DAW mix flow layout

i57dwun4yb1pt8

Can i ask - bear with me on this one -
ive been listening to people like Trackmix's work
and trying to get the same level of punch and clarity .

so in a mixing situation
would be better to group everything to main subgroup faders before the master fader

these groups above would have no effects sends , only inserted eq's and or compressors
( except drums , the drums group would contain one or two tracks with side compression for close mics and rooms )

so that in a drums vox , bass, guitar , type tune you would have these dry groups

vox group ( all vox end here bar reverbs , delays )
drum group ( all drums end here - bar reverbs etc )
bass group ( all bass end here )
guitars clean group ( all clean guitars )
guitars dirty group ( all dirty guitars )

fx -group :
( all effects listed below end up here and have sends from groups above or from tracks within a sub group )

this fx-group is containing

reverb short , rev med, reverb long ,
delay short , delay medium, delay long ,
instrument send / side compressor ( for adding cruched subtle kick , bass and guitars underneath )
distortion track for adding subtle dirt if needed

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previously I would have had say a drums group ,
but all reverbs for drums etc would be in the drum group
same for vocals , all vox effects etc in this group , same for guitars etc.

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but if i do it as at top - it seems clearer and punchier

I guess if it sounded better is it better , but which would be normal ?

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note that every track with audio on it has an eq on it to high pass as much as possible
( and low pass as well in some cases ) to make them fit - before any compressor or boost eq.

madtheory

So basically you're doing parallel compression and lowering the effects return levels... yes, that would definitely make it punchier! I wouldn't recommend HPF and LPF as a rule, especially not LPF- always listen to the effect of the filter. Assuming you've excellent monitoring of course.

trackmixstudio

A lot of the punch and clarity in my mixes comes from driving my API A2D or Phoenix audio Preamps. The API makes things come at you out of the speakers as you drive it. For snare and guitars I would often be hitting +12DB on the input then attenuating the output to compensate. If you try this on a regular preamp it will clip and sound sh1t.

I generally use waves CLA compressors. The 1176 with medium attack and fast release makes drums sound huge.

I use a very similar aux/bus setup to you in my template except I have busses for kick, snare, toms, overheads, room that feed another bus that is the drums master bus. I find it easier to do global changes to the drum sounds this way.
I use a separate aux for drum verb also fed into the drum master bus. I also use a guitar, bass, vox master bus and busses for vox verb, medium room "glue" verb, short medium and long ddls.

Watch out for low mids (200-500) as these frequencies build up and make a mix sound muddy. Sweep a cut around this frequency on EVERYTHING and find the "humming" frequencies and kill them.
Also watch out for fizzy frequencies at 3-6K. Sweep a narrow cut around on here everything and kill the fizz, especially on guitars and overheads. You may initially feel like this is dulling everything but after you do this take a break for a while then listen again. It will normally sound fine and if you then bypass the eqs to check you will hear the harsh fizz you have taken out.

If you want to come over to the studio to sit in on a mix that's no problem.

drumdrum

Generally I find that the more you alter a signal (via effects or whatever) the less original clarity remains. Might be ever so slight, but when the tracks build up together it becomes noticeable.

A famous engineer (can't remember who!) once said: "Your mix starts when you place your first mic." so maybe instead of adding more ambient reverb to your drums, maybe move your drums to a larger room and moving the room mic back into the room or something. You know, get that "natural" reverb sound instead of artificial?

Just a thought.

Also, I find that be careful with over compressing things. You can use compressors to help control frequencies yes, but generally things tend to smush together if you over do this. If you record distorted guitars, the signal coming out of your amp is fairly compressed anyways by the amp and I find that compressing these in the mix is unnecessary and loses clarity.

I only discovered recently that (IMO) the secret to a great mix, is getting the sounds right at the source. Then you only need to add minimal mix processes to make it sound great.

