MIX QUALITY

Jabel

Hi all.
Apologies if this has been questioned before but has anyone got their mixes (truthfully) up to or close to commercial release standards? I've tried my best over the years to improve my mixes but through a combination of a lack of knowledge and the eagerness to move on to the next song, I probably have not given it enough time to learn the art properly. Is it possible to achieve with a modest set up such as mine or is that just pie in the sky?
I mean professional studios are not kitted out with the best gear for nothing are they?
Whatcha think?



Dell Pentium D, Cubase SX3, Aardvark Direct Pro 24/96, Addictive Drums, Kontakt 3, Halion Player, Yamaha Guitar, Roland Midi keyboard, Aria Pro 11 Bass & Rode NT3 Mic

old gregg

I'm no expert in this area but on the basis of a recommendation recently started reading the book Mixing with Your Mind and am finding it seriously enlightening.

ICN

old gregg wrote: »

I'm no expert in this area but on the basis of a recommendation recently started reading the book Mixing with Your Mind and am finding it seriously enlightening.

Looks interesting.. & expensive.

Are the secrets of any use?


Is it worth it? The chapters & sub-chapter titles look a bit all over the place.

studiorat

You are never really happy with a mix IMO. There's always something immediately afterward. It's when you hear it a year or so later and wonder "did I mix that?" "that's not bad!".

That's when you know it sounds like a real record.

In fairness, putting recordings done with your set-up alongside high end commercial recordings done on flagship consoles etc. There's always going to be a noticeable difference. The trick is to convince the people who are listening purely for the enjoyment and not the Audio Police!

old gregg

To be honest, I can't say objectively how good it is.

From my perspective coming from a non-studio background but having been 'doing music' for 30+ years I'm finding it very enlightening.

I borrowed a copy to try out and decided to buy the book after reading the first 40 pages. With the Eurine to AUD$ exchange rates being pretty Ok right now I think it worked out at around eur40. It's already paid for itself and I'm less than half way through, which is nice.

Lab coat wearing MP members may find it a tad pedestrian but the relaxed writing style and practical application makes it perfect for me at this time.

Will my mixes benefit? I expect great things come the next album :cool:

johnnylakes

"You are never really happy with a mix IMO. There's always something immediately afterward. It's when you hear it a year or so later and wonder "did I mix that?" "that's not bad!".

That's when you know it sounds like a real record. "



Art is never finsihed...just abandoned

Jabel

mmm.. when I listen back after a year
I also say "did I mix that" then hang my head in shame!!
Don't suppose there any nice Cubase channel presets to help you
along the way?

DamagedTrax

old gregg wrote: »

I'm no expert in this area but on the basis of a recommendation recently started reading the book Mixing with Your Mind and am finding it seriously enlightening.

+1 its an amazing read!

RealEstateKing

In terms of mixing (not recording) there is no technical reason nowadays why a recording mixed on a Laptop with say Cubase SX, Waves SSL, CSR reverb, and a few other plugins wont sound as good as a record mixed in a multimillion dollar studio. Those who obsess over one EQ versus another, hardware vs good emulations of same are barking up the wrong tree, IMO. Nowadays the tools are not the issue.

The big difference between a commercial studio and your laptop is:

(1) Treated Rooms. The engineer can make real judgements about what he's doing, the home recording guy is guessing most of the rime.

(2) The engineer is an engineer: Thats what he does for a living, all the time, and he never has to think about anything else. He will have built up years of experience that home recording guy wont. And, importantly he will have the confidence that has built up from years of releasing commercial recordings.

(3) The mix engineer is not involved in writing or producing the music in any way, so he is more objective about what sounds good: He isnt thinking, "Ooh make that guitar track louder, I spent all weekend tracking that one."

I mean professional studios are not kitted out with the best gear for nothing are they?

Well, not exactly no. It is a relic from the days when in the Twentieth Century, if you wanted a certain sound, you bought a very expensive black box to do it for you. The best of these black boxes have become the canon of recording: Your Lexicons, Neves, Fairchilds, SSLs, Universal Audios and so on.

We have reached a point where, musically speaking, emulations of those devices are to all intents and purposes as good as the real thing. There may be differences between a Plugin LA2A and a real LA2A, but its not one that would effect somebody's enjoyment of the music one iota. And actually, blind, even most engineers cant tell the difference.

