Mixing Tips

[annayarbrough]

Some great things in here, Graham - thanks!

[Len911]

Tips?

1. Keep it simple
2. Sometimes you don't even need a compressor
3. I use 2 compressors in parallel
4. Here are some more compressor tips
5. We had to limit the tips to 121, otherwise we might have had 5,000 alone just on compression!

Tip- "a useful hint or idea; a basic, practical fact: "
Tips- a collection of useful hints and ideas, often contradictory; a complex group of impractical facts


* Tip- Learn why or why you wouldn't want to do something, then do it anyway. If it works, you will repeat it again, if it doesn't, you won't, hopefully not,lol!

[almccool]

Enjoyed the compression tips. Thanks!
-Allen

[Len911]

Graham, I think the best tips are when someone wastes a lot of time with conventional wisdom, then discovers the truth, or what they perceive to be the truth, and then shares them with others.

For example, I posted, then deleted,lol, a comment from taxi tv on gain staging, about turning your mic pre up. That was applicable
when we needed to overcome the noise floor of tape, but now everything goes through an a/d converter, no noise after digital, so if you record too low a signal into the daw, the daw manual will recommend normalizing the track. The only noise you will bring up from normalizing is what was coming from the mic pre anyway. Because heat can have an effect on noise in analog circuits, it's possible that the more you turn the volume up, the more circuit noise you will get. But it's sort of incidental, because if someone has a tube preamp, it may be desirous to turn it up to get the tubes to saturate, or the transformers?? So it's basically, if it's not distorted coming into the daw, does it really matter? otoh, if you are trying to get a cleaner sound, or not need to use a compressor... Though I believe the original example was of someone's track being too low in volume, which is probably more likely to be because instead of turning down the volume of their headphone amp, or monitor amp, they turned down the faders in the daw? But who can really say, all we can do is to speculate. I've done that before! I've always figured that if there was a right way and a wrong way, there's a 99% chance I'm going to do it the wrong way!! 100% if there is any ambiguity! Once in Nashville, I called for directions, they told me, " the second first street exit". So I took the "second first street exit", there were actually 2 exits for a first street". I wound up in a neighborhood in a semi-truck. But there was also an exit " 2nd Ave. 1st St.", that was actually the first exit, and that is the one I should have taken.

[Len911]

Well Len, I'm sure I'm taking plenty of wrong turns, but I see that as part of the learning. It often helps me to have a nudge (or a re-nudge) in the right direction, and I thought others might appreciate the tips too, hence the post, but I claim no responsibility for the title or the content. Thanks for your wisdom too. I still LOVE happy accidents (which is a good thing because I occasionally hit a great 'jazz' note or two when improvising on guitar gigs )

I appreciate them! I really do! Someone once told me I had an opinion on everything, but I think it's more like, if I don't have an opinion, I will certainly have a lot of questions!

[mojobone]

Tip #122: The mix is finished when you have no hair left to tear out.

[Len911]

Tip #122: The mix is finished when you have no hair left to tear out.

What if you're bald to start with??

[lesmac]

thanks for the tips Graham +1

[mojobone]

Tip #122: The mix is finished when you have no hair left to tear out.

What if you're bald to start with??

When you have no hair left, you become a mastering engineer.