You can't polish a turd, as the saying goes!
And yes, I too agree that Trackmixes mixes sound great!

trackmixstudio

Dead right about getting the sound right at source.
Re compression, you can use compression for leveling OR for adding punch.
Using a medium attack to let the transient through then a fast release will make drums cut through more.
Likewise with guitars. Even though driven guitars are naturally compressed a little bit of compression at medium attack, fast release will add a bit of edge to the attack. Need to be careful not to squash the sound though.

i57dwun4yb1pt8

ok, so im on the right track then

the source sounds are pretty good within reason
i try to use as little effects a possible .

i do think high passing is a good idea for elements that dont need the low end though .

ive done a lot of reading and quite a few engineers advise low passing at around 19 -20 k for digital recording on most tracks to keep it less digital sounding if using ITB plugins.

( dunno how true it is though )

my monitoring is good for a home setup ( treated room , focal solos and ns10s ) i can hear low end issues pretty well , as well as effects of high passing filters.


i have two good pres , but they cant be driven like an API so thats out ( never new that one though thats a good trick )



thanks for the offer Trackmix , I may do that at some stage .

Paolo_M

drumdrum wrote: »

Also, I find that be careful with over compressing things. You can use compressors to help control frequencies yes, but generally things tend to smush together if you over do this. If you record distorted guitars, the signal coming out of your amp is fairly compressed anyways by the amp and I find that compressing these in the mix is unnecessary and loses clarity.

I'm no expert by any stretch, but one thing I've had some success with is using a multi-band compressor on guitars.
This is an Andy Sneap trick.
It's especially useful when recording loud guitars using a real amp in a smaller room.
A multi-band, active between 70-300Hz (sometimes even higher if you're recording in a spare bedroom), really helps catch those cab resonances.
The idea is to set it so that only the peaky bits are caught, and compressed pretty hard.
Pretty much a distressor for the low mids on a guitar.
It seems to work better than a notching EQ to me. Notching tends skew the lows/low mids to me and they end up sounding kinda odd.

madtheory

Multi band eh? How did we ever manage without those. Just kidding, sounds interesting, must try it. Although I've become very suspicious of what "name" engineers say in interviews. Sometimes they're taking the piss.

DaDumTish wrote: »

ive done a lot of reading and quite a few engineers advise low passing at around 19 -20 k for digital recording on most tracks to keep it less digital sounding if using ITB plugins.

More like 15kHz, then you're going some way to emulate the relatively poor transient response of tape. If there's one thing digital does perfectly it's transient response. My theory is that we started close miking to overcome this shortcoming. But with digital the technique is sometimes OTT.

I prefer to use 3 to 6dB of limiting for that effect though. I always loved the clean high end of digital compared to tape, so never use LPF, except occasionally for noise and the odd guitar cab. The "digital sound" IME comes from overdriving the analogue stage before the converter, where 0VU=0dBFS. This notion of "using all the bits".

Paolo_M

madtheory wrote: »

Multi band eh? How did we ever manage without those. Just kidding, sounds interesting, must try it. Although I've become very suspicious of what "name" engineers say in interviews. Sometimes they're taking the piss.

Surely you're not suggesting that everything these guys say during their endless, mindless, repetitive and ultimately pointless interviews with the various rags may not be true, are you?........:eek:

drumdrum

Paolo_M wrote: »

I'm no expert by any stretch, but one thing I've had some success with is using a multi-band compressor on guitars.
This is an Andy Sneap trick.
It's especially useful when recording loud guitars using a real amp in a smaller room.
A multi-band, active between 70-300Hz (sometimes even higher if you're recording in a spare bedroom), really helps catch those cab resonances.
The idea is to set it so that only the peaky bits are caught, and compressed pretty hard.
Pretty much a distressor for the low mids on a guitar.
It seems to work better than a notching EQ to me. Notching tends skew the lows/low mids to me and they end up sounding kinda odd.

Huh....I'll have to give that a try on my next project. Cheers!