Of course, is in any other professional field, nobody wants to admit this: Its a a scary idea to some engineers, that Joe Schmoe now has access to the same things they do (especially when software piracy is taken into account) , partially because they have sunk millions into their black boxes, and partially because the black boxes are a major part of the mystique of what they do: **** if it's all plugins, recording goes from being a cool esoteric area of knowledge into something more mundane, rather like doing Graphic Design on photoshop or using Quark Express.

Secondly, all fields have to have their golden objects: You have to be able to say to clients: I am a professional, because I have X,Y,Z peices of enormously expensive equipment. Somehow I think Keith Richards would not be too impressed by a guy with a Laptop and a bunch of Plugins. He expects to be able to do lines of coke off the SSL.

So it comes down to the engineer as far as Im concerned: Music technology and mixing are enormously complicated things to learn how to properly, though any fool can learn how do them badly. The difference between your home laptop mix, and the pro studio mix, is 99% about the engineer.

And its funny isnt it, that its the engineers who are the ones trying to minimise their own impact by saying its all about gear! All hail the humble twiddler of knobs, I say, whether they be real or virtual.

ZV Yoda

That’s a super post…. & a great point about the engineers/producers… they’re like anyone who’s really good at their craft… tools are tools, but they’re useless if the people using them don’t have the knowledge or skills to make the best use of them.

I'm a home user with just over year's worth of home endeavours behind me. It always amazes me that there’s so much spent time talking about gear, but less about technique.

I’ll bet that if any of the pros here tracked & mixed in my home studio, they’d get great results with my Pro Tools LE/ Digidesign/Behringer/M-Audio set up. Dunno about “professional” but I’d say it would be fairly close. Having said that, you could kit out my home studio with the best acoustic treatment & most expensive gear in the world… but I’d still never get pro quality mixes by myself.

... and if any pros want to offer their service by tracking & mixing at my place (to prove my point ) then you're more than welcome

Neurojazz

I actually made a post to get some feedback on the idea of having a compartmentalized sub forum for individual techniques for treating different sounds (something important for a production techniques forum i think???) - and people looked and didn't even bother to reply. A technique (rather than gear posts) would be the most use to people working with limited time/gear really.

If people are hot for it, i'll dig it out and repost - it's been done this way for different sectors and even other music sites, and i think there are enough people here to help contribute to building it into an impartial guide for people into mix mastering / engineering and live PA.

PaulBrewer

RealEstateKing wrote: »

And its funny isnt it, that its the engineers who are the ones trying to minimise their own impact by saying its all about gear!

Isn't the more likely option they're right? A Humble Engineer? - I've never met one ....

Isn't it really the case it's you who want to believe that gear isn't important ?

Perhaps some of the working engineers here (or people who work with them) might like to comment?

I'm all for demystifying gear and always try and keep the GearSlutz lust well at arms length - but belittling it's importance is also skewing the argument.

It's as important as it is - but no more or less.

Mr Alan

johnnylakes wrote: »

"You are never really happy with a mix IMO. There's always something immediately afterward. It's when you hear it a year or so later and wonder "did I mix that?" "that's not bad!".

That's when you know it sounds like a real record. "



Art is never finsihed...just abandoned

I believe The Edge always says that U2 albums are never finished, just released.

PaulBrewer

Jabel wrote: »

Hi all.
Apologies if this has been questioned before but has anyone got their mixes (truthfully) up to or close to commercial release standards? I've tried my best over the years to improve my mixes but through a combination of a lack of knowledge and the eagerness to move on to the next song, I probably have not given it enough time to learn the art properly. Is it possible to achieve with a modest set up such as mine or is that just pie in the sky?
I mean professional studios are not kitted out with the best gear for nothing are they?
Whatcha think?

I am sometimes happy with a mix .... well until I do a new one!

I think the first thing you need to be able to do to mix is hear - so the monitoring/room chain needs to be good.
That's doable in a home studio ok.

If you can hear you can make decisions.

If you're happy with your decisions you can mix.

If you're happy with the mix.... Bingo!

James Hunt

From another forum, I've only read the first page or two....seems to touch on a similar theme.

http://http://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=29283

Jabel

+1 for the technique idea Neurojazz for all us 'chancers'

Neurojazz

Jabel wrote: »

+1 for the technique idea Neurojazz for all us 'chancers'

Well, i thought we could contribute 2/3 levels of knowledge for cheaper setups and serious knowledge for those really into finer details. Then a mod would condense the threads into an agreed format to make it readable and short for each level of skill.

