lot of different responses.
I personally think that for producing electronic music, that you can make simple mix moves as you write your track,
but you should save the surgical work and the 'getting it big and loud as possible' stuff until the track is written. Same with
spatial design, buss compression and of course anything on the master, these should all come when the track is nearly 100% written.
The following is an example of how i'd process an individual track once i'd written the part and figured out it's role in serving the song. Note: I don't start going through this process until i've got a few key elements in, usually kick, percussion and hats. These are balanced with faders only as drums are the most likely to be pre-processed and least in need of work.
Firstly, some initial parametric EQ to remove anything un-needed (eg: making room for
the kick and bass by hi-passing non-key elements with bass info, high shelving or high cutting background elements).
This is followed by some compression, using a compressor with either a specific vibe for that task, or a simple control set (2 to 5 knobs). Compressing only when necessary (a reference mix is handy to judge this).
Finally, a 'vibey', broad EQ such as V-EQ or Stillwell Vibe to shape the tone in an instinctive way. I do the first round of parametric EQ with the element in question solo'ed and the second with the mix all playing at once. Sometimes a saturator comes into play here as a form of EQ also.
I try to only spend about 2-3 mins max per-track on this whole sequence. Anything else I save for later. Reverb is applied within instruments (such as Sylenth1s internal reverb) if I feel it's a key part of their sound (usually on synths). Reverb for the purpose of the mix such as room reverb on a send, i do later when the track has taken shape.
What are your theories on this? Should the mix process be entirely separate from the track creation or are the two processes intrinsically linked for you?
I personally think that for producing electronic music, that you can make simple mix moves as you write your track,
but you should save the surgical work and the 'getting it big and loud as possible' stuff until the track is written. Same with
spatial design, buss compression and of course anything on the master, these should all come when the track is nearly 100% written.
The following is an example of how i'd process an individual track once i'd written the part and figured out it's role in serving the song. Note: I don't start going through this process until i've got a few key elements in, usually kick, percussion and hats. These are balanced with faders only as drums are the most likely to be pre-processed and least in need of work.
Firstly, some initial parametric EQ to remove anything un-needed (eg: making room for
the kick and bass by hi-passing non-key elements with bass info, high shelving or high cutting background elements).
This is followed by some compression, using a compressor with either a specific vibe for that task, or a simple control set (2 to 5 knobs). Compressing only when necessary (a reference mix is handy to judge this).
Finally, a 'vibey', broad EQ such as V-EQ or Stillwell Vibe to shape the tone in an instinctive way. I do the first round of parametric EQ with the element in question solo'ed and the second with the mix all playing at once. Sometimes a saturator comes into play here as a form of EQ also.
I try to only spend about 2-3 mins max per-track on this whole sequence. Anything else I save for later. Reverb is applied within instruments (such as Sylenth1s internal reverb) if I feel it's a key part of their sound (usually on synths). Reverb for the purpose of the mix such as room reverb on a send, i do later when the track has taken shape.
What are your theories on this? Should the mix process be entirely separate from the track creation or are the two processes intrinsically linked for you?