I think the thread was skipped over as it's an awful lot of work for a mod to do - plus they have to be 100% impartial towards the contributions and take all platforms into consideration - probably need 4-5 mods and 10 plus users with a wealth of experience to do it. Big job, but fun and very helpful for people getting into making music with limited budgets and seeing what the next levels of gear and situations require.

jtsuited

PaulBrewer wrote: »

Isn't the more likely option they're right? A Humble Engineer? - I've never met one ....

Isn't it really the case it's you who want to believe that gear isn't important ?

Perhaps some of the working engineers here (or people who work with them) might like to comment?

.

what exactly are you trying to get at with that question?

Real Estate King was referring to mixing btw, and is entirely correct in his post. Having x, y and z(these being 'working engineers') say otherwise really makes no difference.

You only have to pick up any issue of Sound on Sound, go to the 'Inside Track' section, and look at what the big mixing guys (not just 'working engineers') are actually using (mainly plugins).
A good few of them still prefer to sum OTB but the endless list of plugins used is pretty astonishing considering these guys mix in rooms that actually have all the expensive outboard.

A few of them have the odd bit of favourite hardware, but by and large plugins are far more heavily used.

I think the main people who really want to sh1te on about how plugins are nowhere near as good as the hardware are a)studio owners, b) mix engineers who have far more gear than talent and c) pro audio dealers.

dav nagle

To everyone here on boards I advise to you get the liquid mix, it is amazing, hardware is only good for mic pre and converters, check out the liquid mix. I just got one and it kicks ass.

trackmixstudio

dav nagle wrote: »

To everyone here on boards I advise to you get the liquid mix, it is amazing, hardware is only good for mic pre and converters, check out the liquid mix. I just got one and it kicks ass.

I had a liquid mix and got rid of it because no matter what eq or compressor I used it always added "scratchy" high mids to the sound. The fact that it uses it's own processors makes no difference to people with a mac pro or equivalent. LM also has very high latency so watch out PTLE users. URS channel strip pro is the same idea as LM but runs natively and sounds WAY WAY better to me.

dav nagle

trackmixstudio wrote: »

I had a liquid mix and got rid of it because no matter what eq or compressor I used it always added "scratchy" high mids to the sound. The fact that it uses it's own processors makes no difference to people with a mac pro or equivalent. LM also has very high latency so watch out PTLE users. URS channel strip pro is the same idea as LM but runs natively and sounds WAY WAY better to me.

Funny that Focusrite would release a product that is full of scratchy high mids. The product reviews for the liquid mix have been across the board extremely positive.

dav nagle

RealEstateKing wrote: »

In terms of mixing (not recording) there is no technical reason nowadays why a recording mixed on a Laptop with say Cubase SX, Waves SSL, CSR reverb, and a few other plugins wont sound as good as a record mixed in a multimillion dollar studio. Those who obsess over one EQ versus another, hardware vs good emulations of same are barking up the wrong tree, IMO. Nowadays the tools are not the issue.

The big difference between a commercial studio and your laptop is:

(1) Treated Rooms. The engineer can make real judgements about what he's doing, the home recording guy is guessing most of the rime.

(2) The engineer is an engineer: Thats what he does for a living, all the time, and he never has to think about anything else. He will have built up years of experience that home recording guy wont. And, importantly he will have the confidence that has built up from years of releasing commercial recordings.

(3) The mix engineer is not involved in writing or producing the music in any way, so he is more objective about what sounds good: He isnt thinking, "Ooh make that guitar track louder, I spent all weekend tracking that one."



Well, not exactly no. It is a relic from the days when in the Twentieth Century, if you wanted a certain sound, you bought a very expensive black box to do it for you. The best of these black boxes have become the canon of recording: Your Lexicons, Neves, Fairchilds, SSLs, Universal Audios and so on.

We have reached a point where, musically speaking, emulations of those devices are to all intents and purposes as good as the real thing. There may be differences between a Plugin LA2A and a real LA2A, but its not one that would effect somebody's enjoyment of the music one iota. And actually, blind, even most engineers cant tell the difference.

Of course, is in any other professional field, nobody wants to admit this: Its a a scary idea to some engineers, that Joe Schmoe now has access to the same things they do (especially when software piracy is taken into account) , partially because they have sunk millions into their black boxes, and partially because the black boxes are a major part of the mystique of what they do: **** if it's all plugins, recording goes from being a cool esoteric area of knowledge into something more mundane, rather like doing Graphic Design on photoshop or using Quark Express.

Secondly, all fields have to have their golden objects: You have to be able to say to clients: I am a professional, because I have X,Y,Z peices of enormously expensive equipment. Somehow I think Keith Richards would not be too impressed by a guy with a Laptop and a bunch of Plugins. He expects to be able to do lines of coke off the SSL.

So it comes down to the engineer as far as Im concerned: Music technology and mixing are enormously complicated things to learn how to properly, though any fool can learn how do them badly. The difference between your home laptop mix, and the pro studio mix, is 99% about the engineer.

And its funny isnt it, that its the engineers who are the ones trying to minimise their own impact by saying its all about gear! All hail the humble twiddler of knobs, I say, whether they be real or virtual.

I agree, very good post.

trackmixstudio

dav nagle wrote: »

Funny that Focusrite would release a product that is full of scratchy high mids.

On a single track it was barely noticeable but used over lots of tracks in a mix it would end up very harsh around 2-5k.
Reviews are fueled by advertising so I pay no attention to them.
Your experience may be different but I am just giving my experience with LM before everyone here runs out and buys one.

PaulBrewer

trackmixstudio wrote: »

Reviews are fueled by advertising so I pay no attention to them.

Yup

dav nagle

trackmixstudio wrote: »

On a single track it was barely noticeable but used over lots of tracks in a mix it would end up very harsh around 2-5k.
Reviews are fueled by advertising so I pay no attention to them.
Your experience may be different but I am just giving my experience with LM before everyone here runs out and buys one.

I slapped an eq and compressor over a full kit using a downloaded preset called 'drums clean' and the kit sounded bright and clean just like it said. I didn't notice any suspect sound of emulation like some other plug ins. I also tried it on a acoustic and the guitar had more punch.

When I used it on a vocal I was noticing something odd, the vocal did have a bit of a 'sibilance' issue so maybe that would be related to the 2-5k issue you experienced. All I am saying is that it is a damn fine tool for any daw any at very least one should give it a try.

Neurojazz

With this sort of gear you need direct A/B comparisons to hear most the differences.... I'd been using the sonnox EQ on most channels and then decided to compare it to the Cambridge EQ in the UAD - i was pretty shocked, the UAD eq was much sweeter.

dav nagle

Neurojazz wrote: »

With this sort of gear you need direct A/B comparisons to hear most the differences.... I'd been using the sonnox EQ on most channels and then decided to compare it to the Cambridge EQ in the UAD - i was pretty shocked, the UAD eq was much sweeter.

You can A/B all night but improvement at a good value price shouldn't ever be overlooked.

PaulBrewer

dav nagle wrote: »

Funny that Focusrite would release a product that is full of scratchy high mids.

How well the unit works/sounds is very much dependent on what conversion it's played through and the quality of the clock.

2 people could very easily be getting different results with the same unit.

Neurojazz

dav nagle wrote: »

You can A/B all night but improvement at a good value price shouldn't ever be overlooked.

The better one was cheaper

jtsuited

Neurojazz wrote: »

With this sort of gear you need direct A/B comparisons to hear most the differences.... I'd been using the sonnox EQ on most channels and then decided to compare it to the Cambridge EQ in the UAD - i was pretty shocked, the UAD eq was much sweeter.

funny you mention that, I had a good bit of experience with the sonnox (and even the early sony oxford) eq's and there was something that never sounded right to me with them.

Apparently they're quite full of artifacts (as well as a high level of ringing).

The Cambridge UAD is indeed shockingly better (although I have limited experience of it).

dav nagle

I was remixing a tune a band did in a studio in Temple bar. It was very sweet loading up the project and watching liquid mix load up in my studio, obviously the last studio were using LM. I found the experience to be fascinating. It is so interesting to watch what one person does in a mix compared to another. Things like technique, notes, tempo and midi organization etc.. The sheer amount of plug ins that were slapped onto the mix was way OTT.

BumbleB

DamagedTrax wrote: »

+1 its an amazing read!

The're raving about it on the gearslutz website http://www.gearslutz.com/board/so-much-gear-so-little-time/85376-book-mixing-your-mind.html

old gregg

BumbleB wrote: »

The're raving about it on the gearslutz website http://www.gearslutz.com/board/so-much-gear-so-little-time/85376-book-mixing-your-mind.html

I asked him to sign my copy and it arrived with a cool dedication and signed, which is nice.

BumbleB

old gregg wrote: »

I asked him to sign my copy and it arrived with a cool dedication and signed, which is nice.

Hey gregg ,did it take long for them to ship it ?.